Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Do these trim levels sound correct?

I have a fully treated dedicated theater room. I am running m60s and VP150 for front a centers. Audyssey set my fronts at about +1.5 with my center at -6.5. Does that sound right?

Seems rather odd that it calculated your center channel so much lower than your mains, although I could be way off.

Are your mains quite a bit closer to the listening position than your center channel? My center channel is right under my display, against the wall; thus 1-2 feet behind my M80's.

The room and placement of the speakers will definitely have a impact. The results still seem questionable. I would defintely re-run auddyseey or even a better option is to go out and purchase a SPL meter to calibrate your system with. Verifying what auddyssey did with a SPL meter will tell you if the auto-calibration is having fun at your expense with your system.

Follow Dr. orders

With the sensitivity rating difference, the M60s at 93DB and the VP150 at 95DB, plus the difference in in the impedance 6 vs 8 I can see the reason for the difference.

Is the centre sitting inside the entertainment cabinet by any chance?

It could be correct if the mains are farther away than the center from the measurement points. There could also be boundary effects that are boosting the center channel, as the others have mentioned, if it is inside an entertainment center or near some other object/wall etc. If you have an SPL meter I would double check with it and if you don't now is the time to go get one and double check the settings yourself.

I would def. verify with an SPL meter if you have one.

You could try the Ultimate ears app on the iphone if u dont have an SPL meter but do have an iphone.

I thought maybe because of the dual centers .....W150 & W100, I got readings like that with Audyssey. And not as dramatic, but still surprising readings when using a SPL meter.

But it sounds good! Is your room small? (Mine is)

Thanks for the input guys. The room is 23x17 with all walls acoustically treated up to ear height. The front wall is fully (dead) treated. The M60s are about 2' from the side and front wall. I have a false fabric wall made out of acoustically transparent fabric. The L,C,R are all 14' from the center of the room and the first Audyssey position. I have ran it several times and keep getting pretty much the same reading. I do not have a SPL but may get one.

Any idea if I manually tweak the trim up a couple of points, does that effect audyssey? Right my L and R are at +2 and my center came in at -7.5 My four QS8s are all in the -3.0 range. I tried turning up the center to -5.5 and when doing level comparisons on my Onkyo 876, that to my ears sounds close.

Would the fact that the m60s are 8ohm and my vp150/Qs8s are 6ohms make a difference?

I believe it would. The 6 ohm speaker at any given level on the volume will play louder. That's what I was referring to in my first post. Not only that but they both have a higher sensitivity rating which requires less power at any given volume.

As others have stated. Get an SPL meter. Then there will be no question that they're set correctly.
I picked up the cheap $50.00 unit and a tripod from Radio Shack and it has proven to me that the YPAO on my Yamaha doesn't always get it right.

Forget the numbers for a second.... does it sound right?

Is your 150 below, above, or at the same height as the m60 tweeters? If it is below/above, is it angled towards your ears. When running the Audyssey locations, how did you place the microphone, on a stand, on top of your seats? If there is any reflective material between the mic and the speaker it can skew the results. For ex, in my case I have 2 rows of theater seating, I have to recline my font row recliners flat when taking the rear seat measurements, otherwise, the front seats will affect the results. It is also possible your room is to "dead" with treatments. Bass traps and first reflection panels are a good thing, however, over treating is not a good thing.

Sot, you ask "Does that sound right", but Micah justifiably asks you how does it sound. As has been mentioned, there are many factors involving different speaker specs and/or placement that could result in that trim difference being justified. Have you been having unusual difficulty hearing dialog or other center channel sound? If you simply run the internal receiver calibration sounds, does it sound to your ears that there's a sharp drop(you report about a 9dB lower trim on the center)as the sounds travel from left main to center and then a big increase up to the right main? You don't have to necessarily use an SPL to check for this difference. I have an SPL and my level measurements with it differ slightly from the Audyssey results, but I'd be a bit naive to assume that my human error is less than any error of the automated setup.