Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Speaker size --- frequency?

when you calibrate analogue speakers and subwoofers you check their "bass handling capacity" and from that get a "Size" parameter. You stop when you start to hear distorsion.

Is this test just selecting one frequency and gradually raising the volume, or is it gradually lowering the frequency? If the latter is their a "standard" correspondence between Size and lowest frequency? If the former, what type of limiting is done?

I'm not sure, but to my ears the frequency doesn't change, just the volume gets louder.

To be effective, however, their must be a compression effect which protects the speaker from the lowest freaquencies.

Personally, in the case of subs, I would always set the size to max. These speakers are designed to take a lot of punishment and most have their own built in protection.

Cliff

Cliff

You'll get the best sound with all speakers set to max. Otherwise you have compression. Compression isn't very good for music. Just keep the volume in line with what your speakers can handle.

Ron

I must have been a bit too harsh then, when determining if there started to be some distortion. My D1500 was set to quite a bit from MAX, my Bc Acoustique as well.

When I had by speakers on large I had them on a fairly low size setting as this was the point where I thought they were beginning to distort in the test. (There's a fine line between protecting your speakers and damaging them in the test itself!).

I'm with Ron on this, set them to max and go easy with volume. I would always set them to small for cinema modes though, as it's quite wasy to get carried away after a few beers

I run my speakers as small for all modes now with a fairly low X-over of 40Hz for music. The only time they run as full range is in Direct mode.

Cliff

I think I know now what happened with the D1500, since I thought Size maybe changed frequency and not just volume...

I was looking for a good place to put the sub. Before that I of course tried several bad places as well. I measured with an SPL meter and had to crank up gain on the sub to get it level with the other speakers. But it then sounded distorted, so I had to change to a smaller Size setting. Which led to adjusting Gain once again...

Now I will set Gain down to Min or just above, then set Size to Max. Then measure SPL and if necessary adjust up Gain somewhat...