The wonderful world of LFE

[ssully]

So then to your point and mine --

setting the LPF to 120hz as recommended - keeps the low frequencies in the .1 channel up to 120hz going to the sub and then setting your crossovers to 40 or 50 or 60 or 80 or 100 or 120 or whatever for your speakers will keep those frequencies either going to your sub (the lower) or to your speakers (the higher). So setting crossover at 80 means 80 and lower goes to Sub and 81 and higher goes to speakers, etc, etc. Setting the LPF to anything lower than 120 means losing information that could be present in the LFE channel. If your equipment has capability of setting LPF higher than 120hz then the risk is going to be the ability to locate the sub.

Content with full frequencies in the .1 will be bass managed.

Problem solved 100%.

So, first you seemed to be questioning whether >120Hz content existed in consumer product LFE. When I pointed you to evidence, instead of acknowledging it, you pivoted to this recap of things already said in this thread. Including by me, who said that the >120Hz content was unlikely to affect a typical installation, where multiple low pass filter steps are in place for subwoofer content, but that there are use cases where it could.

Thanks, I guess?

 

[EricKalet]

So, first you seemed to be questioning whether >120Hz content existed in consumer product LFE. When I pointed you to evidence, instead of acknowledging it, you pivoted to this recap of things already said in this thread. Including by me, who said that the >120Hz content was unlikely to affect a typical installation, where multiple low pass filter steps are in place for subwoofer content, but that there are use cases where it could.

Thanks, I guess?

Sorry I didn’t acknowledge your hard work. Agreed you did show there is some content recorded to the LFE that is above 120hz. 99% of us won’t hear it. I don’t have the equipment or the wherewithal to do the experiments you did so thank you sincerely for that.

I don’t know how this evolved from my original statement of setting LPF to 120hz is the right setting. Someone argued that maybe 120hz isn’t a one size fits all. I think after all this discussion - 99% of the time it is a one size fits all. Maybe we could all agree on that, but probably not. I think I’ll stick with what has been working for me for 30 or so years.

 

[jhw59]

So my AVR equalizer was on so I turned it off. I set the LPF to 120 as recommended. Bass is more to my liking but the tweaking continues. I really don't want to go to optical to get sound from the TCL TV apps through my AVR but so far that seems to be the only solution.

 

[EricKalet]

So my AVR equalizer was on so I turned it off. I set the LPF to 120 as recommended. Bass is more to my liking but the tweaking continues. I really don't want to go to optical to get sound from the TCL TV apps through my AVR but so far that seems to be the only solution.

Always tweaking! Seems like that never ends.

IMO never use the equalizer and change the bass volume when needed from the AVR settings (mine has a quick menu that lets me adjust bass and treble on the fly) and not from the woofer.

 

[jimfisheye]

You need to be able to play sound from the computer and know what a DAW app like Audacity or Reaper is to do this.

Still here? OK.
Pull up a sound/tone generator plugin. (Reaper has a JS tone generator plugin. Audacity probably has something.)
You can play different tones and frequency sweeps.
If you have a speaker/bass managed system and want to hear how your crossover point choice is working out, do a frequency sweep through the bass end. If you have small tops + sub, send that sweep to any main channel. You should hear a smooth transition between the speaker and the sub. In other words, you shouldn't hear any artifact at the crossover point. Listen for a dropout, a volume lurch, or a volume change. This gives you the ability to test as you adjust and dial in the best crossover point.

You'll also discover if you have anything weird going on. A level off by 10db somewhere or a speaker management setting doing something odd. You have control over the channels and test tones so you're not guessing by listening to random mixes.

There's a lot of sound coming out of a lot of speakers even if some settings are wrong. I don't want to suggest anyone around here might be easy to please and having that experience but there's a matter of fact way to find out.

I guess a test DVD or bluray could be authored or maybe there are images to download?

You don't have to pull out calculators and oscilloscopes for any of this either. Just basics:
Channels are intentional and balanced.
No weirdness with a crossover point in any bass management scenarios.

 

[Owen Smith]

I have commercial test DVDs and Blu Rays with exactly these sorts of frequency sweeps, in each channel one by one.

 

[jhw59]

What's the best overall test DVD/Blu Ray?

 

[Owen Smith]

What's the best overall test DVD/Blu Ray?

I only have one Blu Ray and two DVD ones, and they're all long since out of print and hard to get. And I wouldn't say any are better, I used different ones for different things.