Using Your PowerMonitors with
Dolby Digital AC-3 Systems
Hooking Up with Speaker Wire Only
The simplest implementation of use with Dolby Digital is to simply hook-up your PowerMonitors with speaker wire as described above and “tell” your bass management system that you have “Large” left and right front speakers and “no” subwoofer. The bass manage- ment system will then send the LFE .1 channel signal into the left and right channels and it will be reproduced by the subwoofers in your PowerMonitors giving you all the benefits of Dolby Digital and the discrete LFE signal. Bass management for the center and rear chan- nels will normally be set on “Small”. (Although this will vary depend- ing on the specific speakers; for instance, if you are using a PowerMonitor, C/L/R 2300, C/L/R 2500, or C/L/R 3000 as a center channel, you would normally set center on “Large”.) However, you may wish to experiment with this for best sound in your system.
Using the LFE Input on Your PowerMonitors
With Dolby Digital AC-3, you also have the option to use the low level LFE input in addition to the speaker wires. To do this, simply use a Y connector coming out of the LFE output jack on your elec- tronics to feed two line level cables, one connected to the LFE input on the right speaker and the other one connected to the LFE input on the left speaker. Tell your bass management system that you have “Large” left and right main front speakers and “yes” a subwoofer. In order to properly balance the bass on the front speakers when hooked up this way, listen to music on the system in stereo and set the level controls on the back of your speakers for best balance. Then, while listening to a movie, using the level adjustment for the subwoofer output on your receiver or decoder, set the LFE output for best sound with movies. Using this type of hookup will enable you to balance the bass level control on the speaker for music while boosting up the LFE level for extra impact on movies. Again, bass management for the center and rear channels should normally be set as described above; however, you may wish to experiment for best sound with your system.
