i have a yamaha rx-v557 to which my satellite decoder is connected. some channels seem to have very soft audio, and some much louder so that often, when i switch between channels there will be a big jump up in volume, freaking out everyone in the house.
back when i had my satellite decoder hooked up right to my TV, this never happened.
is there any way to make my receiver compensate and even out the levels of different channels?
Check the cable tuner set-up menus. I use digital cable and can set audio to automatic, which generally evens out the volume of each channel.
Another thing I noticed is channels with Dolby Digital output played softer than those that output stereo. When I hooked up a coax connection for the digital channels all was evened out again.
Generally, you will not be able to compensate for this with the onboard receiver controls, especially with analog connections. Digital connection volume tends to be more uniform.