HT VOLUME

[Ryan B_112]

So I was wondering how loud do you turn up your amp to watch movies? The other night I was watching Equalizer 2, and I had mine to -10. That being said I have a Marantz SR7012 powering the HT. at -10 is that half way? Is 0 max? Understandably this can be subjective.

 

[ryanosaur]

Hi again.
Movie theaters being a "reference" point... What we call reference level is 85dB SPL with peaks up around 105dB SPL. If you want to know what you are experiencing at you LP, just get yourself an affordable SPL meter, sit down and see what happens as you play with your volume controls. That's the crude way, probably. I'm still setting my system up and haven't invested in any measurement devices yet. But I will. Cheers!

 

[Ryan B_112]

Thank you! That completely make sense.

 

[ryanosaur]

One more thought as you're doing all this set up work...
Check this out:
SPL calculator
One thing to keep in mind though for amplifier power is what you are getting all channels driven. So your SR7012 isn't actually giving you 110-125w per channel... that's only 2 channels driven (stereo listening). If running 7-9 channels, you are probably only seeing ~75-85wpc.
I use the SR6012, and when my speakers finish arriving next week, I'll be juicing them with external amps... by the time my Phil-3s arrive in May, I'll be running 11 channels, and will have 5-channel audio powered by external amps, with the Rears and .4 Atmos driven by the AVR.

 

[Swerd]

So I was wondering how loud do you turn up your amp to watch movies? The other night I was watching Equalizer 2, and I had mine to -10. That being said I have a Marantz SR7012 powering the HT. at -10 is that half way? Is 0 max? Understandably this can be subjective.

You're right about the subjective part. How loud you want it can vary among different people, your own mood, as well as what movie or music you're playing.

It's not just subjective, there are also several physical things about your speakers and room that determine how loud things actually get. Speakers matter because some get loud with a small amount of power, and others need more power to get as loud. Loudness also varies with the acoustic properties of your room. Some rooms are lively and others can sound dead. And there's a wide range in between. Your AVR does not know what any of those are, so you have to take those volume numbers with a large grain of salt.

 

[lovinthehd]

So I was wondering how loud do you turn up your amp to watch movies? The other night I was watching Equalizer 2, and I had mine to -10. That being said I have a Marantz SR7012 powering the HT. at -10 is that half way? Is 0 max? Understandably this can be subjective.

That means you're down 10dB from reference and would take 10x the power to get to reference (an additional 3dB spl would require a doubling of power). 10dB is often considered a doubling of apparent loudness, tho.

ps Depends what you mean by max...