thanks for the great replies. So with a SPL meter I CAN adjust sub levels manually if I was to buy a Pioneer Elite? That's great. That's what I needed to know, thank you

Again...



all I can say is I strongly disagree. I would bet a lot of money on the fact that I could tell a class a/b amp from a class d amp blindfolded. Even though I don't have experience with "new" receivers, I've owned A LOT of equipment in my life and there is most definitely a difference and no one can convince me otherwise. Many receivers DO sound different, running in direct mode without EQ

Although I do appreciate the opinion either way.

yeah, I have little experience with all this new room correction stuff. I agree, speaker placement is key. Although, I also have little experience with "acoustic treatments". Are you talking about sound absorbtion panels, putting area rugs down, etc?

Right now my old system sounds pretty decent. Although I would like to put a big area rug down on the floor...it's all vinyl hardwood and the adjoining room is tile.

I know different amplifiers shouldn't sound different, but I've had 4 different receivers in the past 4 years. Both of the Pioneer elites sound similar. I never could get the Denon to sound the way I liked it. And the Sony was just trash.

Hmmm interesting, I normally love denon's sound. I've only owned one sony and that was years and years ago.

I'm going to pick up a SC-61 and buy a SPL meter as well.

The SC61 is on for $899 right now in town here.

I agree with you on your assessment on the misnomer of "room correction". I am of the opinion that fixing placement and room related issues through loudspeaker equalization is a poor idea.

There are many challenges out there for $10,000 and higher for those that think they can tell the difference, you should sign up. JohnK, for some reason Coppola's article won't load anymore, hope someone saved it. Mad should have been on that panel.

Yeah, Randy; the Coppola site is down. The Stereo Review double blind listening tests can now be found here . Still unchallenged(by contrary results in controlled tests, not just by stubborn disagreement)after all these years, but with plenty of people fervently believing(as did many of those in the SR tests in the open listening sessions before the blind tests began)that they can hear the inaudible. The importance of controlling all factors so as to be as identical as possible and having no knowledge of the identity of the unit being listened to simply isn't grasped by many.

the sound treatment i did in my room, 3 4x8 ft panels of 1 in. thickness, cost about $225.
i did not do it for looks, otherwise it would have cost more.

it changed the sound quality from unacceptable most of the time to superb sound even for movies at Ref. Level or any music CD/SACD i have.

this represents superb price to improvement ratio.

You could also look for a sound meter app for your smartphone. I have 3 or more on my Android. Each was free and works fine for level matching.

This seems a good example of what can be done for reasonable cost in an extreme case where the room itself was acoustically very bad. In my case the room itself is fairly good to begin with so furniture and speaker placement is sufficient to achieve a very good result.