Home Theater Calibration

[ninja12]

I was a little bored last night so I decided to calibrate my home theater system which is 5.1. I have a Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver which has the YPAO. The first round of calibrations I used the YPAO to calibrate, and I did a few minor adjustments like setting all my speakers to "Small" and a little fine tuning for the speaker levels using my Sound Pressure Level (SPL). I set my receiver's volume to 0 db and then I set my speaker levels to 80db using the SPL. I noticed that using the white noise from the receiver the volume for each speaker was extremely high in order to reach the 80db. I talking +8.5 and +9.0. So I decided to use the Sound Vision Home Theater Tune-Up disc to set my speaker levels. Once again with my receiver's volume set to 0db, I set my speaker levels to 80db. However, I noticed using the white noise from the disc that I had to really lower each speaker's volume. Now I'm talking -4.5 and -6.0 to reach 80db.

After saying all that, I am wondering which one should I use to set the volume for my speakers. Should I use the white noise from the receiver or should I use the disc. I guess what really matters is that all the speakers are reading the same db.

Please let me know what you think.

 

[westcott]

I would use the disk from Avia or DVE.

 

[MDS]

The difference you notice is due to the level of the test tones. The internal test tones are at -30 dB. If you calibrated so that the meter reads 80 dB you are actually a little higher than Dolby Reference Level.

If the channel trims didn't have to be set so high with the HT tune up disc, I would assume it uses a level of -20 dB. If you use that tone and calibrate so that the meter reads 80 dB, you would be slightly lower than Dolby Reference Level.