After staring at my boxed surrounds for almost a month while waiting on my wife's approval of a final arrangement of the living room, I finally mounted them on the wall and did a full system calibration late last night. One reason I was putting it off was that I hadn't yet picked up any drywall anchors for mounting the surrounds, but a quick scan with a studsensor showed me I wouldn't need any as the studs were more or less in ideal locations for mounting.
After the speakers were mounted and the system calibrated, I popped in the SACD remaster of Brothers in Arms that my brother kindly sent me for Christmas. Everything seemed to be dialed in nicely. One thing I noticed is that even though I sit closer to all the speakers in my new living room, I need to have the receiver's volume set higher to achieve the same listening levels as before. The new room is carpeted and decidedly less 'live' than my former room. (We're planning on replacing the carpet with bamboo flooring at some point in the future, so I may be able to recapture some dBs then.)
My SPL meter will now reenter another long period of hibernation.
