New system!!

[blu1183]

ill be setting up my new receiver and speakers tomorrow. it will be my first time setting up any type of audio system. anyone got any advice or pointers?

[Zoiks]

When setting up, leave enough room behind your equipment to see where the connectors go.

[blu1183]

i think i got it for the most part but theres always that one thing u dont realize or forget. anyone??

[SDBlu]

Make sure you have all the necessary cables and wires needed to hook everything up. Good Luck

[blu1183]

yea i got all the cables, im repainting my room and moving things around and setting up the surround sound, its going to be completely different. ill have to post some pics when im done

[Big Daddy]

These are my suggestions. I will send you my bill later.

5.1, 6.1, & 7.1 SETUP

Depending on the number of speakers you plan to use in your home theater, the setup should follow one of the diagrams below:

FRONT SPEAKERS SETUP

For front speakers, put the speakers at least 2 to 3 feet away from the rear wall.

• The distance between the two speakers should be between 6 to 10 feet.
• The distance between your main listening chair and the distance between the two speakers should be approximately the same. They should form approximately an equilateral triangle.

• The tweeters should be about the same level as your ears when you are seated. For smaller speakers, use a stand. Slight tilting backward or forward of the speakers until the tweeters point toward your head may also work.
• You can slightly angle (toe-in) the speakers toward the listening chair. You can use a string to make sure both speakers are angled exactly the same. Angling the speakers too much may have two disadvantages:
  1. It may ruin the sound stage.
  2. It will not be very effective for others who may be sitting elsewhere in the room. Don't be selfish.

Play a CD with good soundstaging and a singer in the middle.

• If the soundstage is good and wide but the center stage is blurred, move the speakers closer together.
• If the center stage is focused and sounds great, but the soundstage isn't very wide, angle the speakers away from the listening position a little at a time until the soundstage becomes wider without losing the center stage.
• Many speakers may sound better if they are pointed at your shoulders rather than directly at your head.
• Always use a string to make sure both speakers are angled the same way.
• Don't be afraid to experiment. Rooms are not the same and interaction with room boundaries, furniture, carpets, etc. play an important role in the sound that you hear.
• Many experts believe that in a small home theater room, you hear the room and not the speakers.

SUBWOOFER POSITIONING

Room and furniture have an enormous impact on the sound of speakers. A well placed subwoofer’s bass integrates with the sound of the main speakers and produces a natural reproduction of music. A few guidelines for subwoofer positioning are listed below.

Corner placement: This is the advice that is given most often. Although corner placement will yield loud bass, it may make the music sound boomy. You should place your subwoofer in a corner only if it is not capable of producing deep bass. It is also important to note that corner placement will not always make the subwoofer boom. In most cases, it depends highly on the geometry of the room. According to some experts, you should always place a sub in a corner, and use equalization to deal with audible peaks of the subwoofer's frequency response at that position.

You should not sit against the wall: Your movies and music will sound heavy and tiring when you are sitting against a wall. If you must sit against the wall because of the room’s layout, turn down the volume of the subwoofer to compensate.

Do not place the subwoofer in a symmetrical position in the room: Avoid putting a subwoofer in a location that is the same distance from the walls. Subwoofers sound better if they are placed in a location where their distances to the front, side, and rear walls are different.

Put the subwoofer close to the main speakers: Even though bass sounds are not localized, you will get a better blending between the main speakers and the subwoofer if they are on the same side of the room.

Two subwoofers are better than one: Two subs can reinforce each other’s bass response and will yield a smoother and more dynamic sound. If using two subwoofers, it is better to use two identical subwoofers.

[Rob J in WNY]

Congrats to you. The madness will really begin now!

When running your speaker wire, give yourself an extra foot or two per wire. It's much better to have a little extra than to wind up 6" short! For the typical home theater receiver rated around "100 watts per channel," don't go any smaller than 16 gauge speaker wire. 14 or 12 gauge is even better.

When powering up your brand new receiver for the first time, immediately turn the volume all the way down, and gradually work up from zero volume. You don't want to find out that you have a ground loop or some other wiring anomoly with a high volume setting.

You can avoid the "spaghetti effect" of messy (and numerous) wires NOW more easily than ever. Take the time to route power cables, equipment interconnect wires, and speaker wires carefully. Bundle them up and tuck them away. Avoid running speaker wires or any analog wires (line-level audio or component/composite video) parallel to AC power lines. Your system will avoid the possibility of induced audio noise and look remarkably cleaner with even minimal wire management.

Label speaker wires at your receiver if you'd like (Front Left, Front Right, Center, Surround Left, Surround Right, Back Surround Left, Back Surround Right). With up to seven speakers attached to your receiver with the potential for identical wire/connectors, it can be frustrating if you have to disconnect/reconnect in the future.

Space your main front left and right speakers a bit away and evenly from your TV (see my gallery photos for an example). Too close to the TV and too far apart result in either narrow audio imagery or overspatialized imagery across your front "soundstage." Angle them slightly in toward your primary listening position (again, see my gallery). This will maximize your enjoyment of high frequency audio, which is highly directional in nature - YMMV.

Double and triple check your speaker connection polarity for correctness. One speaker out of phase - especially across your front soundstage - will make for a substantial amount of "phase cancellation," which reduces the quality of your sound substantially. Make sure each connection is solid, and that is no chance of shorting the positive and negative wire leads at any point.

Your subwoofer will not necessarily work best "anywhere in the room" as often touted in advertisements and even instruction manuals. For the best, most accurate bass response, you may have to try locating the subwoofer in various places around the room. Low bass frequencies are non-directional, so you can move the sub about the room without problems. Near a wall us usually best. Rarely is the center of a room ideal. You may be surprised at where the best location of your subwoofer winds up. The location of your sub is actually a very critical aspect of home theater - all rooms have inherant sonic characteristics which affect all of the audio you hear (not just the sub), but you can hear a dramatic difference in subwoofer performance by moving it around. Turn the sub's volume knob about half way to three-quarter up, and adjust from there. Avoid going "full blast" on the subwoofer volume.

Use a good quality line-level audio cable for subwoofer interconnection to your receiver's subwoofer output jack. 60Hz A/C electrical hum can be introduced with poor quality cables to deliver the audio to the subwoofer.

[blu1183]

nice tips. thanks!

[Johnny Vinyl]

First of all...congrats on the new setup!

All solid and most informative tips you've been given and please do read them carefully and take them into consideration. Since this is a first setup, chances are you will be making some changes in the days and weeks (maybe even months) to come. To make that process a little easier you should consider using banana plugs/spades on your receiver and speaker end cabling. It makes for easier connectivity.

John

[Beta Man]

run WAY more than enough speaker cable.... and make the final cuts after you have everything in place (and leave some slack even after the final cuts)

You can always make a speaker cable shorter.... but once you cut... there's no going back.

[WriteSimply]

Only one tip from me. A warm-up period you must make, in which within the first 48 hours of speaker time is used to play ALL sorts of music and movies you like. You don't even have to be there but you do need to play it at your prefered listening volume.

Speakers must be flexed, particularly the fronts, before they can shine. Once that's done, you can really enjoy every grind and note your system can produce.


fuad

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

Only one tip from me. A warm-up period you must make, in which within the first 48 hours of speaker time is used to play ALL sorts of music and movies you like. You don't even have to be there but you do need to play it at your prefered listening volume.

Speakers must be flexed, particularly the fronts, before they can shine. Once that's done, you can really enjoy every grind and note your system can produce.


fuad

I don't wanna derail the thread, but this is debatable. I personally don't believe in speaker break-in and there's limited evidence (if any?) to support it. However, typically I agree with everything you post, so I guess I'll let this one slip.

[statikcat]

The 6750 is a great entry package! I started with that and upgraded over time. The sub is especially good for the specs at moderate levels.

[richteer]

Originally Posted by aramis109

I don't wanna derail the thread, but this is debatable. I personally don't believe in speaker break-in and there's limited evidence (if any?) to support it. However, typically I agree with everything you post, so I guess I'll let this one slip.

Speaker break in is a real phenomenom. Case in point: fresh out of the box, my MartinLogan Spires sounded like crap. It took a couple of days before they started sounding like they were supposed to.

[SierraMikeBravo]

Put the subwoofer close to the main speakers: Even though bass sounds are not localized, you will get a better blending between the main speakers and the subwoofer if they are on the same side of the room.

Not true. Not true at all. It all depends on the frequency response of your room. If the subwoofer is integrated properly...something most people have no clue how to do...low frequencies should not be localized. If they are not localized, they will blend with the rest of the system regardless of where the speakers are located. One thing the vast majority of people do is set the volume of the sub way too loud. A lot of folks say "I like it boomy!" In actuality what they are saying is "I like it muddy". A good tip is, if you can point to where the sub is with your eyes closed...it is too loud.

Another tip...never place your seating in the center of the room.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by SierraMikeBravo

Another tip...never place your seating in the center of the room.

Can you elaborate on that?

John

[crazyBLUE]

Originally Posted by SierraMikeBravo

Not true. Not true at all. It all depends on the frequency response of your room. If the subwoofer is integrated properly...something most people have no clue how to do...

He Quoted Big Daddy & said this . Personally I would hope that the OP would listen to someone that has A passion for this & helping all of US (Big Daddy) than to listen to someone with 9 posts !

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by richteer

Speaker break in is a real phenomenom. Case in point: fresh out of the box, my MartinLogan Spires sounded like crap. It took a couple of days before they started sounding like they were supposed to.

Electrostats, right? I can see this being the case for them since it's basically a tightly-stretched membrane, but not so much for other more traditional speakers. Otherwise, if break-in occurs so quickly, so does break-down I would think. I'm not the only person who feels that way, but I'm still open to evidence otherwise.

Originally Posted by SierraMikeBravo

Another tip...never place your seating in the center of the room.

Placing them against the wall gives you reflected and amplified (and muddy) bass and listener fatigue. I'm guessing you're talking about the rule of thirds here, but you didn't really elaborate.

Originally Posted by crazyBLUE

He Quoted Big Daddy & said this . Personally I would hope that the OP would listen to someone that has A passion for this & helping all of US (Big Daddy) than to listen to someone with 9 posts !

I mean this as no disrespect to BD or to Crazy, but you shouldn't take anyone's posts as gospel without so much as a second glance. This isn't the chapel of BD, after all. That being said, when I need answers he's one of the first people I look to. But we shouldn't dismiss someone who disagrees with our "senior members" out of hand.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by aramis109

Placing them against the wall gives you reflected and amplified (and muddy) bass and listener fatigue. I'm guessing you're talking about the rule of thirds here, but you didn't really elaborate.

I'm still waiting for the response as well!

John

[crazyBLUE]

Originally Posted by aramis109

I mean this as no disrespect to BD or to Crazy, but you shouldn't take anyone's posts as gospel without so much as a second glance. This isn't the chapel of BD, after all. That being said, when I need answers he's one of the first people I look to. But we shouldn't dismiss someone who disagrees with our "senior members" out of hand.

You are right aramis ~ MY BAD !