Noob help with 70s, 50s and 505- settings

Jerzdawg

Need some help from my fellow Polk experts.

Equipment

Fronts Polk 70s
Center paradigm Monitor
Surrounds polk 50s
Sub 505
rec onkyo 809

I ran the aud setup and hate how everything sounds. I can barely hear the fronts while the surrounds are almost too loud. Center seems a bit low but not terrible. I have been reading about crossover settings but everyone suggests something different. So far the only thing I got right was setting the 505 to 120hz. Any help is appreciated. Thanks !

cnh

Welcome to Club Polk!

120hz is definitely NOT correct for that speaker set! Start at 80hz. You have Polk towers all the way around that can reach pretty low. And the lower you set the LFE crossover the LESS you will be able to locate where the bass is coming from--which is a good thing!

Try setting all your speakers to 80hz and tweak from there. If things still sound like A$$, get an SPL meter (you might be able to find one at a local Radioshack?). You can use the SPL meter to set the "level" of each speaker individually! That should solve the problem of balancing the sound level of everything.

Or, you might want to try setting all your speakers to 80hz and then running the Onkyo Auto set up again?

Good luck!

cnh

tonyb

I guess first off, we have to distinguish how you have the sub hooked up. Do you have one cable going from the subwoofer output on the receiver to the input on the sub ? If so, the crossover on the back of the sub should be turned up to the highest value as you are going to use the crossover in the receiver instead.

Go into your receivers menu and set the crossover at 80, all speakers size to small, and the speaker levels to 0, and enter the speakers distance from your listening spot. Maybe boost the sub level to +3 to start. Adjust from there to what your ears like. You can change speaker size to large if you like too and see if you like the sound.

The auto calibration doesn't always get it right. The mic has to be at ear level in your listening position with no other noise present while it's running or it will throw it off. Thats a good start and of course nothing is written in stone so play around until you find your sound.

Jerzdawg

Thanks, I'll start by setting everything to 80

The sub is hooked via the only coax cable from receiver to sub. I set the manual dial to 120 as well as te reciever settings. Also set the speakers to 0 instated of -1 or -2


After a bit of watching some tv it's already a huge improvement. It still seems like the surrounds are much louder than the fronts. Is the trick to increasing the fronts volume by increasing the setting to +1 or +2?

Thanks again for walking me through this.

tonyb

You can always decrease the surround levels, try -3 and go from there. There is no standard setting as everyones ears and listening environment differ.