HDMI issues? and Sub calibration (1 Viewer)

Hello,

Well I finally got my system running. But then I decided to auto calibrate on my Sony STR-DN 840. This actually did a decent job except for it set my front right speaker at a distance of 3 feet 3 inches and at -10.00db. My front left is at 9 feet and +10.00db. They are both the same distance from my seat. The front right was very quiet and I changed it to match the settings on the front left. Now it sounds much better. Should I have done this? The subwoofer also sounds fine but the settings show it at 29 feet and -3.5db. I'm not sure if this is right since there's no way my sub is 29 feet from my seat. Any thoughts on what I need to change this to? The sub is the same distance as the front speakers. I don't move that to +10db do I?

part 2: Does anyone know what causes an input on the receive to not work all of a sudden? When I turn on my blu-ray it will not show up on the TV. I thought it was the cables but I tested them on other devices and they worked fine. I have BD selected on my receiver and connected right but the screen is black and the player shows it's playing just no picture or audio. When i check the source it shows nothing is connected. Is the receiver just not recognizing the signal from the blu-ray?

thanks to anyone who knows the answers.




AVR: Sony STR-DN840
Center: Sony SS-CN495H
Fronts: Polk Audio Monitor 5
Surround: Polk Audion Monitor 5
Sub: Pinnacle Baby Boomer

Buy yourself a radio shack SPL meter and an audio calibration disc, they are cheap and you will be able to check what the receiver is doing and check the accuracy of it, as for the subwoofer, it could be room reflections before it reaches your seat, although 29 feet seems a long way out, i'd try moving it a few inches and re-measuring and see what the results are.

Where did you place your calibration mic before measuring. ?

I guess I will need to get the SPL meter just to make sure. The sub is right in between the center and front right with woofers facing the speakers. it is 4.5 inches away from the wall and roughly 9 feet from where I'm sitting. I thought the front right was off cause it was so close to the corner but my surrounds are in corners and sound great. I re-test it then.

The calibration mic was placed on my chair. It is about 9 feet from the front speakers and system. 2.5 feet from the back wall of the room.

thanks

Like above....1. Probably didn't use a tripod for the Mic like the manual tells you to.2. Did you hot swap in the AVR? If. So, cold swap. Tells you that in the manuals of both.

Silent Chaos said:

I guess I will need to get the SPL meter just to make sure. The sub is right in between the center and front right with woofers facing the speakers. it is 4.5 inches away from the wall and roughly 9 feet from where I'm sitting. I thought the front right was off cause it was so close to the corner but my surrounds are in corners and sound great. I re-test it then.

The calibration mic was placed on my chair. It is about 9 feet from the front speakers and system. 2.5 feet from the back wall of the room.

thanks

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You could also have some room modes playing havoc with your sound, most rooms have them, i had to use a Velodyne SMS-1 to get the subwoofer correct, sometimes just moving an inch or two can really help with the subwoofer and the speakers, i too used the auto equalization but i also like to use an SLP meter and calibration disc to fine tune everything, i found the inbuilt receiver calibration was good for distances but fine tuning using an SPL meter really pays dividends.

I downloaded specialist sine wave tones, basically 1hz increments, really helps you find out if room modes are causing issues with the subwoofer and also the main speaker crossover, its not uncommon to find very large dips of up to 30db in some rooms, audio calibration discs don't generally have tones in 1hz increments so that came in useful, just Google and you can find these.

schan1269 said:

Like above....1. Probably didn't use a tripod for the Mic like the manual tells you to.2. Did you hot swap in the AVR? If. So, cold swap. Tells you that in the manuals of both.

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I did not use a tripod. Actually set it on top of a box on the seat get the right height. I guess I will need to find one around the house.

I did cold swap initially but I think I had to switch HDMI cables. I may have done that while it was on. So I guess if I ever want to unplug or plug in any inputs it will have to be when everything is turned off then?

Silent Chaos said:

I did not use a tripod. Actually set it on top of a box on the seat get the right height. I guess I will need to find one around the house.I did cold swap initially but I think I had to switch HDMI cables. I may have done that while it was on. So I guess if I ever want to unplug or plug in any inputs it will have to be when everything is turned off then?

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Off...and sometimes, unplugged.

Well I reset everything and used a tripod to re-run the auto cal. I got almost the same results. I realized from other readings and the manual that the sub is hard to calibrate. It still showed the distance at 29 feet but it showed the mic picking up at +2db above the others. As far as my front right speaker, I think the room acoustics is just causing the mic to think it's reading it at 3 feet away so it still reads at -9db compared to the front left which is +9db. The surrounds are even at +4.5db and the center is the same at almost 8 feet away with +9db. After fixing front right to match left again. The sound was actually better and the bass was full and deep. After changing the setting to small, the sound improved even further. To me at least, I know this is very subjective to personal taste. The crossover on fronts is 80Hz and 100Hz on center. I did move the sub an inch back. So far so good.

As for the HDMI cables. After cold swap/plugging, I realized the one I was using for the blu ray player was not liked by the receiver. It's a nice thick cable with ferrite cores but for some reason is hated by the Sony. I changed to another equally affordable Vizio high speed HDMI cable and things are all fine now. I don't remember the specks on the "bad" cable but I did read in the nether regions of the receiver manual that this receiver may not take with HDMI/DVI cables. I also am not sure if it is a high speed cable. Either way that issue has been resolved. I'm using that cable with my laptop.

It still showed the distance at 29 feet but it showed the mic picking up at +2db above the others.

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What's the phase setting on your sub amp?

Robert_J said:

What's the phase setting on your sub amp?

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The phase setting is at 0

UPDATE

I'm sure this is something that happens to very few of you here but I apparently missed on triple checking the connections. I've been out of phase on the front right speaker. The black striping is faintly marked and I guess I switched the two up. No more -10db on that speaker. The fronts are coming in at 9 feet and 0db. Center is at 7 feet 7 inches and +1db. Surrounds are +4.5db. Sub came in at 10 feet 10 inches after 5 tries on the calibration at +2db.
The volume levels have gone down to more normal. I only had to bring it up to 15 to shake the room before the fix. Please feel free to pelt the insults on the out of phase speaker fiasco. Thanks.

Sony doesn't include phase check during eq?No razzing. I've done worse.Once connected the left and right speaker together, crawled back there to connect them...and couldn't figure out why I couldn't tug on the wire. (Speakers were 160 lbs each...with locking binding posts)