Speaker Setup

Open the Speakers page from the sidebar (/#/settings/speakers). This is where you tell the HTP-1 which speakers you have, where they are, and how large they are.

The layout table on the Speakers page is read-only — the checkboxes, crossover fields, and size buttons shown there just reflect your current settings. To change anything, click Edit Speaker Layout. This opens a dialog where enabling, disabling, sizing, and setting the crossover for a speaker all take effect.

Note

If the active Dirac Live filter slot holds a Bass Control, Bass Management, or ART filter and Dirac Live is on, size and crossover cannot be changed at all — not even in the dialog — because Dirac Live is doing that work. Turn Dirac Live off or set it to Bypass first. See Speaker Configuration.

The Edit Speaker Layout Dialog

The dialog lists every possible speaker in three groups — Main Speaker Outputs, Surround Speaker Outputs, and Upper Speaker Outputs — each with up to three controls per row:

1. Presence checkbox. Click the speaker's row or its checkbox to enable or disable it. A speaker you can't currently enable shows a question-mark icon; hover it to see why (see Valid Speaker Configurations for the underlying rules).
2. Crossover frequency (fc). A numeric field, range 40–200 Hz in steps of 10, that sets the corner frequency of that speaker's high-pass filter. It only appears for speakers set to Dolby or Small — Large speakers are full-range and skip the crossover. Subwoofers have no crossover field of their own; their low end is handled by the LPF for LFE Channel control described in Bass Management.
3. Size buttons — Dolby / Small / Large. Choose Large for a full-range speaker that needs no bass redirection, Small for a speaker that should hand its low frequencies to the subwoofer(s), or Dolby for a Dolby Enabled speaker. The Dolby button only appears for top speaker groups — a wall-mounted "high" speaker cannot be Dolby Enabled.

Changes you make in the dialog are staged, not applied immediately. A warning banner appears once you have unsaved changes: "You have unsaved changes. Click Save to apply them. Updating speaker layout may take up to 5 minutes." Click Save to send the change to the HTP-1, or Cancel to discard it.

While the dialog is open it also tells you whether the layout you're building has a matching Dirac Live filter:

• If Dirac Live is off and no filter exists for the current layout, it shows the Current Layout and the list of layouts that do have filters available.
• If you've changed the selection to a layout with no Dirac Live filter, it warns that saving will produce an empty (uncalibrated) layout — the necessary first step before you can calibrate it.

Most Speakers Should Be Small

"Small" speakers do not handle low frequency sounds well. Surround sound systems typically use a bass management system to compensate, redirecting the low end to a subwoofer. See Bass Management for how this works on the HTP-1.

If you are not sure whether your speakers are small or large, they are probably small. A large, full-range speaker does not need a subwoofer to produce the lowest frequencies. Setting a speaker to Small causes the bass manager to redirect its lowest frequencies to the subwoofer(s), protecting the speaker and letting it operate more efficiently.

Many speaker manufacturers publish the frequency response of their speakers. For example, "60Hz to 18KHz" indicates that the speaker is not designed to produce sound much below 60 Hz. In that case, set the crossover frequency to 60 Hz — since the field only accepts 10 Hz steps, round up to the nearest step rather than trying to land exactly on the roll-off point. Choosing a cutoff clearly in the linear region of the speaker ensures the crossover, not the speaker's own natural roll-off, defines where bass hands off to the subwoofer. The HTP-1 uses a fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover.

Tip

If you don't have a spec sheet for your speakers, a basic Dirac Live calibration will show you the speaker's useful range. You can use that measurement to choose a crossover frequency, then finish the layout on the Speakers page.

A Dolby Enabled speaker behaves like a "Small" speaker except that a Dirac Live calibration preserves the special filters used in Dolby Enabled speakers.

Enabling Speakers

The factory default enables only the front left and right speakers. From there, the dialog only lets you build supported speaker configurations — a speaker you can't yet add shows why in its tooltip. The full rule set is documented in Valid Speaker Configurations; the tooltips in the dialog quote the same rules directly, for example "Subwoofer 2 must be enabled before Subwoofer 3."

Tip

If you have only two upper speakers it is a good idea to choose the top middle pair. Many Dolby tracks are authored to favor this upper pair. The "5.1.2" Atmos configuration uses the top-middle pair. DTS-X streams are likely authored using four high speakers. The HTP-1 "remaps" any source arrangement to match the speaker setup you choose using algorithms provided by the decoder. This is why you should describe/configure your speaker setup as accurately as possible, though few people will be able to tell the difference if a pair of speakers labeled "top front" are actually high on the wall in front.

Current Layout and the Speaker Diagram

Under Edit Speaker Layout, the speaker diagram on the right shows the speakers you currently have enabled and hides the ones you don't — a quick visual confirmation that matches what you just set. Below the diagram, the Current Layout readout spells out the resulting configuration string, such as 7.1.4h.

The Speaker Map

At the bottom of the Speakers page is the Speaker Map: an image of the HTP-1's back panel showing which output jack drives which speaker. Click the image to zoom in.

As you use more of the 16 output channels, the jack assignment changes depending on which speakers you've enabled — a 9.1.6 layout (nine mains, one sub, six uppers) uses the back panel differently than a 5.5.6 (five mains, five subs, six uppers) or 7.5.4 (seven mains, five subs, four uppers). The Speaker Map is always the current, correct reference for this — treat it as authoritative over the silkscreen labels printed on the back panel itself, which can be misleading for less common configurations.

The map also shows activity, not just wiring:

• Enabled speaker channels are highlighted green.
• If you're using a seat shaker, its channel is highlighted yellow and marked with a couch icon rather than a speaker label. See Bass Management.
• A channel that isn't enabled won't produce sound even though it still appears on the map.

Tip

The Speaker Map is most useful for less common configurations, such as 7.5.4 or 9.5.2, where the location of the subwoofer or wide channels can vary.

Dolby Enabled Speakers

Dolby Enabled speakers have two independent drivers with two independent inputs. One of them points up, so the sound reflects off the ceiling and appears to come from a speaker overhead. A Dolby Enabled speaker also includes a filter that enhances this illusion of sound coming from above; otherwise it behaves like two Small speakers. When you set a speaker group to Dolby in the Edit Speaker Layout dialog, Dirac Live calibration respects this and preserves the psychoacoustic filter used by the up-firing driver.

Only top speaker groups can be set to Dolby — high-mounted (wall) groups do not offer the Dolby button.

Example Speaker Setups

The back panel of the unit is shown below along with a diagram of the XLR connectors on the back of the HTP-1. The diagram will be used in the following sections to show you how to connect an amplifier to the unit for various speaker configurations. In the diagram, the XLR connectors have been divided into two rows to make it easier to fit the information on a single page.

As you use more of the 16 channels, the order of channels assigned to the back panel varies with your choice of speakers. The actual assignment for your current layout is always shown on the Speaker Map at the bottom of the Speakers page.

Example 7.1.4h Speaker Configuration (Upper Level On the Wall)

This speaker configuration uses 7 surround sound speakers, 1 subwoofer and 4 height speakers. The height speakers are mounted high on the walls, in the corners of the listening area.

Example 7.2.6 Speaker Configuration (Upper Level On the Ceiling)

This speaker configuration uses 7 surround sound speakers, 2 subwoofers and 6 height speakers. The height speakers are mounted in the ceiling.

Example 9.3.4 Speaker Configuration (Upper Level On the Ceiling)

This speaker configuration uses 9 surround sound speakers, 3 subwoofers and 4 height speakers. The upper front speakers are mounted in the ceiling. The upper rear speakers are Top and Dolby Enabled.

Example 9.1.6 Speaker Configuration (Upper Level On the Ceiling)

This speaker configuration uses 9 surround sound speakers, 1 subwoofer and 6 height speakers. The height speakers are mounted high on the walls, in the corners of the listening area.