Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Speaker Calibration Inconsistency

Okay. Here's a tricky one. My speakers showed up Wednesday, I got them all placed/hung, and went out yesterday and bought a Radioshack Sound Meter. Brought it home, popped in Avia, and calibrated the speakers according to their instructions. Got the fronts, the center, and the surrounds all set up so they were showing the same level on the meter.

Then, just out of curiousity, I went into the Denon speaker configuration on my amp and ran it's built in tones for calibration and the results were vastly different. (The surrounds were about 5db hotters than the fronts, the center was about 1-2db hotter than the front.)

Who do I trust here? Avia, or Denon?

The less than scientific answer would be, "Whichever sounds better to you.

When I finally go a sound meter, I discovered ny Denon matched everything the same as my sound meter (sub excluded because of the known tweak) except for the surrounds which it made 4 and 4.5 db higher. I matched everything evenly with the sound meter and tried a few movies over a few nights. Eventually, I went back to setting the surrounds 4 db higher again.

I suspect it has much to do with my rooms very lousy acoustics and the Denon processor was picking up something that the meter was not, as I only used the single test tones from the Avia disk with the meter. That is to say, I haven't bothered to rate the whole spectrum yet.

Or perhaps it's just that I really enjoy surround effects and got used to them at the higher levels.

In any rate, there is science and there is subjectivity. Which one can make you happier? Being both a high tech geek and semi-rubberbooter kayaker, it's always an internal struggle that I have.

What's the known sub tweak? (I'm not sure if it's 'known' to me... ) I have it calibrated using the Denon tones at the moment. I watched the 'save the plane' scene in Superman Returns and it sounded pretty amazing. Maybe I'll tweak the surrounds up a notch or two and watch it again to see how that effects the sound stage.

abbub, if you ran an auto calibration feature with the Denon, try doing it manually, though using the Denon pink noise tones.
The auto calibration features are sometimes not so great.

In the past i have done calibrations using my Onkyo tones and a S&V test disc. The settings were nearly identical although i had noticed one of my speakers was at least adjusted an extra dB upward or downward compared to the others using the S&V disc, yet while using the Onkyo tones adjustments were made but slightly different from the S&V disc setup.
This is likely due to the source itself. Since each dvd may be mastered in somewhat different ways, you may find that some movies will be louder, some softer, some will have more prominent centre dialogue, etc.
As such, using a dvd test disc will setup your system to be equal from speaker to speaker as best as it can for dvd utilization. Since we also watch satellite and listen to cds, using that test disc may not be the best method for calibrating your system, though it should still provide a balanced playback.
In the case that you use more than dvds, just use the tones from the Denon directly and do the calibrations manually rather than allowing the auto function to set things up. This will still provide a balanced sound reproduction from your system even though the values obtained by this method may be slightly different from the dvd test disc results.

In the end, if you feel that one channel sounds louder and more prominent than others, adjust it up or down a notch until playback sounds balanced to you. The first time i setup my system i did not own a sound meter. After i purchased one i only needed to make one small adjustment. Your ears are still pretty good in determining close approximations in this regard.

If I'm reading your post correctly, you manually calibrated to Avia and again to the Denon's test tones. If that is correct (and you didn't use an the Denon's autocalibration), the problem you are experiencing is because of calibrating to different source components. How do you have the DVD player connected? If it is through the analogue outs, you should calibrate to the Denon, and then calibrate to the player using the player's menu (there should be test tones there too). If you are connected digitally (TOSLink of coax)... well, I'm unsure of why there is a discrepancy. I'd default to the Denon's calibration in this case.

A last suggestion, if you are holding the meter in your hand, the proximity of your body to the meter can affect its readings. Put it on a stand and step back a few feet. Make sure your body is not between the meter and the speaker playing the test tone.

You read it correctly, mrnomas.

I manually calibrated with the DVD, which was being played back on a JVC XV-SA600 connected via TOSLink to the Denon. I then manually ran through the tones on the Denon menu and found some major descrepency. The sound meter was in the same position the entire time, mounted on a tripod, and I made a point to not get between the speakers and the meter.

i have the avia disk and a denon and have noticed the same issue. basically I use the denon output, except I use the freq sweep on the avia for subwoofer location/tuning.

I had done speaker calibration with the avia disc and the test tones my B&K reciever puts out, but i found that once i turned the surrounds up a few db and a couple for the center it sounded much better. I rarely noticed the surrounds when everything was calibrated the same.

Isn't that sort of the idea, though? I thought you weren't really supposed to actively 'notice' the mix that's being sent to the surrounds? (...at least with Home Theatre. Surround setup for audio is a whole different beast, from what I can tell...) Anyway, it seems pretty common for people to turn up the surrounds, rears and subs (!) a bit more than they should in order to emphasize the fact that they have them.