Two crossovers for sub?

Firegod · Monday at 16:54

How do.

I asked AI the other night if I'm right in having a crossover set on my amp (Bluesound POWERNODE) but also on the subwoofer (REL/HT1003) as well. It said I should disable the one on the amp and use the dedicated control on the sub only because two crossovers can lead to phase cancellation and overall poorer sound quality. Here in lies my problem... there is no option to disable the crossover via BluOS. From the support article:

Crossover
Adjust the crossover between 40Hz and 200Hz – by default, set to 80Hz. When the Subwoofer option is enabled, everything above the crossover is filtered out and sent to the RCA and Speaker Outputs. The Player sends anything below the set crossover out of the Subwoofer (SUBW) OUT.

So what should I do with the sub crossover?

Thanks.

hornetstinger · Monday at 17:04

The AI is correct, you only want one. If the bluesound performs high pass on the speakers so >80hz to the speakers and <80hz to the sub, then you want to disable the subwoofers own crossver.

Thekwango · Monday at 17:06

hornetstinger said:
then you want to disable the subwoofers own crossver.

op knows that, they are asking how.

hornetstinger · Monday at 17:10

If you enable subwoofer, then it's going to enable crossover. That's obvious.

Unless you want to send full range to speakers and subwoofer, but I can't see the benefit of that.

He just needs to enable crossover, and adjust the crossover to where his speakers roll off, then adjust the subwoofer volume to match, and adjust phase to get smoothest response between speakers and sub.

Firegod · Monday at 17:33

Yeah still confused sorry peeps. Be gentle lol. So, yes, no option on the amp to have sub out enabled whilst disabling its own built in crossover. But on the subwoofer there is no way to disable the crossover either. So its on in two places. I will email Bluesound and pose them the question about what are you meant to do as well.

Because surely what happens if the amp is filtering at 60Hz to sub, but I haven't got my dial quite right and it is set (an exageration here) to 40Hz. I'm losing 20Hz of sound range? It's all a bit of guessing game.

I will check the phase now as that is something i've not done before. Basically as I understand if the volume remains loud = phase good. If the bass volume drops = phase incorrect. So I just toggle the switch to which sounds best.

But yeah the crossover thing has me stumped a bit.

Firegod · Monday at 17:40

Ahhh sussed it. So on the sub I can set crossover all the way around to "LFE".

https://www.avforums.com/reviews/rel-ht-1003-subwoofer-review.15177/

"REL assume that the majority of the sub's set-up will be done via your processor or receiver – things like gain, delay and any equalisation. So all you need to do is set the phase correctly, set the crossover to LFE and then adjust the level accordingly. The only other setting is the on/off switch for the auto standby feature, which I just left on."

Firegod · Monday at 17:40

So now the amp is handling the crossover. If I understand right!

hornetstinger · Monday at 17:46

Corect LFE bypasses the subs own crossover. Ideally you also want variable phase not just 0/180. Does your bluesound adjust for subwoofer delay? Wiims do

Firegod · Monday at 17:58

hornetstinger said:
Corect LFE bypasses the subs own crossover. Ideally you also want variable phase not just 0/180. Does your bluesound adjust for subwoofer delay? Wiims do

Cheers. Phew. Erm no variable phase on the REL, just 0 or 180. 180 for me is slightly louder and fuller. Not noticed anything for subwoofer delay, only delay related setting I can see is for lip sync.