Help with connecting HK AVR525 to sub

Doug Goss New member Username: Dougg Atlanta, GA Post Number: 3 Registered: Apr-04	Posted on Sunday, August 08, 2004 - 00:52 GMT I have an HK AVR525 receiver that I bought a few months ago. I am slowly putting together the speakers, and right now only have 2 fronts, my trusty old Dahlquist DQM9's. I just bought a Dahlquist sub, model PDQ1200. I received no manual with the sub. It has on the rear volume, LFE on/off (what is this?) Crossover frequency 50 -150, low level in left/right (here is the issue), and speaker in and out, left and right pairs for each My receiver has ony a single output RCA type for the subwolfer. Will I lose anything if I go out of the receiver single plug into a y connector to go into the sub low level in? Also, any advice on settings on the AVR525? Also the phase setting on the sub (0-180?) and crossover frequency (50-150) The DQM9's that I am using for the fronts are 8ohm, 25 watts min, 140 watts max, Freq response 35-22,000Hz and crossover frequency 450Hz, 3500 Hz Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
geekboy Silver Member Username: Geekboy Newport, RI United States Post Number: 286 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Sunday, August 08, 2004 - 01:45 GMT Doug: nice receiver... I have it myself. You need to purchase an RCA Y-Adapter. I bought the Monster RCA Y-Adapter 1-Male to 2-Female (Crutchfield - Monster Cable 1 Male/2 Female RCA Y-Adapter. From that run standard RCA pair of cables from the Y-Adapter to the "low level" R/L inputs. The male end of the Y-Adapter plugs into the SUB output of the AVR-525. Yeah, it's kinda confusing. The reason for this is that many of the sub manufacturers expect that some folks may connect their sub as a crossover between their main speakers and their stereo. That's why you see all those knobs for cutoff, phase, and the outputs for the main speakers. In your case, your sub is "dedicated" so you don't need to use any connections other than the "low level" input. Setting up the AVR-525. Well... you came to the right place. If you haven't already run EzSet, I would suggest you do that (and read the manual carefully and do exactly as they prescribe). If you're comfortable and want better settings than EzSet can "perfect", try using your own SPL meter ("C" Weighting/Slow) and follow the instructions for using your own SPL meter. In either case, you'll be glad you did. Generally, for your subwoofer, you'll want to cross it at 80Hz. The sub setting phase should be "0" unless you're having phasing problems with your front speakers (I would suspect NOT because you are not connecting your front speakers directly to your AVR-525). My phase is set to "0". The crossover frequency will have no affect since, again, you're not connecting your front speakers to the sub (using the "sub's" crossover system). So, mini-review... 1. purchase an RCA Y-Adapter (1 Male/2 Female) 2. connect RCA cables (from receiver) to line-level in 3. set phase to "0" on sub 4. set crossover to highest setting on sub I also recommend setting your crossover settings (bass management) in your AVR-525 to "INDEPENDENT". This will give you flexibility for the tripple crossover settings that the AVR-525 provides. Depending on your speaker settings in your AVR-525, you may not be able to set the crossover for the LFE/Sub. If your speakers are not set to "large" you will not have the option to change it. From all I know the DQM-9s are full-range... but I know nothing about them. Other things to know, generally, is that for each input (DVD, Video-1, Video-2, etc) and source format (DTS, Dolby Digital, VMax, etc) the system will remember the settings. It will remember the Bass Management (crossover) settings as well as your Speaker Adjustments (+/- dB settings). This is important as you'll have to set this for each of these. This just means, that once you adjust everything for your DVD player for DTS, you'll have to do the same with your DVD player and Dolby Digital. You can just set your Bass Management to SINGLE and all modes will use the same settings (I don't do this). But, you'll still need to perform EzSet for each mode (DTS, Dolby Digital, VMax, etc). Seems superfluous, but I like the flexibility.
KEGGER Gold Member Username: Kegger MICHIGAN Post Number: 1121 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Monday, August 09, 2004 - 15:07 GMT I have the hk525 also and geekboy here has done an ecxelent job of describing what is needed to set up your sub. the only thing i would to reiterate is this. "4. set crossover to highest setting on sub" that way your reciever controls the sub and not the sub itself. otherwise the 2 fight each other to get it right.
geekboy Silver Member Username: Geekboy Newport, RI United States Post Number: 299 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 00:22 GMT Kegger: yeah, good reinforcement. For those lurking, the reason is that you don't want a "frequency hole" caused by, say, you setting the sub's frequency crossover at 80Hz and the receiver's to, say, 200Hz. The hole would be between 80Hz-200Hz. You WOULD notice this... well, not everyone would notice.
Doug Goss New member Username: Dougg Atlanta, GA Post Number: 4 Registered: Apr-04	Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 02:01 GMT So if I'm reading you guys right, I would set the crossover on the sub to 150 (the sub goes from 0-150)? You mention if I set to the highest setting the receiver controls the sub. If I did this (set to 150) and set the receiver at 80 (which seems to be the ideal setting) would the receiver take precedence and crossover at 80 even thought the sub is set to 180? I'm still sort of confused. Also I am assuming the LFE switch is on (just what is LFE anyhow?) Finally, to answer the question about the Dahlquists, yes they are full range 35-22,000Hz with a Crossover frequencies of 450Hz 3500 Hz. I am currently using the receiver in the VMAx Large mode, as up until I purchased the sub I only had the 2 fronts. I am piecing this together and will buy the rears or center next, whatever I find that I like first. Thanks again to both of you for all your help.
KEGGER Gold Member Username: Kegger MICHIGAN Post Number: 1138 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 02:21 GMT how it works is your reciever will only send info from 80hz on down so your sub will only produce those frequencies. here's an example if you set your reciever to say 100hz and you set your sub to 80hz. then your reciever would send info from 100hz on down but your sub would only produce 80hz on down. so you would have a hole "frequencies from 80 to 100hz would not be produced" but if you set your sub as high as it goes say 150hz then any info sent from your reciever at any frequency from 150hz on down your sub would produce it. "Also I am assuming the LFE switch is on (just what is LFE anyhow?" low frequency effect. hope that helps.
geekboy Silver Member Username: Geekboy Newport, RI United States Post Number: 301 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - 22:06 GMT Kegger and Dwight: with the Harman/Kardon receivers, there's still a chance of a frequency hole. This is because H/K allows setting the crossover at "up to" 200Hz. Since your sub you specified in this thread has its highest cutoff at "150Hz", then you could end up with a freqncy hole. Just never set the crossover frequency on the H/K above 150Hz.
Peter Galbraith Bronze Member Username: Petergalbraith Rimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 46 Registered: Feb-04	Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 16:29 GMT Since the speakers go down to 35 Hz, should he try setting the receiver cutoff at 40 Hz? Also, I'd try setting the mains at Large and the sub at LFE+L/R and setting the frequency of the sub (and mains) at 40 Hz. Experiemnt and try 60 and 80 Hz as well.
geekboy Silver Member Username: Geekboy Newport, RI United States Post Number: 303 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 17:06 GMT Peter: that's a consideration, but I find that the full-range speakers don't do extremely well in the lower 20-40Hz of their spec. I would have him try 60Hz or 80Hz.
Peter Galbraith Bronze Member Username: Petergalbraith Rimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 47 Registered: Feb-04	Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 17:57 GMT Hi Geekboy, so all speakers are "small" if you have a sub? :-) I tend to set them to "large" rather than "small" but send the low frequency content to the sub as well, setting the cutoff frequency low enough so the sub isn't obtrusive with music. I use 80 Hz but my mains are rated to 45 or 53 Hz (depending on what you read). I suppose I should be using 60, but using 80 sounded fine too. There's not too much musical content down there, but I listen to a lot of "Holy Cole Trio" and it has a lot of ascoutic bass. My idea in setting the speakers to large is that perhaps the signal to the speakers is going through less DSP processing, and perhaps none at all in "Surround Off" stereo mode. If set to small, then presumably the filtering is done on the digital side.
geekboy Silver Member Username: Geekboy Newport, RI United States Post Number: 307 Registered: Dec-03	Posted on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 04:02 GMT Peter: funny guy... funny guy. I actually tried setting my Paradigms to "small" once and thought "man, if someone else does this, they'd think these speakers are bad." I have had my -- and I think they still are -- Paradigms set at 60Hz, but it doesn't matter for my particular setup. I have bass information going to both the subwoofer and the Paradigms. It's just that if I lower it below 60Hz, there's definately some fuzzy bass coming from the Paradigms (seem to lose the punchy fast bass under 60Hz). Could just be nodes from standing waves in my room. My room is very... resonate at this point. It has 18" ceramic tile, 11'6" ceilings (maybe they're 11'4"... I haven't measured), and is basically a big rectangular box (about 30' x 17')
Peter Galbraith Bronze Member Username: Petergalbraith Rimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 50 Registered: Feb-04	Posted on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 00:22 GMT geekboy, I think we all suffer from that unwillingness to set mains to small because, well, they're not small. :-) I too send the bass to both mains and sub, so we agree. :-)

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