What’s the most common things you find wrong when calibrating and/or setting up a home theater for a family member or friend?

[Pandaman617]

Recently with REW and Mini DSP I’ve become somewhat of a novice AV nerd. Nothing compared to the immense amount of knowledge most of you guys have but it’s a start. So I wanted to see what the most common issues or mistakes you see in other peoples systems. My list so far is

1) Auto EQ. Regardless if it’s Audyssey, YPAO, MCACC, AccurEQ (not sure if I spelt that right), Dirac Live!, etc people will run them and than leave the crossovers as is and the mains set as large.

2) Poor subwoofer placement. Often times I’ve been to friends houses where they place their beautiful new SVS or the like almost picture perfect in the front left or right corner. I understand corner loading can be effective but even just doing the subwoofer crawl I’ve always found far better locations that still pass the dreaded WAF.

3) Snake oil crap. A while back I posted on here I did a blind A/B speaker cable test with a friend of mine who always bashes our “lower end” systems and our “inferior speaker wire” as we haven’t spent $3k/ft on some crazy cable and he couldn’t hear a difference. Just yesterday I went to a friends house to help him wire up his four height layer speakers and he had a spool of 12/4 OFC cable and than a 150ft spool or Monster XPS something or another and he was very insistent I use the Monster for the height layer speakers as he said “So many reviews say it really opens up the high end and gives such a noticeable increase in overall sound quality” I than showed him the feature on Audioholics about speaker wire testing and what not to which he told me it was just one big ad to buy the cables mentioned. None of this made sense but to each his own.

 

[KenM10759]

The most common things I get is that:

A) "I had no idea it was this complicated"
B) They don't understand "why does that horrible sound have to be so loud"
C) They're trying to get a Bose Acoustimass system to fill a cavernous room
D) They're trying to stuff a 7.2 system with big floorstanders into a shoebox
E) They want Atmos but have cathedal ceilings and don't want speakers they can see.

 

[Pandaman617]

The most common things I get is that:

A) "I had no idea it was this complicated"
B) They don't understand "why does that horrible sound have to be so loud"
C) They're trying to get a Bose Acoustimass system to fill a cavernous room
D) They're trying to stuff a 7.2 system with big floorstanders into a shoebox
E) They want Atmos but have cathedal ceilings and don't want speakers they can see.

I can relate to all of that! One of my close friends went out and spent some ungodly amount of money on this ludicrous Atmos Soundbar that has these cute little upfiring speakers in it and he just couldn’t understand why his soundbar doesn’t have anywhere near the height effect I get with my 4 height layer speakers. I tried explaining this to him but he’s convinced he needs to add some sort of reflecting ceiling material and do some positional EQ. My response was “the best way to get sound to come from a general area is to place a speaker there, there’s no replacement for an actual speaker dude” to which he said I should read the Dolby Atmos white paper and how much better upfiring speakers are than my standard two pairs of satellite speakers. HAH.

 

[lovinthehd]

Didn't find anything unusual when I added a sub I'd gifted to my brother's setup several years back....only time I dealt with anyone else's setup....heck I don't even think anyone else in town I know has anything but soundbars for their av setup.

 

[slipperybidness]

The first thing wrong is that you are working on someone else's gear! (best avoided).

I've seen it enough times to suspect that the biggest problem is people buying a new TV, putting it into their system, and never going into the config menus. And, since most TVs come from the factory with the motion interpolation activated, the Soap Opera Effect runs rampant!

I think that people running their sub too hot is also very common (and I may be a bit guilty of this from time to time too).

Finally, the biggest problem that I see all the time is that people want good sound, but don't / won't spend the $ for it! I'm not even saying $1-2K. I'm saying getting people to spend more than $100 on a set of decent speakers is like pulling teeth!

 

[Trell]

I've heard some comments about me having a very good 5.2 setup and a frequent one is that they think it so very expensive. Usually (not always ) I keep my mouth shut, but some times I make hints of the type that it costs less than their very nice vacation this summer, or the deprecation of their very nice car, or a few months of expenses for their horses, or whatever they choose to spend money on.

I spend my hard-earned money differently than them but spend less in other areas.

 

[Trebdp83]

I might talk a mess around here for fun, but when a close friend of mine asked me what I thought of the picture on his new OLED TV while he had the motion interpolation cranked up, I just said, “Get a look at those pitch black letterbox bars!” He was happy and I kept a friend.

 

[lovinthehd]

I might talk a mess around here for fun, but when a close friend of mine asked me what I thought of the picture on his new OLED TV while he had the motion interpolation cranked up, I just said, “Get a look at those pitch black letterbox bars!” He was happy and I kept a friend.

LOL I tried to complain about the motion interpolation at a buddy's house once and the wife gave me the dagger stare (she's in charge of the tv/audio), she also doesn't like my cracks about the Bose audio setup, tho....

 

[Trell]

LOL I tried to complain about the motion interpolation at a buddy's house once and the wife gave me the dagger stare (she's in charge of the tv/audio), she also doesn't like my cracks about the Bose audio setup, tho....

The motion is why I still have not replaced my old Panasonic with an OLED, even though it's very tempting to get a much bigger screen and a fan less TV. There is also image retention/burn in and early dimming to contend with.

 

[Trebdp83]

One thing I noticed over the years with some folks is that they think something is wrong if audio is not coming from all of the speakers at once. I know some folks that leave the damn things in ALL STEREO mode all of the f#%kin' time.

 

[slipperybidness]

One thing I noticed over the years with some folks is that they think something is wrong if audio is not coming from all of the speakers at once. I know some folks that leave the damn things in ALL STEREO mode all of the f#%kin' time.

I paid for 7 speaker and I expect to hear 7 speakers!