Video Asylum

Posted by Lee Metcalfe on December 20, 1999 at 08:52:35:

In Reply to: I'm finding rear speakers don't add that much posted by Brad on December 19, 1999 at 22:25:46:

It took me awhile to develop an appreciation for my surrounds (see my system at Inmate Systems, link below). The two most important factors, IMHO, are set-up and source material. Because all the factors affecting two-channel speaker set-up also apply to surrounds, set-up is critical. Room acoustics, speaker positioning versus sitting position, speaker type (mono/bi/di-pole), timbre-matching, etc. all are important. I found that the pre-sets on my receiver had the surrounds down by about 10db. I think some receiver makers presume we are sitting closer to the surrounds than the mains. In my case, the opposite is true. I used Video Essentials audio set-up and a sound meter to properly set the volume for all speakers. At first the surrounds sounded too loud, but once I got used to it, the 3D sound field was amazing. Source material is the ruling factor once you've got a good set-up. Some movies just don't have a lot going on sound-wise in the background, especially those that were not originally mastered for DD. Others have so much going on it is distracting.

I encourage you to get the Video Essentials set-up DVD and a sound meter and really fine-tune your speaker set-up.

Regards,

Lee

• Lee's system...