[achiarelli]

I'm in the process of setting up a new receiver/speaker system that I bought for my basement, but am having some problems.


The receiver I purchased is just a budget model, a Pioneer VSX-519V-K. I set up and positioned the speakers, hooked up the receiver, and before doing any calibration, played a few CDs in Stereo and PLII, watched a few movies, etc. and was very impressed with the setup.


The receiver doesn't have an auto calibration, so I used a Scosche SPL meter (from Radioshack) and the AVIA DVD to calibrate my speaker levels manually. I calibrated my speaker and sub level, as well as crossover and speaker distances, etc. manually, and double checked all of my measurements and settings.


However, after doing this, it seems that I've made a decent sounding system sound really bad. It feels like the imaging of the speakers is just way off, stereo sound is very unbalanced, and PLII just sounds very unnatural. Upon setting my channel levels all back to 0db (except the sub), the imaging was fine.


So my question is, what could I be doing wrong in my calibration to cause the speaker level adjustments to create such awful imaging in my system? My 'main listening position' is not directly in front of my center speaker, but a little off to the side, could that be an issue?


Thanks.

 

[bluesky636]

Put away the Avia DVD and use the Pioneer's internal test tones. Follow the instructions in Chapter 6 to properly set up and calibrate the speakers. And yes, sitting off to the side of the center postion can cause a problem unless you calibrate properly for that position.