Thanks all for the suggestions. I have been working on the settings this morning and it sounds pretty good. I do have a follow on question. As I hooked up the Emotiva amp, I plugged it into a separate outlet due. The primary reason was convenience.
However, I then thought about how much is too much in terms of a load for a single outlet. I currently have my 55" HDTV, Pioneer Elite AVR, DirecTV HDR, PS3, Sony Bluray player, xBox 360, WII, and ED A3-300 sub all plugged into a Panamax M5400-EX power conditioner. The power conditioner is plugged the other outlet in my living room.
Granted I never have all components running at the same time, I wonder if have anything to worry about from a electrical load perspective. I am currently renting but could have my landlord allow me to increase the circuit breaker size if that would help.
Any advice is appreciated.
Write down every component and device that is on that circuit (lights, TV, clocks, stereo, whatever), and write down the power usage of each device. Then add it all up. You need to know which outlets and which overhead lights (and whatever other things there might be) are all on that one circuit in order to do this. Keep in mind, you need the sums of everything that you would
ever have on all at once, and if there are different sets of things, you need to add up the different sets to see if any of the sets of things would be a problem. With a 120v circuit, 15 amps would be 1800 watts (120*15), so you don't want more than that on a 15 amp circuit. If you have a 20 amp circuit, it would be 2400 watts (120*20).
You can see from these numbers why some people would install special circuits just for their home theaters.
Now, since we are dealing with (hopefully) circuits with circuit breakers, if you ever did exceed the rating a bit too much, you would simply trip the circuit breaker and then need to reset it (but first disconnect one or more of the devices that caused the breaker to trip). The circuit breaker should prevent you from burning down the apartment, if, that is, it is properly wired and the circuit breaker is functioning properly.
On the other hand, if there is faulty wiring, then things could be very bad if you exceeded the limits of the circuit.
And, of course, if you are using power strips and surge protectors and/or extension cords, you need to pay attention to their ratings, and make sure you do not exceed their limits either, as doing so could cause a fire or other problem there rather than in the apartment wiring itself. For example, if you had a 20 amp circuit in the apartment, and a 15 amp power strip, if you plugged into that power strip 20 amps of stuff, the apartment circuit breaker is going to be happy with that amount, but your power strip will not be.
