active crossover vs internal sub ouput?

loudnoises

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Greetings from 2 channel land!:rockon:

I'm usually tinkering with my older gear, but every once in a while i mess with the surround setup i've been using for a few years. There may not be a general answer for this, but here goes. I've recently added a sub to the mix, and it's meant to be crossed lower then the built-in sub outs.

I'd like to gain some control here, what if anything am i "losing" by running an active crossover and external amps on my mains vs using the subwoofer outputs from my receiver? Mains are kg4.2s, and they don't like being robbed at 90hz,i want to cross them lower. Lots of 2-channel on this system too. Seems the LFE signals get sent to the mains if there's no sub present? LFE is all <90hz (i think), is splitting it between drivers a no-no? :dunno:

Sony DA333es if it matters, i've a yamaha rx-v620 getting cleaned up for possible use (gunked volume encoder) but i think they both deal with this the same.
 
You can use speaker-level outputs, and tell the processor that you don't have a sub, which should send the LFE info to the mains, I would think. You may have to tell the processor that the mains are "Large", too. For two-channel, I like to cross over the sub at the mains -3 dB down point, or close. My subs do not have a high-pass output for the mains, and I doubt I'd use it if they did. Splitting low bass between drivers is actually a recommended strategy - it's called "distributed bass", and helps with smoothing out room modes and standing waves, with their resulting peaks and nulls.
 
The bass management of the Sony receiver appears pretty limited. Probably not losing anything much; maybe gaining in this case with external.

LFE can contain up to 120Hz material.
 
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