R E V I E W E R ’ S G U I D E

R E V O L U T I O N F E A T U R E S T H E M O S T P O W E R - F U L B A S S

M A N A G E M E N T O F A N Y S O U N D C A R D — I T I S

M O R E P O W E R -

F U L T H A N

M O S T H I G H -

E N D S U R -

R O U N D R E -

C E I V E R S

Bass￿

Management (PC). Simply select the subwoofer in the “Speaker Setup” pane. With the “Bass Man- agement” checkbox enabled, you gain access to a number of powerful controls over your system’s bass settings.

The power of Revolution’s bass management technology is that it provides more control over bass than most high-end surround sound receivers. It is possible to set the crossover at “none” for your full-range front left/right speakers, a 40Hz cross- over for the surround left/right, a 60Hz crossover for the center, and 80Hz for the surround center left/right. Even with a complex speaker setup like this, Revolution is able to accurately route bass where needed. Also key is the discrete handling and control of both types of bass: LFE (Low Frequency Effects, or the dedicated bass audio channel on a DVD), and Bass (all of the redirected bass that would have gone to the satellites). This is important since it allows a level of fine-tuning for audio that home theater enthusiasts have been clamoring for. Revolution’s bass management makes the subwoofer channel work in a 5.1 system used for music, can extend the life of your speakers by not routing audio to your satellites that they are not capable of handling, and improves the sound quality of your speaker system by playing the right audio through the right speaker.

Note: M-Audio is in the process of providing additional enhancements to the Revolution

7.1bass management software. Depending on when you review the product, the soft- ware you download from our website will use one of two methods. Both are accurate and powerful, but you may want to understand in more detail how bass is handled in each:

1

The current bass management reduces overall volume by 6dB to ensure accurate

 

levels and to keep from overloading the subwoofer with the additional bass coming

 

from other speakers. If you notice a slight volume drop when bass management is

 

enabled, this is the method being used. When using this bass management, you can

 

slightly increase the main volume level to adjust for this.

 

 

2

Soon the software will only have a 6dB drop in the subwoofer channel when bass

 

management is enabled, to protect against overloading the subwoofer channel with

 

redirected bass. You can adjust the “Bass Boost” and LFE Boost” sliders to “0” to

31

Page 33
Image 33
M-Audio Revolution 7.1 manual L T H a N