One thing to look for is when higher pitched sound comes primarily from one of the two channels then appears on the other in a delayed fashion.(this can also appear as the in-phase audio breaking imaging by ‘bleeding’ towards one of the speakers when it gets loud however this is harder to determine because the artist may just be moving around.) The Imaging should never be broken like this, if you consciously aware of the delayed reflection then your speakers are too close together and it would be a good idea to use that sample to play over and over while you make adjustments.

I have two CDs you can try out: 1994 Patrica Barber ‘Cafe Blue’ PREM-737-2, Piano Collections Final Fantasy VII (IMPORT) KO-99030, and Yo-Yo-Ma ‘Songs of Joy & Peace’ B001BN1V8U. All speakers are different and your speakers will define any toe-in. Mine are minimal toe-in and at the summits of an equilateral triangle +- 3″ and about 130″ apart(this is staggering if your not used to it because the center seating position doesn’t even feel like your in front of them anymore). Some day I will explain how toe in changes how your music is perceived.

UPDATE: Placement for Music is different than TV/Movies. MultiChannel music and TV/Movies is designed for toe-in. Music, on the other hand, works best with little or no toe-in.

It seems by default, my Denon Integrated(Amplifier) seems to think that correct default settings for “Stereo” is, “Large”(for the Speakers, this is correct), “Yes”(for Subwoofer), “LFE+Main”(for Subwoofer Playback), and “40Hz”(for Crossover).

The problem here is that LFE+Main freakin sucks.  Why do I want double-bass?  Not to mention its coming from 3 directions in 2 different phases( the Subwoofer is usually set to phase 90) and 3 different distances/delays.  All good quality subwoofers will provide High Level and Low Level input for Left/Right to use with the internal crossover.  This works great, however the sub is creating audio based on the distance information for the Left/Right channels(if your Integrated AMP has distance delays)… thus creating a somewhat delayed/shifted bass stereo image because regardless of where the subwoofer is it cannot be in two places at once.

So we need the crossover inside of the Denon Integrated.  Well, I don’t want “double-bass” so we’ll change “LFE+Main” to “LFE”.  Thats it right?  Well, you won’t get anything out of your subwoofer.  The trick here is setting your “Large” speakers to “Small” with the crossover still at 40Hz.(I don’t know why that is the lowest it will go since I know many people who have Floor-standing speakers that are very able to hit 40Hz, as mine are.  This 40Hz wall seems to be in place even when set to “Large” unless you do not have a subwoofer installed or are running in Direct/Pure Direct mode where all Bass Management goes out of the window.

So if you want to take advantage of your Subwoofer for L/R @ <40Hz, you will have to set your “Large”/FullRange/Wide Front Left/Rights to “Small”.  My speakers will hit 40Hz at -3db so using Direct/PureDirect will not help me much unless I don’t want to use the subwoofer.  Denon’s manual defines Direct/Pure Direct mode as “This is the mode that recreates the original sound most faithfully, providing extremely high quality sound”.  That may be true!  Somewhere else they also say that it disables “Tone controls”(Bass/Treble).  What they neglect to mention that there is NO Bass Management(Large/Small is Bass Management along with Crossovers) at all in these modes.  So your/my crappy surrounds will try to play 20Hz if your movie calls for it.

If you want similar results during normal movie playback, you will have to set your Fronts to Small in the main speaker config menu with a crossover set to 40Hz( or whatever the lowest your speakers can hit, my crossover should be at about 30Hz, and your amplifier will allow you to choose — a Small with a 40Hz crossover is the EXACT same thing as a Large but the AMP seems to completely ignore <40Hz when set to Large … go figure.)  The default Bass Management rolls off the Low Level by -12db and the High Level by -24db.  So a Large speaker will be -12db @ 40Hz when not in Direct/PureDirect and a Small will be -12db @ user set crossover.  The High Level crossover is only used if you have Bi-Amp able Front speakers.

I currently have my default config/stereo set to Small @ 40Hz crossover, however I normally listen to 2ch audio in Direct/PureDirect in order to get the most out of my floorstanding speakers.  I also have the “distance” of my L/R manually increased by 0.4m(UPDATE: +0.6m seems to make the speakers disappear) — seems to widen the ‘sweet spot’.

UPDATE: Lfe+Main works fine if the system is calibrated and distances are measured correctly.  You also have to make sure the sub is set to 0 degrees phase. ( otherwise you will notice a huge problem in SQ )