Subwoofer levels: How do you do it?

Posted by Michael A. Sills [IP: 38.27.157.89] on November 30, 1998 at 21:00:59:

In Reply to: Subwoofer levels: How do you do it? posted by Mark G. on November 30, 1998 at 16:42:07:

;Michael, can you explain for those of us who have implemented your "sub on the center channel" solution how you calibrate the level of your center sub?;

You betcha!
To keep things simpler, let's make a couple of assumptions. First, that your center sub is crossed over at 80Hz with the center speaker. Second that your setting for center speaker in the DC-1 setup menu is "large". And thirdly, that everybody's reading 75dB "C" weighted with the DC-1's internal test tones, which you've calibrated with your center subwoofer turned OFF.

Now...you need a source of pink noise. Ie. a signal that puts out equal energy in all the octaves of the audio range. Something like the THX WOW disc contains this. Now stick this on, and take a reading from your already calibrated speakers. They should all be close, although not necessarily 75dB because it will depend what your volume is set at. In particular, what is your center speaker reading from the listening position? (The center subwoofer still turned OFF) Now...don't touch the DC-1's volume control! Turn off all of your amps and subwoofers EXCEPT the center channel subwoofer. Play the pink noise again and adjust the subwoofer's volume control to get your meter to read 6dB less than the reading you just noted above. (Remember, if crossed over at 80dB, you are only playing the energy from the bottom two octaves). Voila. You have now "correctly" adjusted the level of your subwoofer.

Now here's where I part from any science: Play some music from a monophonic source. (Switch your tuner to mono if you have to) and listen to it with just your center speaker and it's subwoofer on. "Fine tune" the subwoofer output level by ear until you are satisfied that you hearing the correct amount of bass. Hopefully this setting is not very far off from where you derived above.

Once satisfied with the setting, I like to place a piece of adhesive tape across the subwoofer's volume control so that it doesn't get changed inadvertantly.

Hopes this helps.

Michael

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