I purchased a H/K AVR 630 the other day and started watching the Matrix 1-3. I have to put the reciever to a volume of -11 before I really feel the "movie effect", Is this normal? It seems I shouldn't have to turn the reciever up so high. Any ideas? I have it hooked up to 2-Infinity Alph 50 fronts , 1 Infinity Alpha center, a 12" Infinity woofer, and 2 Infinity OWL surrounds speakers. I have it hooked up with an optical cable.
It sounds fine to me. I have to turn up my NAD T762 to about that high to get it where I want it too. Sometimes, it also depends on the DVD/CD that you are using. Some of my DVD's naturally play at a lower volume so you just have to turn it up higher to get the same sound. Just so long as you don't have it so loud that it damages your speakers, it shouldn't really matter how high you have to put it at.
Jason, it depends on what you mean by "movie effect". Do you mean that it just doesn't seem loud enough during non-dynamic scenes or that during dynamic scenes the "punch" isn't quite there? If it's the former, I think that's just the way DVDs are recorded, if it's the latter I would set all of your speakers to 'small' and calibrated them.
I had the same issue with my AVR230. You can adjust your speakers individually in the channel guide. I have my center set at +10db and the left and right at +9db. After that adjustment Dolby Digital sounded way better. You have to set the speakers again for each format