4HT
I have found the same thing. I can max out the volume on my red dot. No way could I do this with my old 950, I could crank the volume up to where you just couldnt or wouldnt want to hear it any louder. It surprised me last week when I cranked up a few of my favorites. I wanted just that little bit more, and it wasnt there. First I thought no way, whats up. My amp was no where near clipping. My room is 14 x 20 and it can take some high volume. I am not saying that the sound was not clean or anything like that, it was great. It just does not have the same level of punch. Is the Hiss missing in my red dot, yes. I believe that volume was the trade off for the fix. And if I had never owned the orginal 950 I would not have know the difference. This isnt a deal breaker But I wish I could have had both, Hiss less and very Loud.

DOBEMAN,

See my post, above.

TG: No, I match levels within themselves, but not to "reference". (I should have been clear about that.)

My point was: out of the box, the Sony has more "headroom" than the Outlaw.

Without calibrating your system to reference, there's no way you know whether you're really "maxing out" your volume, or your just not providing enough voltage at the amp. That's why you calibrate your system: to make sure that the volume levels you obtain are matching the reference. Any talk about maximum volume without proper system calibration is meaningless.

Having the same problem 4HT, with my brand new 950 that I got on Tuesday. It may be that I don't know what I am doing yet, but it seems funny that I have to adjust the trim to something that is non standard to get the right volume of sound out of it. When the 950 is calibrated using the 950 signal at 0db, the output from my speakers at full volume +10db is around spl 85db. I also have to crank the trim down on the subwoofer to -12 db to keep the house from coming apart.

MeanGene, I prefer having the trim set low on the subwoofer like you have, so that, when I want to crank the sub, like in a movie, there's headroom in the trim setting to do it. I could adjust my sub so the trim setting is closer to zero, but I don't since I like having the trim setting deep in negative territory.

"Having the same problem 4HT, with my brand new 950 that I got on Tuesday. It may be that I don't know what I am doing yet, but it seems funny that I have to adjust the trim to something that is non standard to get the right volume of sound out of it. When the 950 is calibrated using the 950 signal at 0db, the output from my speakers at full volume +10db is around spl 85db. I also have to crank the trim down on the subwoofer to -12 db to keep the house from coming apart. "

You should be getting 75db at 0db on the scale. That would make the system calibrated using the test tones. If you're using the Avia, then 85db at 0db would be correct. Subwoofer settings have more to do with the volume on your sub and how that's set.

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone watch a movie at a maximum volume of 85db spl?

What is being said is that if you do calibrate your system at the 0db reference level you will never get near 115db spl. I can only get 85db spl calibrated that way.

"What is being said is that if you do calibrate your system at the 0db reference level you will never get near 115db spl. I can only get 85db spl calibrated that way."

Ah, no. The test tones are calibrated at 30db below reference. Thus, if you set your volume control to 0db, turn on the internal test tones, and calibrate each speaker to read 75db with a RS sound pressure meter, your maximum SPL for movies with the volume set at 0db will be 105db (75 + 30). For the subwoofer, it's actually 115db, but let's not confuse the issue.