Need help setting system up.

[Picus]

I am new to this forum so I hope I am posting in the right place. I just purchased a full new system to replace a older denon micro system that I have been using for years. I bought a Pioneer vsx-52tx and am running Polk RTi10's up front with a CXi5 for center and FXi3's for rear. I kept the old powered sub that ran with the denon unit. My cd player is a HK FL 8550. I purchased a line cleaner with a "high current output" to help keep it all clean.

I am having a problem in that this system is not as loud as I thought it should be. For movies its fine but I still think that the amp is running closer to the higher level of volume then I would have thought I needed. When listening to to the cd player I can turn it up to show -20 on the display and it seems quite. While granted its loud the denon unit I had I could never touch the same level. I am just a bit shocked as this is the first purchase of stereo equipment that I have made in a long time. I had thought that the amp was rated to run at 110 watts which is a heck of alot of sound. My denon was a 35 watt unit running mission speakers.

I am running decent cable and the interconnects are older units, I have not purchased a digital connection for the cd to the amp.

Anyone have any idea on what I might be missing? Or any further info that you might need to help me out. Thanks a bunch for any help.

 

[tbewick]

I'm not familiar with your speakers, but maybe your speakers/subwoofer aren't good enough to get really really loud without distorting.

From the discussions I've had on this forum, and my experience, my view is that CD players are one of the strongest links in your hi-fi set up.

Are you using DVD's on this system?

I recently found out about the THX reference level (run a search on Google for this for more info) which DVD film soundtracks are mastered to. This volume is very loud and averages around 85dB and peaks at 115dB (mainly sub-bass). 110 watts will get you up to these volumes at a distance of 1-2 metres from your speakers, assuming they have a sensitivity of around 90dB. They may distort heavily at peak volumes (~105dB) though, depending on how good the speakers are. Your subwoofer will have to be very powerful to get up to 115dB.

The reference level is most correctly found using an SPL meter to measure test tones on the amplifier at 0dB. Once you've got your system volume set up correctly, you then play your DVD's at this volume, 0dB. Personally I haven't got round to doing this yet as I haven't got an SPL meter.

CD's don't have a reference volume level. I think the reason for this is that most CD's are mastered to peak at 0dBFS, because distortion is lowest at this peak (for CD audio). Obviously this peak will be louder in real life for a symphony orchestra recording than for a Spanish guitar recording.

A digital connection from the DVD player to a suitable decoder is essential for Dolby Digital/DTS decoding into 5.1 surround. This is unless the DVD player has an on-board 5.1 decoding. Another reason for using digital connections is that they do not add any noise to signal, unlike most RCA phono connectors.