Please help with setting speaker levels

 

Bronze Member
Username: Vasia

Post Number: 32
Registered: May-04
I just got the Kenwood DV-5700 hooked up for DVD-Audio and I am trying to calibrate my Marantz SR8300 with a pair of MA Silver 8's, silver center and Hsu STF-2 sub (SFX surrounds are hopefully coming very soon). When I do tests using SPL meter and SR8300 menu, I have to set up sub pretty low. However, on Kenwood DVD-A setup actually sub turns out pretty low and need to be turned up. To have sub properly levels in both setups I had to set the dial on the sub's amp to about 50% and -12dB on SR8300 level setup (other speakers are around 0dB) and Kenwood 5.1 channel setup has all speakers at -8 to -10 db and sub at 0 db. However, when I watch movies, the sub does not seem to produce level of oomph that I guess it should with 5.1 DD.
Couple of more things, my mains are set to large and center to small and Marantz also has individual level setup for 7.1 inputs that I use for DVD-A,but I have not tried changing those.
What am I doing wrong? Are all speakers supposed to be set to small for movies? Also, is it better to have sub amp set tp low and have high setting in the receiver (e.g. have +smth dB) or vise versa?
Marantz does not seem to allow to set sub level for each playback format, just a general setting for all modes.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Vasia

Post Number: 33
Registered: May-04
Can someone tell me whether in general should the sub volume on the sub amp be set to low and then the volume in the receiver setup set to high, or the other way around (sub volume set to high on the sub amp and to low in the receiver)?
 

J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Please refer to your owner's manual for the best recommendations.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Vasia

Post Number: 34
Registered: May-04
J.Vigne,
Great, great recommendation. And I was wondering what was this huge booklet in 50 languages for. Anybody with a useful suggestion?
 

Gold Member
Username: Project6

Post Number: 1087
Registered: Dec-03
set the sub amp to mid point and experiment with the placement. Some subs are very sensitive to placement.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Vasia

Post Number: 35
Registered: May-04
Thanks for the suggestion, Berny. Hsu people also recommended trying placing sub as an end table, so I'll try that.
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