What dB to set speakers for 5.1

Jdubbs

right now they are set to 2.0 for fronts, center and rears with the sub set to 9.0 and it sounds great. I'm just in a curious and "tweaking" mood and wanted to get some thoughts from ClubPolk as to what you use...thanks.

Mon40CSMM10

If that sounds good to you, it's likely you may not have to make any adjustments at all.

However, this is the overall process I went through to try to best calibrate the system for both movies and music.

1. I started with a receiver Quick Setup...

Is Subwoofer used? No.
Number of Speakers: 5.0 ch.
Room Size: Small.
Listening Position: Back.


This resulted in the following default values
Front Left: 0.0 dB
Center: -1.5 dB
Front Right: 0.0 dB
Right Surround: -3.5 dB
Left Surround: -3.5 dB

(Note: Is Subwoofer Used: No sets the Front speakers to Large, but this can also be adjusted manually after the setup is done.)

2. The receiver manual also recommends calibrating the speakers to 75 dB SPL per channel (C-weighting/slow reading). Since the receiver didn't have auto calibration, I used a Scosche SPL-1000 dB measurement tool along with the receiver's test tones that play at a reference volume of -18 dB, and then ended up with the following:

Front Left: -1.0 dB
Center: -3.5 dB
Front Right: -1.0 dB
Right Surround: -10 dB
Left Surround: -10 dB

3. Now, I also use the receiver's Dialog Enhancement feature for movies, so I had manually balanced the Center channel level with the dialog mixed out the Front Left/Front Right speakers. The final speaker levels are as follows:

Front Left: -1.0 dB
Center: -2.5 dB
Front Right: -1.0 dB
Right Surround: -10 dB
Left Surround: -10 dB

This also reflects a small room home theater configuration with the following speaker distances:

Front Left: 9.0 feet.
Center: 8.0 feet
Front Right: 9.5 feet.
Right Surround: 3.5 feet.
Left Surround: 3.5 feet.

4. I did also make one more adjustment relevant to Dolby Pro Logic Music mode that I use for music and video games. I decided to front-bias the sound from the speakers, set the center width mostly towards the left/right front speakers, and not have the sound also wrap around to the surround speakers. This resulted in:

Center Width: 6 (range 0 to 7).
Dimension: +3 (range -3 to +3).
Panorama: Off.

Done! At some point I'll get a subwoofer to add to the configuration, but for now, it's set up and doesn't need further adjusting.

Again, your settings may not need to be changed at all. Alternatively, if they are going to be changed, it will vary depending on your AVR, room setup, and also just simply how you want your setup to sound.

Kind of long, but hope this helps.

kuntasensei

Jdubbs wrote: »

right now they are set to 2.0 for fronts, center and rears with the sub set to 9.0 and it sounds great. I'm just in a curious and "tweaking" mood and wanted to get some thoughts from ClubPolk as to what you use...thanks.

Both your Denon and your Pioneer have auto-setup mics that will do the level matching for you. Get a cheap tripod, put the auto-setup mic on it, put it at ear level in your main listening position and let it do its thing.

Alternately, get a SPL meter and set the levels yourself, though your Denon has Audyssey's MultEQ XT, which lets you move the mic to multiple positions to get a good general equalization based on your room's acoustics. In this case, put the mic at your main listening position first, then do 2 feet to the left, then 2 feet to the right, then mirror those positions about 1.5 ft further into the room. That should give Audyssey enough data to not only level match all of your speakers, but also to equalize your speakers/sub for flatter response.