my rear speakers not loud enough (1 Viewer)

Hey,

I noticed that my rear speakers aren't that loud. I have SEL bookshelfs as the rears running off a Sony STRDE 1075 receiver with dolby digital/DTS while playing a DVD. They aren't very loud, and I say this after seeing someone's home theatre which had a worse receiver but his rears were louder, why is this?
I have tried to put the setting on max for the rears but it doesn't have a significant impact.

The surrounds aren't supposed to be loud. They mainly carry ambient sound, and occassionaly they carry some special effect. If another HT setup had them sounding loud, it was WAY off in adjustment. You should not notice the surrounds during most scenes, and then only notice them during hard-panning action sounds that go back there, if you're paying attention.



No no, don't do that. You need to calibrate your system with an SPL meter using the test tones on your receiver, on on the Avia DVD. Don't just go adjusting things willy-nilly. You COULD use the test tones and guestimate by ear, but I recommend against that.

Usually the rears are too loud because you typically sit much closer to them than the fronts.
How are the speakers mounted? How are they aligned?
Try pointing the two rear speakers at each other or at the primary listening position. Use a laser-pen to see where they are pointing and make sure they are symetric.
This link to our Primer: Home Theater means Accuracy & Calibration will show you how to use a SPL meter ($40 from Radio Shack) and test tones to make sure your rears are adjusted to match your fronts. But dont do the calibration until you are finished playing with speaker position/alignments.