Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Calibrating HT systems

How often should you calibrate your system? Does everyone do it everytime they turn the system on or on a periodical basis like once a week or something?

shag

Once the system is calibrated it should stay that way unless :

- you move the speakers around
- your receiver "crashes" and loses the settings
- someone messes with the settings when you are not there
- you have free time one weekend and think you could do better this time

You should recalibrate if you move a speaker, or the sub, even a few inches

yes, i had to move my sub when we had to move the furniture around to make room for the christmas tree. so , it is a little out of whack, and we had to move a couch right up next to the sub, so it sounds a little muddled, so i dailed up the gain a little.. once we get everything back in its normal place after the new year, i will have to re-calibrate and get it back inline. no biggie, rat shack meter makes it easy!!

bigjohn

I've got individual adjustments for the speakers and sub on my remote and tend to tweak them (especially the sub) based on the source material I am listening to. As a result, I recalibrate once a month and I usually find I have tweaked myself out of the sweet spot a bit since the last calibration, so it's worthwhile to re-do occasionally.

Actually, you should recalibrate if you move your furniture around, too.

I just calibrated mine for the first time ever, only had the system for a year. I only used the pink noise and was surprised to find that my ears are actually reasonably accurate. My sub was the only offender in the group. Once I turned it down, my CD's sounded much more natural and not as booming as they had been in the past. I decided to recheck at 60db and found it off a little(User error?). I recalibrated at 60db and tested at 70, 80 & 90db and all speakers read the same.

I would think that the only reason to recalibrate would if the room has changed in some way, a new piece of furniture added or removed or the speakers had to be moved for some reason. Or any of the above previously mentioned.

I am hoping to get a setup CD soon and try out the calibration at the different frequencies to see if it gets any better.