Sub crossover freq for MMGs?

[Mike Anderson]

The reason you don't get the punch form the MMGs is that they just can move enough air at the lower frequencies. That is the "loudness" issue I mentioned earlier. It's also the reason that you will be better off with a higher crossover point, say 80Hz. That way your sub does more work and you will get more punch. I owned MMGs for awhile and try the various settings. 80Hz is your best bet, IMO.

I've experimented with it quite a bit, and I think what you say is true -- particularly if I'm looking for extra punch in rock and roll type music.

However, most of my music collection doesn't require the extra punch, being either: 1)music that is already mastered with a fair amount of bass, such that the hump would be really obnoxious; or 2) the style of music that just doesn't need it.

So for now, I think my solution will be to simply turn up the crossover freq on those occasions when I want to rock out, and at all other times I'm leaving it around 55-60.

Unfortunately the Musical Fedelity 3.2, (while it has "pre-out" connectors), doesn't have "main in" connectors. This makes it basically impossible to send a high-pass-only signal to the main amp. There is no handy solution to this problem that I can think of.

Yeah, I figured that out at some point. It's OK though, I think I'm quite happy with things now - I'm done fiddling and I'm just going to sit back and listen for a while. (Although I reserve the right to change my mind about that!)

[Mike Anderson]

BTW, just out of curiosity: What if one were to split out the signal before sending it to the pre-amp and filter it there, i.e. sending everything above 80hz to the integrated amplifer that feeds the MMGs, and sending everything under 80Hz directly to the subwoofer?

Ignoring the possible degredation of the signal that may occur by inserting extra components in the signal path, is there some reason this wouldn't sound good? Does the signal going to the subwoofer "need" to be pre-amp'd to blend properly with the signal going into the MMGs?

[Feanor]

BTW, just out of curiosity: What if one were to split out the signal before sending it to the pre-amp and filter it there, i.e. sending everything above 80hz to the integrated amplifer that feeds the MMGs, and sending everything under 80Hz directly to the subwoofer?
...

The issue, of course, is volume control, that is, you would want a volume control ahead of the crossover device so the volumes of the amp and sub volume can be controlled together. Some degradation is inevidable, however with a decent volume control device, (in effect a preamp), the degradation is likely to be unnoticable.

My own amp, (the Bel Canto), doesn't have a "main in" either. However my MG 1.6's inherently have much less of the "loudness" problem than the MMG's, so I just set my sub to 50Hz which is just above the 1.6's roll-off in the mid/low 40's. Integration is pretty good.