My Reference speakers will be arriving on Wednesday (which fills me with excitement and trepidation), and that leads me to a question or two.
According to Sandy's Setup Tips, for 2 channel listening, it says to connect only the power cord and speaker wires to use the Triton circuitry to control the bass and crossovers. However, for home theater and other multi-channel setups, it says to connect the LFE connectors. My question is must I unplug the LFE connectors to get the desired 2 channel result, or can I get the same effect if I set the speakers to Large and say there is no sub in the setup? Seems to me that if the Triton does not detect a signal on the LFE line, then it will use its own circuitry for bass management.
Positioning - I understand that toe-in is important, and in my setup the primary seating position will not be equidistant between the two speakers. I assume the two speakers will have slightly different angles as a result.
Second, I read that the tweeter should be at ear level if possible and you should slightly elevate the rear of the speaker so they point toward the ear.
Answers to these questions and any other setup tips you have will be greatly appreciated.

fred

Fred................
I know exactly how you feel as I felt the same when the day of reckoning arrived. I had my system with the Triton 1 perfectly dialed in and I loved the sound. I kept asking myself as my son and I unboxed the speakers, "what have I done" but I am happy to report I LOVE the new speakers, they have the Triton 1 sound but just more of it. The dynamics are absolutely staggering I know I made the right choice.

Unfortunately I only use 2 channel and know nothing about the LFE input. I am sure Wayne will chime in as he has been commenting on this long thread. You could email GE, Sandy himself replied to all my questions. Or perhaps the Moderator knows what you ask. Wait until you see the cabinets, hand rubbed finish it is absolutely gorgeous.

fbreynolds wrote: My Reference speakers will be arriving on Wednesday (which fills me with excitement and trepidation), and that leads me to a question or two.
According to Sandy's Setup Tips, for 2 channel listening, it says to connect only the power cord and speaker wires to use the Triton circuitry to control the bass and crossovers. However, for home theater and other multi-channel setups, it says to connect the LFE connectors. My question is must I unplug the LFE connectors to get the desired 2 channel result, or can I get the same effect if I set the speakers to Large and say there is no sub in the setup? Seems to me that if the Triton does not detect a signal on the LFE line, then it will use its own circuitry for bass management.
Positioning - I understand that toe-in is important, and in my setup the primary seating position will not be equidistant between the two speakers. I assume the two speakers will have slightly different angles as a result.
Second, I read that the tweeter should be at ear level if possible and you should slightly elevate the rear of the speaker so they point toward the ear.
Answers to these questions and any other setup tips you have will be greatly appreciated.

fred

Hello Fred. Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your forthcoming T Ref's. That kinda spells and sound like T Rex, if you know what I mean!!

Anyway, I'll answer your questions/concerns succinctly. Keep in mind they are not T Ref specific (i.e. the same questions could be asked re T1 or anything else with LFE in).

If you have speakers to Large and say there is no sub in the setup then the LFE would not be in use, and you would not need to unplug the RCA cable connected to that input.

You are correct that in the case of positioning toe-in is important. Not a major issue that the two speakers will have slightly different angles as a result of non-equidistant, however, try to maintain equilateral triangle as much as possible. You may also find that slightly tweaking the bass level (after break in) could also be advantageous.

The tweeter is already set around 41 inches high within the cabinet. Invariably that is ear level when a grown male is in the seated position. I've heard/read of tiling the speaker from the rear as you state, however, I personally feel no need to do that. Also, despite what others may believe or state, I feel that placing anything under the base that results in lifting one side more so than the other compromises the stability of the entire speaker cabinet, does not "look" right, and produces insignificant audible gain, in my opinion.

Hi Fred,
I can understand your concerns and desire to get all your questions sorted, answered BEFORE you get your wonderful new speakers, CONGRATULATIONS, BTW.
But we would need to know a little more to help you better. What are your listening habits, Music only, Movies only, both, what is the mix? What kind of music? Are you a bass head like me?
IF you connect a cable to the LFE inputs of your speakers, do you have some EASY way to select speakers Large/no sub as opposed to Small/with sub in your preamp, processor? (Cause it sounds like you want to have it play the LFE for movies, but not for music, am I reading that right?) Will you have to get up and select, deselect that, or can you do it remotely? Is it easy? BECOZ unplugging your LFE cable is not particularly easy or shall we say, convenient.
If you don't mind, pls provide more information and we can give you better guidance.
Personally, I use the LFE inputs on all my Triton towers, Ones, Twos and Threes. They are on there for a reason, IMHO.
IF a person wants to go with a "purist" no LFE input approach that is fine too.
As for setup, toe in and distances, heights, you will have to experiment a bit, perhaps quite a bit, try listening to different positions and angles, until you are happy. NOBODY I know has a perfect location/room/listening area, we all have to do the best we can with what we got to work with. Happily there is nearly always a great setup to give wonderful results with these towers.
Hope you get them soon and are happy,
God Bless,
Wayne

Hi fbreynolds,

I know Wayne and others have answered your LFE connection question, but, for what it might be worth, here are my comments.

If you are using an Audio-Video multi-channel receiver to provide both music and movie sound, then, by all means connect both the speaker cables and the LFE cables. If your AV receiver has two sub-woofer outputs, connect a separate cable to each Triton LFE input. Otherwise, you will need to use a "Y" type connector to split the sub-woofer output from your AV receiver so that you can connect it to both Triton LFE inputs.

When you are listening to music via your AV receiver, you have some choices as to how the receiver processes the sound. Read and understand how your receiver handles two-channel versus multi-channel sound and how different sound-processing options affect the signals presented to both the speaker outputs and the sub-woofer output(s).

Then, experiment with different settings combinations to determine what you like best for music and for movie sound.

Enjoy your new GE Reference speakers.

Art

Hi, Fred

Congrats on getting T Ref's!

Just to add to advice Re bass, to use LFE feeds or not etc. I think the easiest way to start out, if you plan to play both 2 channel and surround with .1 LFE content on your system is to follow Sandy's set-up tip. Set the receiver to have the Ref's full range, no crossover, sub on, LFE connections to both speakers. That way alll full range content goes directly to the speakers via the speaker cables, and only LFE channel content goes via the sub/LFE route. (All crossed content from other speakers set as SMALL in your HT system will also go to the fronts set as LARGE full range.)

You shouldn't have to do anything different set-up wise when listening to either 2 channel (no LFE content) or 5.1 etc. surround. When playing 2 channel, the sub LFE channel will be inactive with no content, and when playing surround, the LFE channel content will be added via the LFE connnections. That's how my system is set up and it works great. The Trition's crossovers do all the work of integrating everything.

If you want to try other options later, the sky's the limit.

The original set-up recommendation was no LFE connections, speakers full range, but some receivers tend to roll off LFE to full range speakers/ no sub, so LFE connections sub on asssures that doesn't happen.

Happy listening! I'm sure some fine tuning of speaker positioning will pay dividends also. Every room is different.

Let us know how it sounds!

Rick