Rjones, glad your speakers sound great. I formerly had M22s and STF-2; they are a great combination.
I don't know how the H/K cal system works. It putting all five speakers at +10db doesn't seem right. My Yamaha RX-V1400 automatically adjusts tone volume during calibration, since some speakers are much more efficient than others. You seem to describe a semi-automatic procedure where you manually set the volume, then the calibration mic takes measurements. I can't see how this would work consistently, since -15db receiver volume on some speakers would be drastically different loudness than others with different efficiency.
Getting the meter was a good idea. 75db pink noise calibration tones on the "C" scale isn't severely loud, nor should it require cranking your receiver way, way, up.
For music, I often listen at about 75db, which to my taste is "comfortably loud". 85db is very loud, and I only listen for short periods at that level.
Are you sure you used the meter properly? For calibration with tones, set it to "C" weighting, slow, and the scale to 70db. If your goal is calibrating to 70db loudness, the meter should read 0db when 70db SPL is present. For 75db, it should read +5, or you can switch to 80db scan and it would read -5.
For measuring music loudness it's sometimes useful to try "fast", not "slow", to see transients.
In general using a calibration DVD is better than receiver test tones, since that uses the entire playback chain. However receiver test tones plus a Radio Shack meter are a lot better than nothing.
It's possible your calibration mic didn't get the loudness it expected, so boosted all speakers +10db trying to compensate. Usually the max boost is 10db, so this may have swamped any attempt to set varying levels for calibration. I'd suggest re-checking your manual, trying it a few more times, contact the receiver mfg for any tech notes or support forums. If that doesn't work, just use the RS meter and manually calibrate to 70 or 75db, whichever you're most comfortable with. The main goal is getting relative loudness set properly between all the speakers and the sub.
