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If you use the Denon Auto Setup, it does not matter. It automatically adjusts the volume for you to what ever was decided by Denon. The end result is an 80dB SPL from the primary position.

I usually tame that down to around 75dB once the Auto Setup is complete. I've tried the whole adjust the left speaker to 0dB first and then the rest of the speakers after that. Like Jakeman said, the end result and that your speakers are calibrated the same, to whatever level.

Mo, the numbers on the volume setting have no absolute meaning except that at a given input voltage the bigger ones are louder than the smaller ones. Some receivers of course don't use the - to 0 to + format(one of my receivers goes 1 to 79), but it doesn't make any difference. As to your question about what SPL levels would be heard with the volume at 0dB(when applicable), I'd say that it would depend on the dynamic range of the material being played, and on the very widest range classical material(rare)it could vary from a barely audible(in a very quiet room)40dB up to a brief 110dB peak. Much pop music is almost uniformly loud and has very little dynamic range, so even if the listening was at an extremely loud 90dB average, there might be no peaks above about 95dB. My own classical music listening when "loud" is at an average of about 80dB(using less than 1 watt), and hits brief peaks in the 100dB area on some compositions.

Of interest on the question of sound levels was Alan's discussion in the March newsletter .

When something is labelled 1 to 79, I realize that there isn't any physical meaning behind the numbers because they are dimensionless. But when I look at my Denon and it gives me the number in units of dB, I have to wonder what the engineers were thinking. There must be a reason behind labelling the numbers in dB. I still think it's related to the voltage across an 8 Ohm resistive load with a signal of known frequency and amplitude. Now what that translates to in the real world is a mystery to me.

Didn't the dB scale at least <i>used to</i> correlate to the amount of attenuation applied to the pre-amp's output signal?

At -&#8734;dB, the signal is fully attenuated/muted.
At 0dB, the signal is passed unaltered at line level.
At + dB levels, the signal is being boosted.

One would think this is still the case, no?

For those who said we would be going deaf with our receivers calibrated so 0 = 85db average, I guess I should have mentioned that I don't ever actually listen with it set at 0.

I never thought about manually setting zero to be a lower number. Makes sense but I guess I don't really care if I am always set at zero. I'm always playing with it anyways.

Wife comes in....Wife goes out....Wife comes in....Wife goes out.

Do I set it louder or quieter when the wife comes in? That is the question. heh heh.

What would be cool would be a receiver that allows a remote to set volume to a predetermined level with one button press instead of just moving it up and down.

That sounds logical. I don't know if it's true but there's some logic there. Now what does that mean practically in the real world?

It means don't worry about the numbers on the volume display. Pretend you're living in the past and there's just a tick mark on the knob and 7 o'clock is just right.

But these go to 11...

I don't even worry about what the number says on my pre/pro anymore. I just turn the volume up to where I like it and where I think its loud enough. The only thing that the numbers matter is when you calibrate it to get it to certain spl for movies and use that setting for most movies as reference, if its too loud turn it down some. The numbers are meaningless nowadays for me.