ML Depth i: I need help

[reolyme]

Hi there everyone,
I'm Winston from Lakewood WA and I am a proud owner of a Martin Logan Depth I subwoofer. I really love watching movies in my little theater setup that I have in my living room. It's not professionally done but I try my best to get help wherever I can. I am not at all technically efficient enough to understand all the dynamics of EQ's and Hz and all that wonderful stuff. Because I am so technically challenged in this area I feel that I am loosing out on getting the best sound performance from my set up. I am hoping to get any kind of help or advice from this forum. Please forgive me if I seem long winded as I am brand new to this forum.
Here's what I have in terms of my home theater setup and from my description all I want is someone to recommend to me a basic setting for my ML Depth I.
My listening room is about 15' x 12' and I have a setup suited for Dolby Atmos. Two large fronts, one large powered center, two surround, two rears, four high ceiling speakers and two front height speakers. Then there's the ML Depth I. My two front speakers are the Definitive BP10 non powered set as Large. The center is a Definitive CLR 3000 powered by itself and set to Large.
I have no idea how to set my subwoofer on the ML Depth I.
I am using an Emotive XMC2 Processor with two Emotiva Power Amps each being 7 channel amps.
I mainly enjoy movies in either Blu-ray or 4K coming out of an OPPO UHD-203 player.
I am providing all this info in the hopes that it will be useful to someone who can help me out.
I really appreciate any help I get and thank everyone in advance.
Please stay safe.

 

[JonFo]

Hi, I also replied to your introduction post, but let's continue this discussion in this thread.

Nice gear, and yes, some small setup tweaks should improve things.

First, the choice of running the three fronts as large. I would say the center definitely should be set to small, crossover at 70Hz or above. Yes, I know the specs says it goes lower, but it will sound much cleaner (with better dialog intelligibility) if set to cross-over the low-end to the sub.
My center channel is the biggest around these parts (see my sig) and it is set for small, and crossed over at 70Hz.
For L/R, I'd likewise try them set for small, and then experiment with the crossover point you find works best for you. I'd think 50Hz or so would be fine.

As far as Depth setup, 1) use the LFE input of the Depth. Set phase to 0. The processor will do all further adjustments. 2) set the volume based on an SPL measurement during the setup process, follow the Dirac instructions. 3) set all other controls to their default / 0 positions.

Location of the sub: in a room of those dimensions, centered on the front wall is likely the best. Right under the center channel if possible. Tell us more about the layout and location options for the sub.

Have you run a Dirac Setup on the system yet?

You will need to re-run Dirac after changing the speaker settings and moving the sub.

 

[reolyme]

Thanks so much for responding. I'll try out your advice and set the center as small but do I reconnect the center pre out from the processor to the rca IN on back of the center speaker? Right now the center is only wired directly to the amp and the center pre out from processor goes to the amp.

 

[reolyme]

I forgot to mention that I have not done anything with Dirac yet because Emotiva doesn't have it ready for us yet and the Dirac we used for the XMC1 won't work with the XMC2. Hopefully we get the newer Dirac soon.
I'm surprised you recommend to set the BP10 ad small because they're big full range speakers. Anyway I'll try anything.
Thanks again.

 

[JonFo]

Thanks so much for responding. I'll try out your advice and set the center as small but do I reconnect the center pre out from the processor to the rca IN on back of the center speaker? Right now the center is only wired directly to the amp and the center pre out from processor goes to the amp.

USe the speaker-level connections only. The RCA is is an optional method if you had no sub.

Reading the specs for that model, you can probably get away with crossing over at 50 or 60Hz.

 

[JonFo]

I forgot to mention that I have not done anything with Dirac yet because Emotiva doesn't have it ready for us yet and the Dirac we used for the XMC1 won't work with the XMC2. Hopefully we get the newer Dirac soon.

Ah, it will be world of difference once you run DIRAC, as I'm sure you know from the XMC1 days.

I'm surprised you recommend to set the BP10 ad small because they're big full range speakers. Anyway I'll try anything.
Thanks again.

The issue is that the locations where the L/R works best for imaging are often not ideal for low-end performance due to room modes. Nothing to do with speaker capabilities, all about acoustics, and speaker to room integration.
By setting them to small, you now have a controllable crossover and can see what works best in your room. It might work fine crossed over at 40Hz.
The crossover is usually a fairly gentle 12dB/Octave slope, so the towers will still be outputting a lot of bass. But the goal is to move the lowest frequencies to the sub, so the L/R is not quite as stressed, lowering the THD (distortion) of the unit. and as noted, better integrate acoustically.