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Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

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Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

Old 07-22-15, 01:56 AM
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Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

About a year or so, I had Best Buy install a little home theater setup in my family room. Nothing big, just five speakers in the ceiling, and a sub on the ground.

They set everything up and calibrated the speakers so that the volume was loud at say 12-13 or so. I would turn it up to say 25-30 for Game of Thrones and the sound quality was outstanding.

Fast forward to last night and the sound totally goes out randomly. This had happened before, and a simple power cycling would fix it. This time, that didn't work, and I was forced to do a factory reset.

But now the speakers are out of whack. I did the auto calibration, and the sound is working through all of the speakers, but I have to turn the volume to 20-25 now just to hear the TV well. The settings before (12-13) were fine, but now its like whispering.

I'm still a noob when it comes to this type of stuff, so my question is how can I fix the issue? Is there some way to make the sound louder at the fore mentioned levels of 12-13?
Old 07-22-15, 09:25 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

Aside from how high you turn the volume, if you are happy with the sound quality, you could simply leave it be.

Otherwise, you need to dig out the User Manual and calibrate the entire system. Basic speaker settings for an AVR include the speaker size and distance, possibly the tone or crossover. There is then a test tone so that you can adjust each individual speaker to ensure the volume is equal from each speaker from the primary listening position. There is probably more that is slipping my mind at the moment, but it will all be covered in the User Manual or once you enter the setup it should take your through it step by step.
Old 07-22-15, 10:36 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

I found that the auto-calibration on my Onkyo receiver was kind of terrible. It set everything far too low. As Dogg said, do the calibration manually by adjusting the test tone for each speaker.
Old 07-22-15, 10:58 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

You mean by increasing the decibels?
Old 07-22-15, 11:38 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

Correct. Sorry, I should have been clearer. On mine, after the auto-cal, they were all set to about -10db. I just upped them all by 8 or so, so they were higher, but still "balanced" when using the test tone. I also bumped up the center channel a bit more, as I find dialog during quiet scenes to be harder to hear in general.
Old 07-22-15, 03:00 PM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

I'll try that, thanks.
Old 07-22-15, 06:50 PM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

I think my rear surrounds were like -1.5 and the fronts were 3.-4 each.

How much do you think I should raise them?
Old 07-23-15, 09:44 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

Hard to say. Pick a number and test to see if it's close to where it was before.

As long as they are balanced, the level doesn't matter. You simply have to increase the volume higher than 12. It shouldn't affect quality at all. If anything, having them too high would affect quality, especially at higher volumes.
Old 07-26-15, 08:32 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

This sounds like a typical, modern, digital volume control numbering system. What Dogg is saying is that the number doesn't really matter. It isn't like a 1970s receiver where "5" = 50% of amp power, "7" = 70%. Digital volume numbers do not directly correlate to how many watts are being pumped out, there are many more variables today, like those individual settings you are tweaking. So, even if your settings have changed and you now have to run at 25 instead of 12, that number shouldn't matter much, as long as you are getting the same volume to your ears. With -1.5 and 3 or 4 in the settings, I wouldn't change them, you want them in the middle like that. You would just start using the volume at a higher number. Perhaps there is another setting that is affecting the volume numbers.

However, the fact that it just up and dropped volume one day would worry me that something is half dead inside. Be prepared to have to replace the receiver. If you have a one year warranty and are still under a year, bring it in right away, see what you can get done under warranty.
Old 07-30-15, 12:10 AM
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Re: Sound is quiet out of HT speakers. Advice?

It's been about 17 months since I bought the receiver. It was refurbished, too.

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