Hi there! Newbie to the Forum here, and I thought I would seek the wisdom of those who, unlike me, have a clue about Home Theater issues. I posted this at the Home Theater section, but no one seemed to have suggestions.
So I got a new system and I was using the Avia DVD for calibration. When it came to the speakers, the test tones were designed to be set at a volume that would be 85 dbs for replicating the sound level in theaters. After getting a headache listening to tones and tweaking, my new Onkyo 606 receiver was set to volume level 69 (range is from 0-79). I know that for home theater one can tweak it down to 75 dbs for a slightly less room-shaking experience. But I have to admit I love huge volume when watching films, and would prefer to watch movies at the higher sound level.
So I decided to give the system a test run by popping in 300. WOW! The TruHD was absurdly amazing, even though I only have a 5.1 set-up. But I could only watch for about 5 minutes. I did not stop due to impending deafness (although maybe that could have been an issue). Rather, I started freaking out that I might blow my speakers and/or my receiver. While normal sounds were clocking in at about the 80-85 db level, the more dramatic crashes were in the 100+ db level. On one hand, I understand that in theater the 85 db level is meant for normal sounds levels, but it is designed to peak at 105 dbs. So the 102 level I was registering was fine.
On the other hand, do I risk damaging the equipment watching a movie at that level??? My speakers are the KEF KHT-3005 5.1 system. The main, center and surround speakers are meant to be powered by receivers up to 100 watts (the Onkyo is 90 I believe), and the sub is of the 250 watt variety. I did not notice any clipping, or distortions.
So is it ok to run this system at 87% of its volume capacity??? Or do I need to crank this baby down?
Thanks for your input!
So I got a new system and I was using the Avia DVD for calibration. When it came to the speakers, the test tones were designed to be set at a volume that would be 85 dbs for replicating the sound level in theaters. After getting a headache listening to tones and tweaking, my new Onkyo 606 receiver was set to volume level 69 (range is from 0-79). I know that for home theater one can tweak it down to 75 dbs for a slightly less room-shaking experience. But I have to admit I love huge volume when watching films, and would prefer to watch movies at the higher sound level.
So I decided to give the system a test run by popping in 300. WOW! The TruHD was absurdly amazing, even though I only have a 5.1 set-up. But I could only watch for about 5 minutes. I did not stop due to impending deafness (although maybe that could have been an issue). Rather, I started freaking out that I might blow my speakers and/or my receiver. While normal sounds were clocking in at about the 80-85 db level, the more dramatic crashes were in the 100+ db level. On one hand, I understand that in theater the 85 db level is meant for normal sounds levels, but it is designed to peak at 105 dbs. So the 102 level I was registering was fine.
On the other hand, do I risk damaging the equipment watching a movie at that level??? My speakers are the KEF KHT-3005 5.1 system. The main, center and surround speakers are meant to be powered by receivers up to 100 watts (the Onkyo is 90 I believe), and the sub is of the 250 watt variety. I did not notice any clipping, or distortions.
So is it ok to run this system at 87% of its volume capacity??? Or do I need to crank this baby down?
Thanks for your input!
And remember every 3db increase is a doubling of watts. So if you were using like 50 watts at 98db to get 101db you would need a 100watts and so on. Every 10db seems like something is twice as loud. So from 100db to 110 db it seems like double the volume. So as you can imagine your not close to reference with with all your speakers and subs peaking at 102db.
