Hi all, got my 990 on saturday, going to see how I like it vs the yamaha 2500, set it up on sunday after work and played with it a bit{wife was home so couldn't open it up]well today I have been trying to calibrate the channels, what should the volume control be on? I have it at -22 but It sounds a little muddy and the sub volume seems low ,haven't used the auto set-up all manual,have speakers all, set to small sub on fronts crossover at 60, center at 80, and all surrounds at 100, it just doesn't sound right to me, I was using the 2500 with the icbm, do you think I should hook that up, am I doing something wrong ? I want to give it a fair chance vs the yammy 2500 thanks

The volume control needs to be set to 0dB when calibrating to the recommended 75dB level with the internal test tones - that will set 0dB to the "reference level". If you have the master volume at -22dB, you are probably going to have a difficult time getting the levels consistent and will be essentially unable to reach the recommended 75dB.

the thing is Gonk, I can get everything to 75 db and the levels in speaker calibration are lf +1,rf +3, Ccenter+6, SR+6, sl+7 SBL+7,SBR+6 and sub -0 I'll try it with volume at zero, but with the way it is now playing music at -20 gets me 89 db's of sound, thanks will try zero and get back to you

put volume at zero and got on speaker calibration lf -15, rf-14, center-10, ls-6,rs-9,rsb-9,lsb-6 and sub -15and it was about 77 on the radio shack spl meter listened to eagles farewell tour dvd used funk49 and pink floyd dark side of the moon played time and us and them, with the pink floyd on the previous settings at volume -27 was getting 86 db now I go up to -12 to get the same 86 db on the yamaha -23 got me the same volume level and it sounds kind of jumbled now [for lack of a better word] should I try to calibrate at a different volume setting or is zero the reference point the yammy was calibrated at -24, I really want this to work out because I do like the 990, do you think I just so used to the 2500, the highest I ever went with it was -12 and it was unbearably loud as my klipsch speakers are 97 db effecient, I really appreciate the help.

The highly efficient Klipsches are the reason for your high levels - 97dB is a long way from the typical 86dB to 92dB efficiency most speakers offer. In cases like that, it is often best to do something along the lines of what you are doing - move the master volume down to -10dB or -20dB, then calibrate to 75dB there (with the settings you ended up with, I'd probably go around -10dB so that your adjustments ranged from -5dB to +5dB).

I'm not sure about the "jumble" you are running into. The first step is probably to get all of the channels well adjusted (the sub will likely need a fair bit of further tweaking as you listen to stuff - think of it as "seasoning to taste"). After that, try some familiar material and be aware of the processing being applied - CD's or DD 2.0 DVD's that you have been listening to in stereo may sound a lot different if you let the 990 default to surround. Let us know how it goes...

set the volume to zero and it sounds pretty good,I am just worried about the volume control being up so high as opposed to what I was used to,will try to calibrate with the volume at -10 and will get back to you,maybe it's me, have been playing since noon time

I always calibrate using 70db as I feel you get a more precise measurement near the "0" mark of the SPL meter and have the preamp set to -10. After doing so, I usually listen to the unit at about -20 for movies and may approach -15 for music.

I used to have the 2500 myself (used only as a pre/pro) and went to the 990. If the sound is muddy, it is most likely due to your crossovers. It took me quite a while to get it set so the bass was properly integrated with everything. You may want to raise you crossovers on the fronts to 80Hz as this will send more of the lower bass to the sub (you said it was not bassy enough).

I found 60Hz to leave things a little too bright and 100Hz left everything a little too muddy. 80Hz ended up being just right. Don't worry about setting the crossovers higher than what your speakers will go down to (my fronts/center will go down to about 40Hz, but I still cross them over at 80), let your ears be the judge of what sounds best.

Hi Doug, set volume to -10 and recalibrated, seems to be better, I also might try moving the front crossover from 60 to 80 to see how I like it, I also might try to recalibrate my sms-1 because I had to turn its volume down from 20 to 10 with the 990, maybe that has something to do with it still have 28 days to play with it, it wasn't really muddy it just seemed like there was too much going on and the music wasn't focused if you know what I mean but moving from zero to minus ten helped now with music the 990 runs at -22,I value your input, as you have been there done that

I'd definitely suggest getting the SMS-1's mic back out and adjusting your levels again - the SMS-1 seems much better at measuring SPL at low frequencies than the RS meter, and should take a lot of guesswork out of the sub adjustment.