the obvious next question

[TimmyR41]

well now that i have started on my path to becoming an audioholic its time for me to start looking more in depth and set up techniques and methods.

my current set up is a yamaha v465 with 2 polk tsi300's. i will eventually be expanding to 5.1 but for now this is where i'm at.

i started out doing things by ear and then i used the yapo automatic set up as well. i'm thinking i will be able to get a much more accurate set up by using some test equipment and would like to start getting into tinkering with some of this stuff. my thought is hopefully by the time i go to add the rest of my channels i will be good to go on this whole set up thing.

first off are there any articles aside from the ones in the sticky that i need to be reading?

secondly from what i've been reading the general method would be to use a spl meter to get the speaker levels set. and then use pink noise and a spectrum analyzer to create as flat of a frequency response as possible.

obviously having only 2 speakers and no sub i'm not going to get a flat frequency response down to the lower levels but i can at least get an idea of where these speakers will cross over to the sub for when i get a sub.

if i'm on the right track here i need to start looking at some equipment. i don't want to spend an arm and a leg just yet so cheap to free would be ideal but i want some equipment that will produce decent results.

what is a decent spl meter to get?

what is a good, hopefully free, spectrum analyzer?

where can i get free pink noise?

thanks for the help in advance. i've only had my system since friday and i'm already ready to start tinkering. haha.

oh and as far as the eq goes i will be using the recievers built in graphic eq which has adjustments of +-6db at 63Hz/160Hz/400Hz/1kHz/2.5kHz/6.3kHz/16kHz

 

[bpape]

Quite honestly, for what you're looking to do, get a Radio Shack SPL meter and download Room EQ Wizard. There are correction plug-ins for REW for the Shack meter.

You're absolutely correct IMO that you can do MUCH better with these tools than YPAO will give you overall.

Bryan

 

[TimmyR41]

there are two radio shack meters. Are they pretty accurate? I also play in a band and would like to use it to set up our sound system when we play gigs.

 

[bpape]

For doing channel balance with pink noise, it's fine. At the frequency extremes, it's not perfectly accurate but the plug-ins make it 'close enough' to do what you need to do.

What you're looking for is apples to apples comparison when moving speakers, subs, seating, etc. and setting basic channel balance.

Bryan

 

[jamie2112]

This is what you want http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103667

 

[Weasel9992]

there are two radio shack meters. Are they pretty accurate? I also play in a band and would like to use it to set up our sound system when we play gigs.

Bryan is 100% right on all the set up stuff. Nothing to add there.

My question is, how are you planning to use it for live set up? Typically you'd use something like SMAART when tuning a line array rig, but I don't see how REW would give you much helpful information.

Frank