Best way to setup my speakers - rti a5, CSI a6, sats

dusterdust

Hey there, joined this forum looking for setup help. I have the following:

Pioneer VSX 820
RTI A5 as mains
CSI A6 as center
PSW10 (I know) as the sub
Satellites are my rears from my rm95 set.

First question, I've run the mcacc and it sets all my levels to around -10 and lower...is this normal?

Second, As far as my crossover settings are concerned, my receiver only let's you set the xover between large and small, not for each channel.
I've been running mains and center on large with the rears on small with a cover of 100hz (rm95's bottom at 95)... Over read so much about setting everything to small and making the xover 80, but my rears would lose a lot of info wouldn't they?
Its a relatively small room...
Any words of wisdow out there? Any helps appreciated!
Dust

rpf65

By all speakers; do you mean every one, or just the front 3? If it's just the front 3, then the issue is that your surrounds just up to the task. If it is all, then you have other issues, may be even a bad mic.

After running MCACC I think you can manually set the speakers to small, and then manually adjust you cross overs, if your not satisfied. Not really familiar with the procedure, but think it's done through custom or manual settings in the MCACC settings.

I would start by re-running MCACC, preferably in the middle of the night. Any external noise affects any auto-cal program. Turn off the furnace/air conditioner, unplug the frig, and try to get everybody out of the house. The quieter the better. None of these programs are perfect, but MCACC is pretty good, from what I've read.

F1nut

First question, I've run the mcacc and it sets all my levels to around -10 and lower...is this normal?

That will vary depending on the room, speakers, where you set up the mic, etc. That said, -10 is on the low side. Did you run MCACC with dead silence in the house?

Over read so much about setting everything to small and making the xover 80, but my rears would lose a lot of info wouldn't they?

No, the rears are basically ambient and your rears can't produce anything below 95Hz anyway.

Set all to small, crossed at 80Hz and be happy.

dusterdust

If the receiver is set to cut off at 80 though, and my rears don't respond below 95, wouldn't that mean i would lose those freqs?

I listen to a lot of music in stereoX2 mode. Those freqs between 80 and 95 wouldn't end up going anywhere I'm thinking (wouldn't get dumped to the sub, could damage the rears, no?)

F1nut

80Hz is lower than 95Hz, your rears cannot produce anything lower than 95Hz. You won't lose a thing.

F1nut

I listen to a lot of music in stereoX2 mode. Those freqs between 80 and 95 wouldn't end up going anywhere I'm thinking (wouldn't get dumped to the sub, could damage the rears, no?)

First thing, you need to run MCACC again because your results are not as they should be if all channels are set at -10. For example, if the fronts are set to 0, the rears should be less, say -3. That is, you don't want the rears to be as loud as the fronts.

Your rears will simply not produce any sound below 95Hz. You're not going to damage them.

Stereo x 2 is not stereo, so knock that off.

tonyb

If you like all channel stereo, your surrounds are too small to keep pace with the fronts. Like F1nut said, they won't produce anything below 95hz....but your fronts and center will, which will make it sound weird in all channel stereo. Maybe replace them with RTIA 3's for better all channel stereo.

BTW....Around these parts stereo means 2 channel, not 4, as the previous poster referred to. Just sayin'...

Also...-10 is too low. Either you didn't have the mic set up in your listening position, or you had some other noise going on in the room. Manually set them to 0 and adjust to your liking from there while sitting in your listening position to achieve a balanced sound.