[coolwater]

First, let me say this is my experience and is not meant to be a definitive defacto statement that applies to everyone.  I recognize that everyone has different tastes and therefore will have different setups.  The point of this is to shortcut the setup process for ppl have similar tastes as mine.

My equipment:
Denon 2807 a/v receiver
2 Omega's XRS's
Infinity SW-12 12" 500w RMS sub

Although they had superb highs and mids, I found the XRS's by themselves (no sub) to be a bit bass anemic... bass light.  It wasn't a very satisfying listening experience.  I added a sub to fill out the music and add some bass.  The range on the XRS's is about 40-18Khz... so I set my x-over to 60hz and set my front speakers to "large" in the receiver.  This helped a bit, but since much of the bass was above 60, the sub was involved very little and didn't make much of a difference.

I set my x-over to 100 and *BAM!* what a difference!  A nearly perfect seamless integration between the sub and Omegas that *REALLY* filled out the music... the entire music range from low to high was filled out and full of texture... in fact, it really seem expand the music and bring it farther into the room.  The infinity has really nice tight accurate pass... not sloppy or muddy... so it added not subtracted to the listening experience.  I listened to some Eric Tingstad on it and it was like savoring fine wine... it was quite delicious.  I position the sub on the backwall directly behind the speakers.

Disclaimer:  I am not saying a person has to have a sub w/XRS.  But, for me I found them a bit bass light and discovered an almost perfect integration between sub and Omegas that really worked out awesome.

[coolwater]

Correction: "I position the sub on the backwall directly behind the seats."

[toobwacky]

Integration of a sub with a pair of wide-range speakers is usually very tricky.  The problem is peaks & troughs in the bass response caused by the same frequencies emanating from multiple points in space. 

In your set-up, this can be somewhat minimized by setting the main speakers (the XRSs) to small & thereby reducing their bass output.  I'd also try stuffing the XRS ports with a nerf ball (or something equivalent) to even further reduce the XRS bass output. 

Try it & see if your in room bass response evens out.

Have fun!   

[Louis O]

Hi coolwater,

Many thanks for your post and I’m glad to hear you got the sub and the XRSs working together. The light bass can happen with the interaction with the speakers and the receiver. This does happen and has a lot to do with source impedances. A little overlap can work out great when setting the sub’s Xover.

I do agree with tubewacky on setting to the small position. This is definitely better.

Thanks again,
Louis