I am writing this Post to share what I have learned thus far about AV Receiver Sound Setting options and how connection options might impact sound setting options. My purpose in creating this extensive post is to help other people to understand some aspects of these complex systems and to encourage everyone to carefully read their audio equipment manuals to understand what setup options are available.

In my setup, there are three different AV Receivers: A Sony STR DE 885 5.1 Channel Receiver, a Denon AVR 790 7.1 Channel Receiver, and an Onkyo NR 3009 9.2 Channel Receiver. The following information focuses on the Denon and Onkyo Receivers and has been learned after careful study of the manuals for these two receivers.

Both the Denon and Onkyo receivers have multiple sound setup options, some of which are interactive and some of which depend upon how speakers and input devices (CD players, DVD/CD players, TVs, etc.) are connected. In my setup, I have five Sony 300-CD changers connected to the Onkyo receiver, all via analog connections (L/R RCA cables). I also have a Sony Blue-Ray player connected to the Onkyo via an HDMI cable. There are other analog and optical connections to the Onkyo, but they do not need to be in this discussion.

My Triton One speakers are connected to the Onkyo as Front L/R. Connections are with speaker wires and a mono RCA audio cable from each of the two Sub Out jacks on the Onkyo to the LFE inputs on the two Triton Ones. There are large floor standing speakers connected to the Surround and Surround-Back outputs on the Onkyo. The Onkyo Center Pre-Out is connected to the Sony STR DE 885 via a "Y" splitter and a standard L/R RCA type audio cable. There are no Center speakers connected directly to the Onkyo speaker jacks.

There are an extensive array of speaker setting options for each pair of speakers connected to the Onkyo. Options for each pair of speakers include Full Band and an array of crossover settings. Full Band sends all frequencies to the speaker pair. Choosing a crossover frequency sends all frequencies below the crossover frequency to the sub woofer out jacks. There are some limitations related to how certain speakers can be set, depending upon the settings chosen for other speakers and the presence or absence of sub woofers.

There is a Double Bass ON/OFF option available to feed the bass signals from the Front L/R and Center speakers to the sub woofer outputs. Turning Double Bass ON effectively doubles the bass by simultaneously sending whatever bass frequencies are present at the Front and Center speakers to the sub outs.

The Onkyo Receiver also has an "Direct Analog Sub Woofer" setting. Turning this setting ON sends analog bass signals to the sub woofers via the Sub Out cable whenever the Onkyo is set to the Pure Direct audio mode. The Pure Direct audio mode is especially designed for 2-channel stereo high-quality audio processing. In this mode, almost all of the audio processing circuits are by-passed, except for the circuits needed for 2-channel audio. Turning the Direct Analog Sub Woofer" setting OFF prevents any analog audio signals from being sent to the sub woofers via the Sub Out cables when the receiver is in the "Pure Direct" mode. I have verified this analog feature by disconnecting the speaker wires from the Triton Ones and playing a test CD with low frequency tones through one of my CD changers (connected to the Onkyo via analog cables only) and setting the receiver to the Pure Direct mode. With the setting turned OFF, there is no bass signal present in the Triton Ones. Turning the setting ON causes bass signals to be passed to the Triton Ones via the sub-out (LFE) cables.

This Pure Direct Analog Sub Woofer ON/OFF feature is critical to my listening options. When I play CDs via my changers, I set the Onkyo to the Pure Direct mode. Only the Triton One Fronts are active. When I set the Pure Direct Analog Sub Woofer to OFF and set the LFE control to mid-range (12 O Clock position on the Triton Ones), I can hear deep bass (such as low pipe organ notes), but the sound is a too thin for my tastes at my normal listening levels (not overly loud). However, when I turn the Pure Direct Analog Sub Woofer setting to ON, there is a large amount of additional deep bass present - so much bass that I have set the two LFE controls on the Tritons counterclockwise to the 9 O Clock position to balance the bass for my tastes.

This feature is not Double Bass, which is a separate setting in the Onkyo. Double Bass is set to OFF in my Onkyo. This feature also does not affect the amount of bass signal present when the receiver is set to reproduce multi-channel audio from movies, etc.

Since I'm sending bass signals down the sub cables to my Tritons, I have thought about how to set up the Fronts. I have listened to various combinations and, for the moment, I have chosen to set the Fronts in the Onkyo to cutoff at 110 Hz (110 Hz is the note "A" two octaves below the standard-pitch "A" of 440 Hz). If all is working as it should, when I listen to music via my Triton Ones, I am hearing all frequencies above 110 Hz through the speaker wires and all frequencies below 110 Hz via the sub cables at the Triton LFE inputs.

My Denon Receiver has similar options available, although they are named somewhat differently. I will not extend this post by discussing the Denon setup options. Suffice it to say that I am employing a similar approach for setting up the Denon in consideration of the ways in which I am using the Denon and the speaker arrays connected to the Denon.

I truly hope that this post does not engender another discussion related to what can and can't done. For everyone, read your manuals carefully. The more feature-rich your equipment, the greater the importance of understanding how your devices operate and what you can do with them.

Remember, there is no one right way - the right way is what sounds best to you.

Happy listening to all,

Art