large/small and subwoofer

Got my 950 about a week ago. Like many, I immediately hooked everything up, and played a few DVD's.

It didn't sound very good - center speaker was bright, and the subwoofer sounded good, but everything else sounded muted.

So I opened up the manual! I guess by default all the speakers are set to "small". Manual of my speakers all call for "large". So I changed them all the "large", went through the calibration routines, and it made a big difference.

Now the front and surround speakers all sound great, but I hardly hear my subwoofer!

Does setting speakers to "large" take away signal to the subwoofer? I will experiment with cross-over frequencies to see if that will bring the subwoofer back to life more, but I thought the .1 channel always has certain amount of signals...?

Yep, the default for the speakers is "small," and I think the default crossover is 100Hz (which is probably too high if your speakers are sufficiently full-range to want to be set to "large"). With the speakers set to "large," you will not get anything crossed over from the channels to the sub. That means the sub will be unused for stereo sources. It will likely also be silent when you are playing back a source decoded with PLII (I believe that it relies on the crossovers to get material for the sub). A DVD with a Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS track (or a DVD-Audio disc) will have material on the .1 channel for the sub to work with.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

With DD or DTS, does your .1 channel get more signal if the speakers are set to small (vs. large)? Similarly, would setting a higher cross-over frequency cause more signal to be routed to the subwoofer?

Yes, if the speakers are set to small, any material sent to those channels that falls below the specified crossover point is re-directed to the subwoofer. The higher the crossover, the more material that will be crossed over.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

What if the speakers are set to large?

If speakers are set to large, then the crossover is ignored (because if the speakers are set to large, they should not need help from a subwoofer in producing low frequency material) and the subwoofer only gets the .1 channel information.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

You didn't say if you have an SPL meter and calibrated sound levels across all speakers (and the sub). That might bump up the sub too.