Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Radio Shack SPL meter

I have a Denon 1803 receiver, dvd player, pair of M60 speakers,the vp150 for the center, vhs & cd player. Since i only have 3 speakers should i still get a Radio Shack SPL meter. What difference will i see after i use it?

well if you dont have a subwoofer or surrounds i dont think the level calibration is as critical. the sensitivity of your speakers might differ a little but it wouldnt be as big a difference as an uncalibrated subwoofer usually makes.

I never did get one of these once I got my surround speaker setup. I just listened to the levels and tried to adjust it by ear. Does having the meter and doing it that way make that much of a difference?

Hi,

The Radio Shack SPL meter coupled with a good set of test signals just enables greater precision. Lots of enthusiasts run their surrounds and subs at levels that are too high--they think they have to hear them as sources of sound--and then complain about center-channel dialogue intelligibility.

With practice, you can adjust levels by ear fairly accurately, but even I find that the SPL meter and the Sound&Vision Home theater tune-up DVD let you fine-tune levels even better.

Regards,

Yeah, after spending a couple of 100 to a few 1000 dollars on the speakers, why skimp on a $50 purchase that will assure you an accurate calibration of these speakers? I do not see a reason NOT to buy one...

Before the SPL I had my sub a tad low and my center was way too low. I guess my ears are way off.

Saturn

One must not forget that although a sound level device will allow the user to setup the speakers equally all on sides, their ears may not be hearing at equal levels.
This is often true of those older in age that may have any extensive amount of hearing damage from years of concert going or even someone who's had a blown ear drum or ear infection decreasing the perception of sound on one side.
Sometimes using just your ears will actually help to setup your HT the way your individual ears like to hear it.

Does pretty much everyone get the radio shack one? Any general preferences out there on the analog vs. digital if I am going to go out and get one?

Many people still seem to like the analog model, due to the more "intuitive" look of its meter (literally!). However, I went with the digital one, primarily because of the nifty peak-hold (max SPL) feature. Also, I felt that the build quality was better in the digital model, but it's just me...

You can't buy the analog meter anymore. RS only sells the digital one. However, I'm sure the analog can be found used on eBay pretty cheaply.

According to radioshack.com it's still available online and in-store.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F008%5F021%5F006%5F000&product%5Fid=33%2D2050

Unless my memory is failing I believe only the digital one is available in Canada, not the analog one.

Radio shack only had the analog one, so I bought that. I believe someone mentioned a goodsound test CD to use with it. Should I use this, just the test tones on the receiver, something else? What's best to use to set everything up now that I have the meter?

I would use the receiver's test tones first. But if you want to calibrate both audio and video (TV monitor or whatever) parts of your system, go get the AVIA DVD. It is a "must" for all serious hometheater owners. The AVIA DVD also contains a chapter explaining how to use the RadioShack meter.

The sound and vision home theatre tuneup dvd is also a good choice for home theatre tweaking.

It may vary from receiver to receiver. On my Denon 3803, I could not use the test tones from the CD. I had to use the test tones from the receiver. Either way should enable you to calibrate your speakers.

I've only had about 10 minutes to play with it, but either my meter doesn't work or I'm doing something stupid. I set it to C for weighting slow for response point it towards the speakers and turn it on with the range knob. The battery test brings the needlee up fine into the red batt test area. Then I go through all the numbers in the range and nothing registers!

Leave the meter's range knob at 70 and start the manual sound calibration from your receiver. (I find it difficult to adjust the sound using the automatic option.) Point to the speaker and adjust the gain on the receiver until the meter registers 0. As long as all your speakers are calibrated the same way, you will be fine.

I am assuming you have problem calibrating

If you are playing music, that is normal. The reading will keep changing every second or so, since the sound level changes all the time in music. You should get a stable reading when playing a stationary test tone, such as pink noise. Incidentally, you should hold the meter with the mic pointing to the ceiling, at the ear level, in your listening location.

Why towards the ceiling? I was pointing towards the speaker. Nothing registered even when using the pink noise. I'll try it again tonight if I get a chance.

Pointing up around ear level is correct. So when the test tones play on each speaker you don't have to reorient the SPL. Just keep it in front of your face pointing up at one place as you go through all test tones on all speakers. Thats how I calibrated all my speakers including my sub. The AVIA disk also has a good subwoofer tone that tests the low frequency by cycling down the Hz. This can actually test how low your sub can really go. This test also if your mains are crossovered to your sub correctly. I never realized I had a dip in sound level around 65Hz when I had my receiver crossovered at 60Hz, so I raised the crossover of my receiver to 80Hz and the tone blanded nicely from my mains to my sub. At pink noise levels I set all my speakers to 75Hz including my sub so that all will be playing at the same loudness level. DTS and DD sounds fantastic when calibrated like this. The sub now is not too loud or too soft.

Saturn

ps: my mains actually image better when I set it to small and crossovered to 80Hz. The mid range, stage and clarity dramitically improved. All speakers are diffrent though. My old Monitor Audio Silver S6 (configuration and sounds like a M60) sounded better when you set it to Large and set the crossover to 40 - 60Hz

The mic on the RS meter is "omnidirectional," meaning that when it is pointed up toward the ceiling, it will sense sounds coming from all 360-degree horizontal directions most uniformly. That is exactly what you want when calibrating your speakers.

I just tried it again. My SPL must be calibrated incorrectly or something. I had the pink noise on the speakers cranked up and I got no reading on the SPL. I set it to 60 for the range and yelled right near it and that is the only time I even got it to move...up to about -6, which would be 54db...according to the manual that came with it background music registers at 60db, so something doesn't seem quite right. I'm going to the mall later anyway, so unless I get a post back letting me know there is something stupid I'm doing wrong, I'm going to try to exchange it.

Alright...I'm feeling better now. Exchanged it, the new one is working great! As seems to be normal, my sub was configured way too high. A little more suprising, the other speakers were off by a bit as well. I ended up with:

L=+5, C= +7, R= +9 Surr R= +5, Surr L= +4

I'm suprised the right is so much more then the left to get the same DB level. It is somewhat in a corner, perhaps that is why.

Thanks for the help is getting this setup.

Well call me crazy zarak but your system then should sound equal if you took 4 units off of each speaker, no?

L=+1
C=+3
R=+5
Surr R=+1
Surr L=0

Or, how about the following settings, which is normalized to zero average?

L=-1
C=+1
R=+3
Surr R=-1
Surr L=-2

I think it is actually important to have the correction value of each channel as close to zero as possible, since that will ensure the best possible dynamic range and S/N of the receiver.