I have a velodyne subwoofer with its own crossover conrol. It has a set of L/R pre in/outs to connect to the processor (no conection to the "subwoofer out" jack). If connected to a 950 is the crossover of the velodyne set at the same crossover as the 950? (my front L/R speakers are B&W Matrix 805's, so the L/R fronts woudl be set to small--or do I set to large because the L/R front pre-outs connect to the amp via the velodyne?). Also, the front L/R pre outs would connect to the velodyne with 12foot cables, then back to the amp with 12 foot cables--would this cause any big problems?

If I understand right you have a 950, a 5 or 7 channel amp, and your subwoofer.

I think the best way to set it up would be to connect your B&W Matrix 805's directly to the amp, not through the subwoofer.

For the subwoofer, run a cable out of the sub out (LFE) on the 950 and get a Y adapter so that you can go into the L/R input in the sub.

Then you can set the front speakers to small on the 950 and it will send the low freq to the sub. You would probably only want to us the subs crossover if you had a receiver without bass management

As for the sub crossover, you can just turn it all the way up and let the 950 handle it.

If I misunderstood your question, sorry.

"I think the best way to set it up would be to connect your B&W Matrix 805's directly to the amp, not through the subwoofer."

Actually the speakers are connected to the amp but the amp's front L/R inputs are connected through the subwoofer. However, what you say is proaably fundamentally the same thing. Thanks for the advice.

so you have an old style sub without an lfe input. if so then you run the fronts out from the pre-amp using speaker wire into the sub, out from the sub using speaker wire into the fronts. this filters the bass off of the front channels, so yes, you will want as much bass as possible output from the pre-amp (large setting high crossover). the sub should be setup to crossover the low frequency to itself and pass the higher frequency back out. all this is avoided if you have a rca type input on the sub. if that is the case then you use the pre-amps rca pre-out to the white rca input on the sub. if you connect it the later way then the pre-amp does the crossing over and not the sub. the later way is most common and best, but if you dont have any choice then you have to connect it like i said first. you dont need a y adapter like someone before said, you connect rcaout of preamp to white input on sub. a y adapter is only used for subs with an auto cuton feature as it allows the sub to turn on with lower levels of input sound, however it WILL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE after the sub has cuton, so unless your cable came with a y adapter then its a waste.

erda1:All you need to do is connect the sub out from the 950 to the velodyne's left channel rca input, using a single audio cable. If you have an older Velodyne sub without a variable crossover, the internal crossover is set to 80 hz (unless somebody had it specially modified). Set the crossover to the same (80hz) on the 950. Do the set up with the 950, setting all speakers to small, check and set speaker levels; you may need to also adjust the velodyne's output level knob. I have the Velodyne ULD-18, and it's set up this way. Even though this set up is using two crossovers cascaded, I don't really hear any problems.
Homieopatrick: You don't need a "y" cable. All subwoofers are mono. Thus the 950's subwoofer out into either the left or right rca input on the sub will suffice. The earlier Velodynes marked their "left" input for use as a mono input.
Curegeorg: run speaker wire from the preamp?????? There are NO preamps (especially not the 950)that you can run speaker wire from!! There are only rca jacks. Methinks you may be thinking about a receiver without a sub output.

Thanks Surroundophile. Actually my velodyne has a variable crossover control but around 80hz may be right with my Matrix 805's

haha yeah youre right. i was thinking receiver.... it just threw me that he said "no connection to the subwoofer out jack". so obviously the second part of my explanation applied more. :-). i dont know why you say the velodyne has an internal crossover at 80Hz, (you said older, so maybe mine is too new...) because I have Velodyne HGS-II 18 and when connected to a sub preout from receiver (rca input) there is absolutely no crossover used in the sub. just a though, but my sub is newer than yours and their top model so its probably a little different all around. oh if any velodyne reps are reading this, let me give you a shout out for your accomodation program. :-)

I have an Aperion subwoofer. They suggest using a y adapter. That's where I got the idea.

For the Aperion sub, it does allow me to keep the sub amp at a lower power and get the same volume.

I may be confused here, (forgive me if that's the case) but this is not at all the same thing.

If the FL/FR inputs of the amp are connected through the sub, the 950 should be configured with the front speakers as 'large' and subwoofer set to 'off'.

Otherwise, you'll get no LFE signal to the sub.

You should connect the 950's FL output to the amp's FL input and the 950's FR output to the amp's FR input. Then, connect the 950's SW output to the left input of the Velo.

Set the speakers to 'small', x-over to 80 Hz, and turn the filter on the Velo all the way to it's max setting.

This is what HomieO said in his post, and it's the correct way to configure your system.

As I say above, if you have no connection from your 950's SW output and you have the FL/FR outputs of the 950 connected to your amp through the Velo, you have to configure the front speakers as 'large' and subwoofer to 'off' in the 950. This will re-route the LFE signal to the FL/FR outputs to be filtered by the Velo, in which case you should set the crossover of the Velo to 80 Hz.

If you don't mind, let me know which connection scheme you've chosen...just curious, as I seem to have gotten confused in reading this thread

heres a good article:
www.harman.com/wp/pdf/Loudspeakers&RoomsPt3.pdf