X-Fi Bass Redirection and your A/V receiver - How it works

[Mufflore]

Originally Posted by RagDoll_Effect

A crossover is nothing more than a cutoff point/frequency. To simplify it, all the crossover does is just cutoff the other frequencies. Where, for a speaker, it's cutoff and it will produce everyhting above that point/frequency. A sub is reversed, the cutoff point/frequency, a sub will produce everything below that point. No speaker actually send frequencies to the sub at all, just cutoff the frequencies it handles/produces...

regards,
RagDoll.

Why are you saying this?
I havent made any claims to the contrary.

[RagDoll_Effect]

Originally Posted by Mr_Alexander

Guys reading this discussion I am a little confused now.
If you can help me out please with the settings.
I connected my soundcar to the receiver through direct analog inputs.
In my Hometheater receiver I have this settings.
1. Speakers - small (or should change to large?)
2. Crossover Freq I have 80Hz.
3. Subwoofer - Yes.

In Windows Control panel>Sound>Configure I should tick "Full range speakers or leave it blank.

Now in console Launcher for my sound card should I enable bass redirection or not. And if I need to enable it what Corssover Frequency I should set?
Also if I choose to enable bass redirection does it mean I will loose some sounds that suppose to come from speakers?

The last thing.
On mhy SUB I have three nobs for adjustment.
One is called "Level" the other "Phase" and the last one "Cutt off". No numbers beside them. I can turn and adjust but I have no idea what they do.
Thanks in advance and sorry for long post.

Cool, we need to know what speakers you have? Floorstanding, bookshelf or sattelites? If you have a subwoofer, then yes, you should enable bass redirection, and then set your crossover frequency accordingly.

On your sub, set the cutoff to maximum because you want your sub to do a bit of work, this is regardless of speaker size. Some don't use the sub for what it's designed to do, however this can cause overload of bass in rare cases when you have floorstanders that go very low, but that's a different thing. Phase might need adjusting but leave that last, and level is subwoofer volume which should be set to halfway.

regards,
RagDoll.

[RagDoll_Effect]

Originally Posted by Mufflore

Why are you saying this?
I havent made any claims to the contrary.

Well, because the sound redirection thing, speakers sound aren't magically being redirected from the speakers to the sub or anything, these are all just cuttoff points, which the sub has aswell. However, with a sub, it's reversed. That's what I'm trying to explain to you, that the lfe channel is in fact the subwoofer channel and the bass redirection crossover setting it just a cuttoff for the sub, the sub will then produce frequencies below that point.

regards,
RagDoll.

[Mufflore]

Originally Posted by Mr_Alexander

Guys reading this discussion I am a little confused now.
If you can help me out please with the settings.
I connected my soundcar to the receiver through direct analog inputs.
In my Hometheater receiver I have this settings.
1. Speakers - small (or should change to large?)
2. Crossover Freq I have 80Hz.
3. Subwoofer - Yes.

In Windows Control panel>Sound>Configure I should tick "Full range speakers or leave it blank.

Now in console Launcher for my sound card should I enable bass redirection or not. And if I need to enable it what Corssover Frequency I should set?
Also if I choose to enable bass redirection does it mean I will loose some sounds that suppose to come from speakers?

The last thing.
On mhy SUB I have three nobs for adjustment.
One is called "Level" the other "Phase" and the last one "Cutt off". No numbers beside them. I can turn and adjust but I have no idea what they do.
Thanks in advance and sorry for long post.

When connecting via analogue, you are using the DAC from your soundcard which is better quality than the DAC in your amp (unless you have a well chosen expensive amp).
If you get the amplifier to do any signal processing, it has to turn audio back into digital (reducing quality), process it and then convert it back to analogue but this time using the amplifiers inferior quality DAC.
So it gets a double dose quality reduction.

You need to find a way to turn off or bypass the crossover settings on the amplifier.
There may be an 'Analogue Direct' mode or something similar.
This is great because you can keep all the settings (in case you have another use for them) but just not use them.

If you cant turn the settings off::
Set the subwoofer to the highest crossover frequency you can.
Set all speakers to Large.

Its possible your amp wont apply any processing to analogue, in which case it will ignore all the settings you change on the amp.


When you change the settings in the Creative control panel, it will change some windows settings automatically.
So It may be best to leave the windows setting for "full range speakers" or just set it the same as you want to use.


The following is about settings for your soundcard, NOT the amp!
The amp should be passing a pure analogue signal with no interference.

Enable bass redirection if you want to use the subwoofer for music or if your speakers dont go deep enough during a film say.
Play with the frequency to see which works best on your setup.
80Hz is a good start point.

To make bass redirection work, in the Creative console, you must set the speakers to "small" whos bass you want to come from the subwoofer.
Now the sound from those speakers will be sent to the subwoofer and the low pass crossover will be applied to it.
Set the subwoofer volume correctly, you may find it needs to be different when playing films to playing music.
Get used to what works best for you.


Your subs settings::
Set cutoff to max.
Adjust phase until the bass sounds stronger/deeper.
Level is the volume control.
You can adjust the subs volume on the sub and/or on the PC.
A bit like you can adjust the PCs volume level on the amp or the PC.

[Mufflore]

Originally Posted by RagDoll_Effect

Well, because the sound redirection thing, speakers sound aren't magically being redirected from the speakers to the sub or anything, these are all just cuttoff points, which the sub has aswell. However, with a sub, it's reversed. That's what I'm trying to explain to you, that the lfe channel is in fact the subwoofer channel and the bass redirection crossover setting it just a cuttoff for the sub, the sub will then produce frequencies below that point.

regards,
RagDoll.

No there is no magic, sound gets redirected when you set a speaker to Small.
The low pass filter is applied and what is left is added to the LFE channel.

The LFE channel isnt the only that is being fed to the sub when you use bass redirection.
Both the LFE channel and redirected bass get sent to the sub.
**BUT only the redirected bass gets filtered, the LFE channel doesnt**
Bass redirection does NOT affect the signal coming through the LFE channel.
What is going to the subwoofer now, isnt the LFE channel any more, it is the LFE + redirected filtered bass.

[Mr_Alexander]

Thank you very much guys. I really appreciate your time and help.

[RagDoll_Effect]

Originally Posted by Mr_Alexander

Thank you very much guys. I really appreciate your time and help.

Welcome

If you need anything else, just post back