It's been a while since I've addressed this.

As far as i remember, the process for calibrating a subwoofer using DVE and a Radio Shack SPL is to calibrate the subwoofer 10 db's higher than the other speakers. I figure this by taking the 13 db inaccuracy of DVE and subtracting the 3 db inaccuracy of the RS meter. Hence, this comes out to 10 db's difference.

Is this correct? I've heard that DVE is off by 6 to 13. The exact figure was 12.5 I thought. Which one is it?


With Avia, I calibrate the subwoofer to 72 db's - which is 3 db's colder than the other speakers. Again, this compensates for the 3 db inaccuracy of RS meter.

Does this all sound correct? I'm interested in flat calibration for sub, getting it as evenly matched as possible.

Thanks.

As far as i remember, the process for calibrating a subwoofer using DVE and a Radio Shack SPL is to calibrate the subwoofer 10 db's higher than the other speakers. I figure this by taking the 13 db inaccuracy of DVE and subtracting the 3 db inaccuracy of the RS meter. Hence, this comes out to 10 db's difference.

Is this correct? I've heard that DVE is off by 6 to 13. The exact figure was 12.5 I thought. Which one is it?
There used to be a discrepancy between AVIA and DVE. I'm not sure if it still exists between the current versions of AVIA and DVE.


With Avia, I calibrate the subwoofer to 72 db's - which is 3 db's colder than the other speakers. Again, this compensates for the 3 db inaccuracy of RS meter.

Does this all sound correct? I'm interested in flat calibration for sub, getting it as evenly matched as possible.Calibrating the sub ~3dB lower to compensate for the inaccuracy of the meter at lower frequencies is my understanding of how to do it, however, there are some here who will say otherwise.

The version of DVE I have is from a few years ago, so yes it's one of the inaccurate ones. I believe the official difference of surround speaker versus LFE was 12.5 db's exactly.

Basically, if you calibrate 3 db's cool with Avia, you will come out to 10 db's hot with DVE if I understand it correctly.

I would like a confirmation on this too. I'm in the middle of calibrating my first home theater (it IS a cheapy) and I'm using an the analoge SPL meter from Radio Shack with the audio signals from DVE. All the speakers except the subwoofer are now set perfectly but the subwoofer registers off way high, even at it's lowest setting.

If I'm supposed to be looking for it to be 10 db high then that might solve my issue.

I went at it again last night with Avia and DVE. I found that Avia was registering well too high, at my subwoofer's lowest setting it still registered several db's hot with most of the speakers. When using DVE, that same setting was a couple db's cool.

This could be the room. Avia measures from each speaker, while DVE just uses the subwoofer. I find it simpler just to use DVE.

Tigepilot - using DVE, let's say you calibrate each speaker to 75 db's on your SPL meter. Once you're done with that, flip the sound meter up one level, and calibrate the subwoofer exactly to 85 db's.

I calibrate to 70 db's - as it's easier to measure on the meter, and I want my peaks no louder than 90 db's - which puts 70 db's as an appropriate reference for me.

I find that exactly 10 db's (which factors in the RS meter inaccuracy) puts you right about there. I used to use Avia to check this against and fine-tune things, but in this room it seems not to be as helpful.