Most people put their sub in the front of the room, so that it's easier to connect it to their An Atmos system starts with a conventional or surround sound.
Table of contents
- 7.1 Reciever with only 5.1 speakers
- Connecting Your Player to The Amplifier
- Surround Speakers Setup | Dolby Laboratories
As long as they're all the same level relative to each other, it doesn't actually matter too much what that level is, but a commonly used level is 75 db for each speaker in turn. The subwoofer usually under reads on the spl meter due to their inaccuracy at measuring bass tones, so you may need to boost that up a little higher to have it matching the rest of the speakers. If you have the next level up from an all in one and have a receiver and speakers then you can get better results. Most receivers nowadays have an auto setup system which will calibrate for you. All of these systems attempt to do the same thing though which is set up your system for you, although the consensus tends to be that ARC is the best, followed by Audyssey, with the others behind that.
This is a matter of opinion and is the sort of thing AV geeks argue about, but that seems to be the way most people in the AV world think as far as I can tell. Anyway the way they work is that you set up a microphone which is supplied with the receiver at your listening position, the receiver will then play a test tone through each speaker in turn and then calibrate system levels and EQ the sound for you.
There are still a couple of things you need to remember when doing this though. One thing to remember is that you need to make sure that the room is as quiet as possible. Turn off any fans, close the windows etc as you don't want any banging, booming or rumbling from buses driving past to affect the final result. Set the subwoofer gain control to the middle of the dial. Set the crossover frequency on the subwoofer to maximum.
7.1 Reciever with only 5.1 speakers
The easiest way of holding the microphone at the correct height is with a tripod. These don't cost a lot so buy one. Set it up at your main listening position, pointing straight up at the ceiling at ear height, then run the auto calibrate routine.
If you don't have a tripod, you can put the microphone on your head and move around to different positions, but it's a bit of a pain to do it this way! That's not to say I haven't done it like this myself in the past, but I'm glad I bought a tripod. A lot of these systems will give you a better result if you take multiple readings, you want to be roughly around the main seating position though as if you try to use different seats it will mess up the final calibration. Get as many readings as possible, usually the system asks you to move the mic 6 or 8 times. The more information it gets, the better the results.
There is a diagram below with suggested mic placement positions. The more advanced systems ask for more positions, if yours asks for 6 or 8 or so, just use the first 6 or 8 positions on this diagram for an idea of where to put the mic.
Remember that you're not calibrating for every possible position you're ever going to sit in on the sofa, but instead you're measuring the room for automatic room correction so make sure you do move the mic around. The first position is the main listening position so that's the most important, the sound will be optimised around that area.
Connecting Your Player to The Amplifier
After the receiver has ran through its auto calibrate routine, then check what level the receiver has set the subwoofer also known as LFE level. The amount the receiver has had to boost or cut this level will then show up on the receiver. If this has happened, simply adjust the gain on the back of the subwoofer up or down, depending on the reading, then calibrate it again by rerunning the receiver auto calibrate routine. The ideal is to get it as close to 0 as possible, then there is no boosting or cutting between the receiver and the subwoofer, which leads to a minimum of distortion.
If it's a few db above or below it's not the end of the world, so you don't need to get too obsessive, but just try and make sure it's not at the top of bottom of its range. Different rooms affect sounds in different ways so sometimes you may need certain frequencies boosting or cutting, which you don't need to worry about as the receiver will try and do this for you.
It does this by playing a full frequency range signal to each speaker, measuring how the room affects the sound then adjusting the output level and also the equalisation of the sound to try and produce what will end up at your ears as a neutral sound. After you've ran the auto calibrate setup program, then you will need to adjust the crossover and LFE cutoff level. This is fairly straightforward. The THX standard is to set all of your speakers to small and then set the speakers crossover points to 80hz. The LFE channel for the subwoofer should then be set to hz. These are the recommended settings that Audyssey, THX etc recommend.
The reason you set the crossover for the speakers at 80hz is that speakers struggle to reproduce the lowest frequencies you'll get from a soundtrack, which can go down to hz in some cases. If you set them to only play from 80hz upwards, then they don't distort and the sound is cleaner. The subwoofer will take the strain instead and do the job it's designed for, which is creating the low frequency effects. If you have small satellite speakers, they may not be able to reproduce sound down to 80hz, so you may have to have the crossover for them set a little higher.
The golden rule is you can always adjust your crossover up from what the receiver tells you it recommends, but never adjust it down, as if the system has had a go at playing a frequency through the speaker and it hasn't managed to reproduce it, the speakers simply aren't capable of playing any lower, so you get no benefit setting it lower than your receiver recommends.
The whole purpose of Audyssey, YPAO or whatever system your receiver uses to calibrate, is get the sound in your room as close as it can to a reference sound, in other words how it is supposed to sound when the sound engineers produced the soundtrack. This can be quite a different sound to what you're used to if you've always set up your systems by ear, but if you want it sound how it should, then you should leave it like this. Of course as it's your system, if you decide you prefer the bass a bit higher for example, then you're free to do that. This is what is called reference vs preference.
The reference sound may not be exactly to your taste straightaway, but you're best to watch a couple of movies before making up your mind so you can get used to it before making a decision to tweak anything. The one thing that you shouldn't do is mess about with the dials on the back of the subwoofer once you've ran calibration. If you are going to do it, then adjust through the receiver. If you move the speakers or subwoofer, or move the furniture around, then it's a good idea to calibrate again. Other than that, you're done.
Go and listen to some music or watch some movies and enjoy your surround system, happy in the knowledge it's now all set up and performing properly! Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters. Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account.
Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites. Shoud i use steel wire mesh for protection from rat. One educated man in the field of electronics told me that for a 5. I have two stereo amps, do I need 4 more? And how do I wire everything to have sound playing from one source? Hello there, I have all speakers necisary but am not sure how to wire zed speakers. For the back and front speakers do i wire the negative wire to the negative on a 3.
Surround Speakers Setup | Dolby Laboratories
Hi, I bought Sony Home theater 5. Sounds like you've broken the speakers by playing them too loudly. Sorry to hear that. The only solution is to buy a more powerful system that can handle the volume you want. I have a problem with my onkyo HT s, before i calibrate my speakers just to testing the sounds, the speakers set is clear and deep the bass subwoofer is so heat pumping in other words what i bought is perfect for what i want, then later on, after reading the manual, i prefer to calibrate my surround speaker according to the manual setup to make the sound more powerful and in effect, afterwards, done calibrating and start to test some heart pumping song from rock music, i was so disappointed because the sub woofer speakers are not responding clearly, i try to adjust adding some more subwoofer volume and it sounds like the speaker is going to break even in very low volume, i said "whats going on" i try to inspect some wiring and some given set up from receiver, everything is in garbage now, just like I'm listening to the mono speaker, i try also some default setting from receiver and its the same, please help me to solve my problem.
I am using microlab x15, is a 5. All speakers are connected but when i play sound from my laptop which the soundblaster is connected to only give me sound from front 3 and the Subwoofer and not the other 2 back speakers. Basically I've set up as instructed to connect 5.
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I have a 5. It comes with bluetooth and wifi. So I need to know can I increase it to 7. This could be one particular of the most useful blogs We've ever arrive across on this subject. I'm also a specialist in this topic so I can understand your hard work. I can only receive sound out of my centre spkr surround right spkr and the sub woofer is very tinny sounding it frustrating me as I was told its the easiest system in the world to set up as it colour co ordinated a nine year old kid could do it so please help help help yours not as clever as a nine year old stevie doc many thanks in advance.
Hi there I have a 5. Hi I have a Sony receiver connected to 5 speakers. But when I do the test for the sound , it gives me error Will this still put out same sound even though they are same..? My surround speakers are connected to my computer but it increases it's sound extremely suddenly.