Hi,
I just purchased a Yamaha RX-V367 receiver with Pinnacle MB 6000 speakers. Using bare 14 gauge wire to connect everything and HDMI for all of my devices. One problem I am running into is that I have to crank up the volume on this receive to -9.5 DB (Max is +16.5 on this receiver) before I really start getting loud sound from the speakers. I have spent hours trying to configure and nothing seems to help with increasing the actual sound level from the speakers. I expected more and I wasnt sure if maybe these two just were not meant to be together. Or could it be the gauge of wire or even the size of my living room?
Here's how the volume control on a receiver works as far as I know.
First it during auto setup it will determine the sensitivity of your speakers. It will use that sensitivity to decide on how much power is necessary for "reference level".
Now reference level, in dolby terms is 105db for speakers and 115db for low frequency effects in movies at the seating position.
Some receivers will use 10db below that, and further give you an option to have the reference level for a subwoofer to be identical to the speakers (a -10db LFE option)
Next we get to actual recordings. They use that 105db as "the loudest it should get at the seating position". In general movies will be recorded 20db below this, IE, 85db "average" volume or with some receivers, this will be 75db (as the reference volume is 95db). I'm not quite sure as different brands operate differently and I have better things to do than take an SPL meter and see how random receivers operate. Actually I just can't afford an SPL meter.
So anyways, we treat 85db (or 75db) as "average volume" when the "volume" on the receiver is set to zero.
However this does not factor in the recording itself. Some recordings can have an "average volume" which is 40db below reference etc.
Now consider this.
If a speaker has a sensitivity of, maybe 91db/2.83v/m, at a distance of around 2m you will only require 1w of power in an 8 ohm load to get your speakers up to 85db! This is extremely loud!
So in order to get that 85db average volume, you would need to make the dial on the receiver all the way up to "0". Yet for a mere 100w amplifier, you've still got enough amplification available to add 20db of gain for loud transients. That means that a 91db sensitive speaker will get you 105db peaks at a 2m listening distance with 100w of amplification.
So in reality, even though -10 on the receiver may seem high, you've probably got around 20-30db of dynamic range "on tap". Those are ear-bleedingly loud levels.
So even though "0" may be the limit of the receiver as far as "dynamic range", it may not "on average" sound as loud as you might imagine. It all depends on how compressed the dynamic range in a recording is. The more compressed, the closer to "0dbFS" the average sound is.
Here's some cool recordings with lots of dynamic range (scroll to the bottom):
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/technical downloads.html
Disclaimer: If you turn it up loud enough to "hear" the quiet stuff you may destroy your system and ears on the loud stuff. It's for people with systems that dwarf most of ours in output capability.
