No home theater experience is complete without thunderous bass that shakes the entire room. However, once you connect your components and speakers, you can't turn everything on, crank up the volume, and think you're going to hear great home theater sound. More than that is needed.
High and midrange (vocals, dialogue, winds, and most instruments) and bass frequencies (electric bass, acoustic bass, blasts, and earthquakes) need to be sent to the correct speakers, which is called bass management.
Music (especially rock, pop, and rap) may contain low-frequency information that a subwoofer can exploit. When movies (and some TV shows) are mixed to DVD and Blu-ray discs, sound is assigned to each channel.
In a surround sound format, dialogue is assigned to the center channel, main effects sounds and music are primarily assigned to the front left and right channels, and additional sound effects are assigned to the surround channels.
Some surround sound formats assign sounds to height or overhead channels. They often assign very low frequencies to their own channels, called .1, subwoofer or LFE channels.
A home theater system (usually anchored by a home theater receiver) requires sound frequencies to be distributed to the correct channels and speakers to replicate a theater-like experience. Bass Management provides this tool.
You can perform bass management automatically or manually. Before you begin, place your speakers in the appropriate locations, connect them to your home theater receiver, and specify where the sound frequencies need to go.
For a basic 5.1 channel configuration, connect the left/right front speakers, center speaker, and left/right surround speakers. If you have a subwoofer, connect it to the receiver's subwoofer preamp output.
After connecting your speakers with (or without) a subwoofer, go into your home theater receiver's on-screen setup menu and find the speaker settings or configuration menu. There should be an option to tell the receiver which speakers and subwoofer are connected.
After confirming your speaker settings, specify how sound frequencies are routed between the speakers and subwoofer.
- If you have floor-standing speakers but no subwoofer, specify that you don't have a subwoofer. The receiver sends the low frequencies to the woofer in the floor-standing speakers. Also, if prompted, set your floor-standing speakers to large.
- If you have floor-standing speakers and a subwoofer, specify that you have a hybrid (or both) speaker/subwoofer setup. The receiver delivers the low frequencies to the floor-standing speakers and the woofer in the subwoofer. If prompted, set the floor-standing speakers to Large.
- If you have floor-standing speakers and a subwoofer, send the low frequencies to the subwoofer by specifying the floor-standing speakers (if prompted) as Small. Even if floor-standing speakers can emit bass frequencies, they will most likely not be able to reproduce the very low frequencies that a good subwoofer can.
- By moving the lower frequencies to just the subwoofer, you can further extend the low-frequency response, even if you have floor-standing speakers. However, since the subwoofer usually has a built-in amplifier, you can offload the receiver, which can be used to power the mids and high frequencies.
- Try both low-frequency floorstanding speaker options (hybrid or subwoofer only) to see which works best for you. You can redo settings at any time.
- If you are using bookshelf speakers for the remaining channels combined with a subwoofer, all low frequencies will be routed to the subwoofer only. This relieves the low frequency load on smaller speakers since they are unable to reproduce lower bass frequencies. If prompted, set all speakers to low.
When deciding which of the above options to use, most movie soundtracks on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and some streaming sources contain specific LFE (low frequency effects) channels (Dolby and DTS Surround formats).
The LFE channel contains specific extremely low frequency information that can only be passed through the receiver's subwoofer preamp output. If you tell the receiver you don't have a subwoofer, you won't have access to the specific low-frequency information encoded on that channel. However, other low-frequency information not specifically encoded into the LFE channel can be routed to other speakers.
Many home theater receivers provide outputs for two subwoofers.
After specifying your speaker/subwoofer signal routing options, one way to complete the rest of the process is to use the built-in automatic speaker setup program provided with many home theater receivers.
Examples of automatic speaker setup systems include Anthem Room Correction (Anthem AV), Audyssey (Denon/Marantz), AccuEQ (Onkyo), MCACC (Pioneer), DCAC (Sony), and YPAO (Yamaha).
Although these systems work differently, they have the following in common:
- A special microphone is provided that you can place at your main listening position or plug into your home theater receiver.
- With the microphone plugged in, press the Start button or select the Start option from the on-screen menu. Sometimes, when you plug in a microphone, the Start menu automatically appears.
- The receiver then emits self-generated test tones from each speaker, which are picked up by the microphone and sent back to the receiver.
- The receiver analyzes the information and determines the speaker distance, balances the output levels between the speakers, and finds the sweet spot for frequency distribution between the speakers and subwoofer.
While this method is convenient for most setups, it's not always accurate. Sometimes it can miscalculate speaker distance and speaker/subwoofer frequency points, setting the center channel output too low or the subwoofer output too high. However, you can manually correct these errors after the fact if needed.
If you're more adventurous and have the time, you can implement bass management manually. To do this, in addition to setting the speaker configuration, signal routing, and dimensions, you also need to set the crossover frequency.
The crossover point is the frequency point in bass management where mid/high frequencies and low frequencies (in Hz) are divided between the speaker and subwoofer.
Frequencies above the crossover point are assigned to the speakers. Frequencies below this point are assigned to the subwoofer.
The crossover point of a subwoofer can also be called an LPF (low pass filter).
Although specific speaker frequency ranges vary with specific makes and models (and thus require adjustments), some general crossover setup guidelines are included.
- If you are using bookshelf/satellite speakers, the crossover point between the speakers and subwoofer is usually between 80 Hz and 120 Hz.
- If you are using floor-standing speakers, you can set the crossover point between the speakers and subwoofer lower, such as around 60 Hz.
One way to find a good crossover point is to check the specifications of your speakers and subwoofer to determine the manufacturer-specified bottom-end response of the speakers and the top-end response of the subwoofer in Hz. You can then go into your home theater receiver's speaker settings and use these points as a guide.
A useful tool for setting the crossover point is a DVD or Blu-ray test disc that contains an audio test section, such as Digital Video Essentials.
To get an amazing bass experience, there's more to do than just connecting your speakers and subwoofer, turning on your system, and cranking up the volume.
By purchasing the best-matched speaker and subwoofer options for your needs and budget, taking the extra time to place the speakers and subwoofer in the best locations, and implementing bass management, you'll find a more satisfying home theater listening experience.
For bass management to be effective, there must be a smooth, continuous transition in both frequency and volume output as the sound moves from the speakers to the subwoofer. If not, you'll feel like your listening experience is uneven, like something is missing.
It's up to you to use the automatic or manual path for bass management. Don't get so bogged down with technical issues that you spend most of your time adjusting instead of enjoying your favorite music and movies.
What matters is that your home theater setup sounds good.
FAQIt is no longer possible to adjust the system-wide bass in Windows 11. However, you can adjust the bass in Windows Media Player.
Yes. LFE requires an RCA to RCA cable connection for correct audio output.
LFE outputs only the low frequencies at track .1 to the subwoofer, while LFE+MAIN outputs the low frequencies from all speaker channels to the subwoofer. This setup is ideal for analog sources.
