quiet surrounds (1 Viewer)

[Hunter M]

All right I have the Klipsch quintet II surrounds and they seem very quiet. I even put the level on them to +8 and I still can't notice much surround audio, is this how it's supposed to be (my first home theater) or should surround noise be very noticeable? Thanks.

 

[ScottCarr]

What is powering the speakers?

 

[Hunter M]

Onkyo TX-SR500

 

[Lee Carbray]

Have you calibrated them to match the rest of the speakers? What is your room layout and how are they positioned? It the speakers are all calibrated to the correct level then your expectations may not be ideal.

Whether the surrounds are supposed to stand out or not depends on the DVD and how is was mixed. Some use very little surrounds and some usa a lot. A good scene with active surround information is the opening beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. On the other hand if you are watching a movie with little or no action they probably will not draw attention to themselves but will be filling in the score and the ambient noise.

 

[Hunter M]

Well I had them all matched to the same volume, but they seemed way too quiet, so i bumped them up to +8, and it was a little improvement, but not much, I'm wondering if I should turn them up even more. I'll have to test the saving priv. ryan. The speakers are positioned about 6ft from either side of a couch, and about 6 and a half feet up facing straight out.

 

[Barry BB]

It sounds to me that you're expecting too much. As noted in a previous post there are some DVD scenes where the surrounds do draw attention to themselves. But for the most part surrounds take care of the ambient sounds and more or less disappear into the background. You should not be bunping them up so that you can "hear" them. Sometimes I think that my surrounds are not working until I put my head up next to them and then I hear them cranking out the background sounds.

If you do a proper calibation then you are hearing what you should be hearing.

 

[Mike Sloan]

Calibrate the speakers with the AVIA (or similiar) calibration disc with a SPL meter. That is the only way you will verify your observations. Then you will have real numbers to work with.

 

[Drew_W]

If you want a nifty clip to test your system with, use the DTS trailer thats on all the SuperBit DVDs. It's not too long, but it has some of that nice swirly action to give your surrounds a good run for the money.

(Not to mention *PLENTY* of LFE action at the end of the clip)