Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What exactly is SPL and how does it affect me?

Hello everyone,

I have finally humbled myself to ask this question. After reading on audioholics my brain is mush; I can't follow the discourse because its way too deep for me. Searching here on axiom's boards I haven't really found what SPL is and what that meter thing does and once I get my system how do I begin adjusting my SPL. I suppose once I find out what SPL is perhaps I will better understand why people mess with it. Thus, instead of pretending I know what SPL is and how it affects a system, will someone teach me and possibly other youngins like myself? Thank you so much!

jason

SPL: sound pressure level--ie the amount of decibels.

Deciel (or dB): a measure (logarythmic) of sound. Loosely speaking volume.

We all talk about SPL, because ideally when fed the same signal, all of your speakers should be putting out the same dB level. The meter lets you measure this. To provide the signal, either your receiver uses pink noise (a balance spectrum of sound, which sounds a whole lot like static) or you have a DVD that provides the pink noise for each channel.

Your receiver should have a setting you adjust for each channel (speaker) to control the individual volume of that speaker.

I hope that clears a few things up.

Hey thanks for the definitions, I understand it better now. Next questions is this: what does one do first, the SPL measurements or speaker delay?

You should set the speaker distances first, and then do a level calibration by playing a test tone (most receivers have a built in one) in each channel and using a meter to check that the SPL is equal (or as close as you can get) across the channels.

A good SPL meter can be found at RadioShack.

I think that you will be pleasantly surprised at how good the Radio Shack meter performs. Anyone serious about their HT should have one!!