Should L/R levels after running room correction be zero?

RafaelSmith said:

So, after some remodeling and changes to my dedicated HT I am getting ready to redo speaker and sub calibrations.

Something that I have always wondered about is shouldn't the level offsets set by Audyssey for all the speakers be relative to the mains(L/R)?...i.e if after running room correction the mains have +/- offsets...doesnt that mean something else is off? Like sub too loud or too low?

Maybe I am misunderstanding....but I think ideally offset for L/R should be zero and the others relative to that.

That said, I have never had room correction end up with zero for L/R offsets...so like I said...probably misunderstanding.

And yes, I am bored at work =P

Click to expand...

Folks have already replied. But some of the replies I don't think addressed exactly the issue you were mentioning? At least I didn't think so.

During the room correction process or general AVR setup process, the receiver emits audio of a known level. The speaker has to fire, and then the mic along with the receiver measures the level that actually got to the microphone.

The trim levels that you are referring to are only used to make sure that the audio level detected by the microphone matches the audio level emitted by the receiver. One of the main characteristics of a speaker is sensitivity.

Suppose your left speaker had a sensitivity of 88 dB, and you're right speak ahead of sensitivity of 93 dB. All else being equal, the trim offsets for the left speaker will be 5 dB higher than the trim level set for the right speaker.

The trim levels are essentially meaningless because it's relative to a particular speaker and distance of the speaker from the microphone. It's just used to make sure that every speaker has the same SPL level at the listening position.

Anyway, just trying to help.

-T