What Is The Purpose Of AVR Speaker Distance Setting?

DavidSeon
DavidSeon Posts: 10
edited December 2011 in Electronics
My Sony receiver has a setting for Speaker Distance as I'm guessing most AVRs do. The distances calculated by the auto-calibration program are pretty accurate, but they are also one of the parameters I can set manually. Just playing around, if I change the distances it doesn't seem to affect any of the other settings, such as Speaker Levels. I'm just curious, is this setting supposed to actually do something, and is there ever any reason to change it?
polkaudio Series II
Monitor 70 x 2
CS2 w/Sanus NFC18C Stand
Monitor 40 x 2 w/Pinpoint AM-40B Mounts
PSW505
HTPC
Intel DH57DD/i5-661
Hauppauge HVR-2250 Dual Tuner
AVR
Sony STRDH820 7.2 Channel 3D
Post edited by DavidSeon on
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Comments

  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    edited December 2011
    Sound travels at a specific rate, so, depending on the distance, the AVR will delay the sound out of each speaker in order to insure that the sound from all speakers reach your ears at the correct time.
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  • Glowrdr
    Glowrdr Posts: 1,103
    edited December 2011
    What BF said. Lets say you have a 1000 ft room, and your listening area is at the back of the room for some reason. In this EXTREME scenerio, you may hear the surrounds before the fronts if things were setup incorrectly. Granted, this would probably never happen. It's just another tool to dial in your settings that much closer.
    65" Sony X900 (XBR-65X900E)
    Pioneer Elite SC-37
    Polk Monitor 70's (2)
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    Squeezebox Duet
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  • DavidSeon
    DavidSeon Posts: 10
    edited December 2011
    Ah ok, I didn't realize it could do that. The manual is very skimpy; no description, just allowable values.
    Thanks for the replies.
    polkaudio Series II
    Monitor 70 x 2
    CS2 w/Sanus NFC18C Stand
    Monitor 40 x 2 w/Pinpoint AM-40B Mounts
    PSW505
    HTPC
    Intel DH57DD/i5-661
    Hauppauge HVR-2250 Dual Tuner
    AVR
    Sony STRDH820 7.2 Channel 3D
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter