How much sound from rear surround speakers (1 Viewer)

[RCPJohn42]

How much sound should come from the rear surround speakers in a 5.1 system? I just got my system running and it sounds great, but most of the sound is coming from the front left, right and center speakers. I can only hear the rear surrounds if I put my ear about 24 inches from the speaker. I am running a Pioneer VSX30 and Energy Bipole rears. I have the rears hooked up to the surround speaker terminals on the receiver. I have the Pioneer set for auto surround sound.


Also, where would the best place to find a Home Theater specialist who could come into my home and calibrate everything and school me on how to operate all the functions of the receiver. Do you know if Best Buy stores offer this type of service or is it better to look in the yellow pages. I am in the west Los Angeles area.

 

[Robert_J]

Why don't you calibrate it yourself? Your receiver has MCACC so it should take about 10 minutes total. After calibration, I change my speakers to small and boost the sub by 3db.

 

[Jason Charlton]

Originally Posted by RCPJohn42

How much sound should come from the rear surround speakers in a 5.1 system?

The smart-aleck answer is "Exactly as much as the sound engineers intended.", but I know that's not what you're getting at.


As Robert_J suggested - the best thing you can do is start by properly calibrating your system using it's built-in tools. That should provide a solid "baseline" that sets all the speaker volume levels at the right spot to produce equal volume at the primary listening spot (provided each speaker gets an identical signal, which is NOT the case during regular program material).


Surround sound levels will almost never be as loud as the front soundstage. The primary intent of the surrounds is to provide ambience. Their secondary purpose is to provide any desired directional effects (often fleeting). If the film producers WANT you to be distracted by surround effects, they will make sure you are.


As for having someone else do the work for you - where's the fun in that? Spend an evening with the manual and a handful of Blu-Rays and figure it out for yourself. Honestly, a couple of hours spent reading the manual and fiddling with the menu options yourself will in all likelihood make you more proficient at setup and configuration than most of the people that a place like Best Buy would send to your house anyway.


Good luck.

 

[Sam Posten]

John, I agree with the two posters that your best bet is to do the calibration yourself, but if you want to have it professionally calibrated then you are looking for someone who is ISF certified.


http://www.imagingscience.com/


So that answers your actual question, but a better place to start is right here:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Video-Essentials-Basics-Blu-ray/dp/B000V6LST0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1306934134&sr=8-3


Essentially that's the ISF on a disk. Not the most user friendly disk, but very comprehensive.


I've heard good things from a user friendliness perspective on this disk but haven't used it myself:

http://www.amazon.com/Disney-WOW-World-Wonder-Blu-ray/dp/B0045ASBLG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306934134&sr=8-1

 

[RCPJohn42]

Thanks for the help. I went through the manual at a quick first glance and it was a little overwhelming. Although the manual has a lot of information, I was thinking someone who was experienced in the system, might be able to add some personal insite on optimizing the set up to sound the best.


For example, the BIC 12" sub has a crossover and volume dial. Should I just adjust each up and down to find the best sound for my taste? I understand the MCACC will automatically run a test and set everything, but I have read that further adjustment is usually needed to get the best out of the surround system. I was hoping the "further adjusment" would be something an experienced person would be able to set up pretty easily.


I will go through the manual and try setting it up myself and report back.


thanks again,

John

 

[Jason Charlton]

The crossover on the subwoofer is really only used if you're routing your main L/R speakers through the subwoofer because your receiver does not have a subwoofer pre-out.


This isn't the case for you. The crossover will be set within the receiver, so you can just leave the crossover on the subwoofer all the way at max.


The rule of thumb is to have your subwoofer volume at 50% when you run the calibration. It has been my experience as well that I usually have to raise the subwoofer volume a bit after calibration to get satisfactory results.


Like Robert_J said - the only other common adjustment made after calibration is to set all your speakers to "small" (or set the crossover at a reasonable value - like 100Hz to start) if you have a subwoofer connected. Many auto-calibrations seem to favor setting them to "large" or "full range" regardless of the rest of the configuration.


All of this, however, is intended as a guideline to get you started. Tweaking and other fine tuning is what makes the hobby fun - we all hear things differently, so there really is no one correct configuration.

 

[RCPJohn42]

Originally Posted by Jason Charlton

The crossover on the subwoofer is really only used if you're routing your main L/R speakers through the subwoofer because your receiver does not have a subwoofer pre-out.


This isn't the case for you. The crossover will be set within the receiver, so you can just leave the crossover on the subwoofer all the way at max.


The rule of thumb is to have your subwoofer volume at 50% when you run the calibration. It has been my experience as well that I usually have to raise the subwoofer volume a bit after calibration to get satisfactory results.


Like Robert_J said - the only other common adjustment made after calibration is to set all your speakers to "small" (or set the crossover at a reasonable value - like 100Hz to start) if you have a subwoofer connected. Many auto-calibrations seem to favor setting them to "large" or "full range" regardless of the rest of the configuration.


All of this, however, is intended as a guideline to get you started. Tweaking and other fine tuning is what makes the hobby fun - we all hear things differently, so there really is no one correct configuration.

Thanks for the information. Will turn the subwoofer crossover to max and adjust the receiver crossover accordingly. I will also adjust speakers to small. I have to admit, I turned on the system for the first time over the weekend and without adjusting anything, I was very impressed with the sound and quality of the picture. I can't imagine what it will be like after calibration. My specs are below for reference.


Da-Lite 120" screen (black back)

Epson 8700 UB projector

Pioneer VSX30 receiver

Energy CB-20 L/R fronts

Energy CC-10 center

Energy CR-10 Bipole surround rears

OPPO-93 Blu Ray

B.I.C. 12" Sub

 

[David Willow]

One thing that always get my attention is when someone refers to their surrounds as 'rears'. It generally implies that they placed the surround speaker on a back wall Thanks to the old Dolby Digital, this is a very common mistake. Surrounds should be placed on either side of the listener. This is especially true for bipoles. Have a look at the speaker layout diagrams on the Dolby site for a good explanation. Also notice in these diagrams the subwoofer location is more of a suggestion. Don't worry if you can't put yours where Dolby suggests. Once your surrounds are properly placed and MACC has been successful, watch a few action movies to see how it sounds. If done properly, no single speaker will call attention to itself. You will only 'hear' the surrounds when the director wants you to. Most of the time you do not notice they are there (they are working, just not calling attention to themselves).