NAD T762 Bass Management ?

 

Anonymous
What is the real purpose for a bass management on a receiver. What advantages does it have, and how easy is it to "tweak" for us with little audio knowledge. Would the manual help with the set-up? Im speaking of the NAD T762
 

johnb
http://www.polkaudio.com/home/faqad/advice.php?article=bassmanage Take a look at this site. It might help.
 

G--Man
The following is written by David Ranada--an electrical engineer that wrote this for Sound and Vision magazine. Being an engineer, he relies on science and measurements--not feelings and subjectivity--which to me is quite refreshing.

"Like a bunch of students pulling all-nighters to ace an exam, Pioneer's engineering department must have been working long hours last year to bring to market the most important hardware advance in multichannel audio since its introduction--a FireWire interface for transferring multichannel data between components in digital form. In the February/March issue, we reviewed the first two products incorporating this technology, which allows bit-perfect movement of multichannel audio from the combi DVD-Audio/SACD player via a single cable to the receiver, where the latter can perform full and accurate bass management and speaker-distance compensation. Pioneer's components were introduced virtually simultaneously with the Texas Instruments chips that perform this function and in extraordinarily short order after the DVD Forum standardized the FireWire multichannel audio interface.

Unfortunately, at this writing, the only components available with this interface are still those two from Pioneer, and they are very--no, extremely--expensive. A FireWire interface alone, however, is not all that costly to design into a component, and maybe by next year we'll see more devices with this capability--which, considered alone, would merit a grade of A+.

Rating a solid B has been the introduction of more "universal" DVD-Audio/Video/SACD players at increasingly lower prices. So far, about a half dozen have appeared--from such companies as Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Yamaha--and we've tested almost all of them. Surprisingly, the performance of these players has not been proportional to price. Some of the most expensive models haven't performed as well on the lab bench as some less expensive models or cheaper players that handle one format or the other. Expanded use of FireWire connections will eventually make these considerations irrelevant, fortunately, since multichannel audio performance will be determined by the component that does the final digital-to-analog conversion, usually the system receiver.

These two positive developments--FireWire connections plus more and cheaper universal players--are counterbalanced by an area where hardware manufacturers are still lagging behind. With only a few notable exceptions (which we never fail to point out when we find them in our testing), multichannel players still screw up bass management and speaker-distance compensation, two important setup functions. Either they don't do all that's necessary, or they perform the necessary operations differently depending on the type of disc being played.

For example, most SACD-capable players still completely lack speaker-distance compensation when they play SACDs, which means that you can't get optimum imaging unless your listening position just happens to be equidistant from all five main-channel speakers. Some players turn off bass management altogether when playing stereo CDs or DVD-Audio discs. And in some "universal" players, the bass-management filter characteristics change when you switch from DVD-Audio to SACD playback. How can you call a player "universal" when its bass and imaging characteristics change from one kind of disc to another?

Bass management is important because unless you have a setup with five (or six) full-range main speakers--very rare, indeed!--the tonal balance that you'll hear from many recordings will be different from what the artist or producer intended. In some instances, the bass will even disappear! Until more of the A/V manufacturers start making players that let serious listeners achieve tiptop performance without the aid of things like outboard bass-management accessories, both students' overall grades will remain a C. Here's hoping for the widespread use of FireWire hookups in 2003, which should cure these frustrations by putting all setup processing where it belongs: in the receiver. "
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The latest Ranada column VERY enthusiastic about JVC's (of all companies) bass management on their top of the line MSRP $2500 (street price: $1600-$1799).

For those with poor base management there is always Outlawaudio.com which sells an outboard unit for $249. Or you can watch one format, suffer through changing formats, or get a $40 Radio Shack SPL Meter and constantly change the db level of the subwoofer whenever changing formats. But it is good to own one of these anyway to balance your system.
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