Volume drops as baseline kicks in.

Re: Volume drops as baseline kicks in.

A: Yes, Yes, you set it, Yes

With your smaller room, the perceived output should be louder (less airspace to move). I would recommend renting or buying Avia's Guide to Home Theater DVD or Video Essentials to test the polarity of your speakers & ensure that everything is hooked up correctly. Blockbuster & other rental companies usually carry at least 1 of these titles.

The crossover frequency of the subwoofer will matter but I don't think it will have as large an effect as what you are hearing. In the receiver's setup menu is where you usually specify the subwoofer crossover setting (and also whether or not you have a subwoofer hooked up to your receiver). Read the manual for more info. A crossover is a set of filters that are used to pass a selected portion of a signal onto a driver or speaker. Your main speakers have passive crossovers inside them (to send the higher frequencies to the tweeter and the lower frequencies to the mid-bass drivers). This allows the speakers to operate more efficiently and prevent them from becoming overloaded (operating outside their linear region). I think the crossover that you are talking about is your subwoofer crossover. This will control what information goes to your main speakers and what information goes to your subwoofer. If you do not have a sub, you'll want to adjust the receiver settings so sub = no.

Room acoustics play a major part in the perceived sound. However, it will typically not cause something to fade in and out... the frequencies will either be too loud (a peak) or too soft (a null). If you move around in the room, does the music sound any better (i.e. problem is not audible)? If it does not sound better your primary issue is likely not acoustic in nature.

More possibilities:
1) Are all the connections tight?
2) Something may have broken during the move.
3) Are you in a modern home with good electrical service?

Can you give us more details as to how you've connected everything and with what type of cable (i.e. RCA cable from receiver sub-out to sub, speaker wire from receiver binding posts to speaker, etc.)? More info will help us debug the problem.