Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater speakers

Ditto!
Please don't give Monster any money for their insultingly overpriced cables.

I saved a ton by ordering all the speaker and sub wire for my new room over the Internet (cable from Monoprice and ends from Parts Express) but if you need it quicker, bulk speaker wire from your hardware store of a good thick gauge, 12 for long runs, 14 or 16 for short. (If your buying bulk, I suggest buying all 12 gauge to keep it simple and so you will never second guess.

I put all my long, in-wall subwoofer runs in using RG6 Coax (coax, same as used for cable TV) and buying RCA wall plates to terminate them with for the sub positions. For short lengths, an appropriate length of sturdy looking sub cable or RCA cable from radio shack will do fine.

For calibration, there are three main steps unless you want to get crazy later on.

First, you want to set up your speakers exactly where you want them before you calibrate. If you move them significantly later, you will have to recalibrate.

Axiom has a really nice article on the desired speaker positions for differnt types of setups including pictures of each one.
url=http://www.axiomaudio.com/home_theater_layout.html]Surround Sound Speaker Positioning[/url]

Secondly, You will want to go into your receiver and set the size and distance for each speaker. Normally, if you are running a subwoofer, you want to set all the other speakers up as [small]. Even your main speakers. This is so it will send the really deeeep bass sounds to your subwoofer, freeing up your other speakers to do what they do best.

It probably will also allow you to set the distance to each speaker from your main listening position. This can be done with a measuring tape and entered into the receiver or, as mentioned, it might all be part of the auto setup feature of your receiver. Good to double check them anyways.

Finally is the actual sound level calibration. There are more detailed guides in this forum but basically you get your receiver (or a test disk like Avia's) to play a test tone into each speaker, one at a time. The receiver will start out somewhere very close to it's reference level (usually 75, 80 or 85 db). Use the setup feature on the receiver to calibrate this first speaker to exactly the desired level (say 80db). You will need a sound meter in your main listening position. Adjust the setting until the needle or numbers are where you want them to be.

((NOTE: I know I don't need to mention it but you need to adjust the numbers in the receiver's setup screens. If you just adjust the volume knob it won't remember what you did.)

Then, simply repeat the process for all of the other speakers.

Post questions here and I'm sure folks will love to answer them.