Proper Setup??? Need some help please

jdiddy · 10-12-2006, 08:05 AM

This is my first post here so please bare with me. I have recently purchased some home theater equipment and I am not for sure if I have set it up correctly. Let me give you a brief description of my room and then what equipment I have then I will ask my questions. I have setup my theater in my living room which has 3 walls; there is no 4th wall it just opens up into the kitchen/dining room area. ( I know this is not ideal but it is the only place I could setup this stuff. I would have preferred a dedicated home theater room) As for room size its about 19ft long (including the kitchen/dining room area) by 19ft wide and about 8foot ceilings. The actual living room area where my speakers etc are installed is about 16ft long by 12ft wide with 8ft ceilings. I have a Onkyo DV-CP702 dvd player, a Onkyo TX-SR703 THX receiver, 7 ¡V SVSound SBS.01 speakers and 1 SVSound PB12-Plus/2 subwoofer. So I calibrated my system using avia and a spl meter. I set my receiver to 00 ¡Vdb and then calibrated everything to 75db one time and then 85db another time. At this time I believe it is calibrated at 85db and my speakers are Front L 0db, Front Center -3db, Front Right +2db, surround right +2, surround back right +8, surround back left +10, surround left +3 and the sub is -12. All the speakers appeared to have the same output using the spl meter. This was the first time I ever calibrated my system using the avia disk and spl meter. When watching movie¡¦s I set the volume to -15db on the receiver but some of the dialogue is just to low and the sub output is low to. I end up having to bump up the sub to -3db and the front¡¦s and center to +3db. But that is still a little low with the volume set to -15db.

Questions

1) Is the room just to big for these sbs-01 speakers?
2) Does it look like the numbers are anything close to looking ok?
3) Should I re-calibrate the system again?
4) Should I just turn up the volume on the receiver a little more say -10db?

I do like to listen to some of my movies loud but when I have company or my girlfriend is over we don¡¦t turn it up. I do like to however hear all the dialogue etc and not have to second guess what was said ya know?

Thanks for all your help.

mackie · 10-12-2006, 06:06 PM

There are a lot of different ways to answer your questions. These are my thoughts on this, so take it with a grain of salt....

Don't have your sitting position be in the middle of the room. Acoustic problems happen if you do. Preferably, have you seating position about 1/3 of the length of the room from the speakers.

The size of a speaker needed is dependent on how far you sit from them. Those SVS might be too small if you sit 15 feet away from them, but they're probably fine if you're sitting 6-10 feet from them.

Move the speakers as far out in the room as possible and keep as far from any side walls or large objects as possible. If a TV is between them, make sure the front of the speaker baffle is at least even with the front of the TV if not a little forward.

Having soft furniture, couch curtains and other things can help control reflections and deaden the room.

My room is similar to yours and it has some advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is a large open sound stage. The disadvantage is lots of reverberation at loud levels.

BTW - no room is perfect. There are always tradeoffs.

mackie · 10-12-2006, 06:11 PM

http://www.realtraps.com/art_vibes.htm

Dig around in this website. It has lots of useful information on acoustics and speaker placements.

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · 10-12-2006, 10:41 PM

Hi Justin,

Looks like you got a nice set-up there. I’ll try to tackle your questions.

Quote:

1) Is the room just to big for these sbs-01 speakers?

Not likely. I had a SBS-01 loaner set here a month or so ago. My room is three times the size of yours, and they did just fine.

Quote:

2) Does it look like the numbers are anything close to looking ok?

It is a bit peculiar that some of your numbers vary so much. However, your room and/or placement could easily account for it. For instance, speakers near a boundary or corner will put out more bass than speakers that aren’t near boundaries, and that will show up on the SPL meter as a higher number. I’ll bet with your room open to the kitchen you have some speakers close to walls, and others away from walls. So, a speaker away from the wall will show a lower SPL reading, so you turn up the level of that speaker to compensate.

To minimize this effect, try setting the meter to “A” weighting . “A” weighting removes the bass from the reading, so you might get closer numbers. That’s probably the best thing to do in your situation.

As far as the sub: Setting the levels with AVIA, most people like to have it 10 dB or so above the mains (“C”-weighting) for things to “sound” right. I noticed you adjusted it from –12 to –3, so you’ve pretty much already done that.

And the center channel: I find that some movies in places have so much going on in the other channels that the dialog can get “drowned out.” So, kicking up the center channel a tad can help. I suggest listening to it a while to make sure the dialog problem is happening regularly, not just with certain discs. Even so, it’s fine to bump up the center if you feel you need to.

Quote:

3) Should I re-calibrate the system again?

As noted, it might not hurt to re-do the mains with “A” weighting.

Quote:

4) Should I just turn up the volume on the receiver a little more say -10db?

Only if you feel that everything overall is too low (i.e., not just the dialog).

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

jdiddy · 10-13-2006, 08:39 AM

thanks for all the responses. They are very helpful. I am also talking with Erik at SVS and will be re-calibrating the system this weekend and keep all your comments in mind.

thanks again for your help

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