Nahash5150

I was wondering where you went! WB!

Welcome! You seem very excited - that's a good thing. It just turned into more gear.

Metallica - And Justice for All is a legendary F-up recording of an otherwise great musical endeavor. Van Halen - For unlawful carnal knowledge was recorded in pure crap. The CD is absolutely horrible. Queensryche - Empire same as above, supposedly remastered in 24bit, hah!!!!!! Nice try. And now I'm very disappointed so I better stop.

Good to hear. I use my sub from time to time in 2 channel, but usually at -12dB.

Note: You can MUTE the HT speakers through the Denon.

Then just get an RCA Y splitter and run into the sunfire AND the Denon (aux in). Then when you want to hear the sub, you just select AUX (or whatever RCA input you use on the Denon) and you'll get the SUB pre-out to work with the same signal going to the Sunfire.

So let me guess... You have you computer connected to the Sunfire (music), and your DVD player (movies) to the Denon right? Why not run an optical TOSLINK from your computer to the Denon? Then you can connect your L & R pre-out to your Sunfire and use us it for everything and allow your Denon to do what it does best and manage all ins and outs.

Your Denon has a Sub pre-out. Simply connect that directly to the sub.

Welcome!

Good work Dan. But I don't see any silicone! Lots of vibration in there. Murphy's Law #1 : If it can happen, it will.

LOL Can't say I didn't warn you about the size! Using a plexiglass or wooden plate will work - and lots of silicone.

Some of the most dissturbing spelling and gammer errors I've seen have been made by editors from New York. They seem to throw all conventions out the window when they yooz email.

Looking good! Wow - those are expensive caps!

The impedance of a capacitor is an exponential function, Z=1/2piƒC, so its resistance changes in a smooth curve fashion depending on frequency (reactance or impedance). The 'short' is the indeed the pass region, when the corner, or crossover point, is the SHARPEST part of the curve toward more or less impedance depending on application. The crossover 'orders' make that sharp turn soft or really sharp.

Just keep studying Dan - look up tutorials and articles related to the subject and you'll absorb more info on them. Keep this in mind though - there is nothing mysterious about a capacitor. They block DC and pass AC signal. Basically, it is a device with two plates very close to each other. Of course the plates can be flat or rolled together to increase surface area. It's only job is to take on a charge and if the opportunity arises, it discharges that charge. The charge and discharge operation has what is know as a 'time constant'. That is, its rated charge capacity (usually in micro-farads) tells you how much energy it can hold and release - the more it can hold, the longer it takes to charge or discharge. This charging and discharging is dependent on resistance as well (more resistance makes the time constant larger), which is what crossovers depend on significantly. Frequencies that reach or exceed a capacitor's 'corner frequency' will pass through the device with little resistance. This is because the frequency is CHANGING FASTER than the capacitor's time constant, so the energy on one plate is mirrored on the other with little resistance. Now of course there are much more complicated things that happen, like phase shift, current and voltage leading, and noise. But if you can force yourself to understand that a capacitor is nothing more than a device that looks like an open circuit to DC, and a very large resistor or short circuit to some frequencies, then you'll be on the road to understand crossovers and the like. There are low-pass filters, and high-pass filters, band-pass filters, resonant circuits and a multitude of configurations like 2nd and 3rd order crossovers and all that stuff. All they do is attempt to control the passing of frequencies - either to make a desired band of frequencies pass without any loss or to make some frequencies almost non-existent to a portion of the circuit. For instance, a tweeter is always at the end of a high-pass filter. All the filter does is cause lower frequencies to see a high resistance and high frequencies above its 'corner' to see almost nothing (that is, they pass into the tweeter without any loss). Therefore, the 'crossover' point is the corner frequency of the capacitor AND the resistance involved (the RC network), and sometimes an inductor (which behaves similar to a capacitor with frequency, that is, its 'resistance' changes with respect to frequency (=impedance=Z)). Now, the capacitor types are made for certain kinds of applications (space, cost, voltage, frequency, etc). Electrolytic capacitors are capable of very large capacitance, and are usually polarized because of their chemical make up, and are used mostly for power supplies and 'decoupling' - that is, smoothing out DC ripple (noise). They are used in crossovers too, but usually in their bi-polar variety. The problems with electrolytics is that they degrade over time, they're very sensitive to temperature and tend to make more noise than other varieties. their tolerance is also in the 20% range, making them frowned upon in good crossover designs. Film capacitors are preferred for audio because they are low noise, durable and accurate. Basically a film capacitor is a pair of plates rolled together and separated by plastic. Yup, that's it - plastic. The problem is that they are expensive and sometimes too bulky for an application. Beware of film capacitors that are larger than 1uF - they get HUGE! As far as manufacturers - this is just another complication that you will NOT find consensus on. Think car makers and who makes the best cars and you have a good comparison. They all seem to have their strong attributes as well as weak ones. Some are made in China are are complete garbage - so stay away from Ebay. However - Panasonic, Nichicon, Elna and Kemet are your big companies with good reputations. Passive crossovers are normally much less efficient that active crossovers. Active crossovers tend to deal with the signal while it is small (pre-amp stage) and the signal sees almost no power loss because now the power amp only has to amplify the desired signal to the speaker. The PROBLEM with active crossovers is that it doesn't care about the speaker it is driving, and a speaker is a super-complex load. So active crossovers will turn you into a 'tweaker' to find the best sound. Passive crossovers, while they cause power loss because they are seen by the large signal stage, are usually designed specifically for the speakers, so that the ultra-complexity of the speaker as a load is compensated. And I think only Zumbini is one of those brave souls that use active crossovers with passive crossovers with success - it can be done, but you have to have an ear for it. Take for instance the crossover point for subwoofers used with mains - it's an ever-enigmatic value because all speakers are different - even clumsy subwoofers that handle only like .5% of the audio band.

It's not unusual for the 500t meters to be out of calibration.

Welcome. It's always good news to see another serious audio aficionado around! Thanks for sharing. Nice system.

I think I see a ghost reflecting in there too...

Welcome to the forum. So what Carver gear to ya got?

Congrats! Gotta love it when you can push your system to the limit.

You just have to know what to look for in classical. Modern interpretations are so mechanical because the music is extremely difficult, but there are some masters out there that blow the shit out of the water and play it the way it was intended. So here's Bach singing to God with his genius, as interpreted by the late master, Rostropovich. (this guy wipes the floor with Yo-Yo Ma, just sayin)