Hello all. I have a question that I have never found a really good answer to and was looking for a little help. When using the auto calibration to set delay it always puts my mains and surrounds 2-3 feet further than the actually are. Why does it do this? Thank you for your time, Brian.

My suspicion would be that your room is less "live" than what the designers choose as "typical". I don't think this is a bad thing as the general consensus is that a less reverberant space allows for a more convincing multi-channel effects recreation.

Is this sort of initial mis-sizing consistent if you try elevating the mic above your true listening position? Maybe the upholstered furniture and such is throwing off the system.

The 990 manual explains how to manually override the auto-setup. http://pdf.outlawaudio.com/outlaw/docs/990manual.pdf

How about auto settings for center and sub? You didn't mention if they were accurate.

The 990 is measuring the delay from when it puts out its test tone until the microphone detects the sound. So you have not only the time delay associated with the distance from the speaker to the mic but also any delay in the driver, the cross over, the wiring (negligible) and your amp.

My guess is that the system is detecting the extra delay caused by your electronics and compensating that out also. Two feet is about 1.8mS of delay. Finding specs on amplifier and cross over delays is difficult though so I don't know if this is reasonable or not.

If one has some speakers at 10 feet away and some at 20, the system would need to delay the signal to the closer speakers the equivalent of 10 feet of sound-though-air travel time. If your system were to measure these speakers as 15 and 25 feet away respectively, the delay given to the closer speaker, compared to the more distant speaker, would be the same as if the system had measured the more accurate distances of 10 and 20 feet respectively.

If your mains are 2 feet further from the measurement position than your center, do the system distance values reflect this? (Of course if your mains and your center are not designed as a set, or if the mains experience more electronic/acoustic delay than your center, they may measure with a larger difference in distance than would be otherwise.)

Make sure the microphone is oriented correctly - pointing straight up if I remember correctly and make sure the volume is set high enough for the setup. I usually do my setup at my normal listening volume but some do it at 0 db. Also make sure the room is very quiet before starting the noise generator. I always wait until I am the only persomn home

Hello again. My apologies for not coming back to this thread sooner. Thanks for all the responses!

My system consists of the 990 feeding 3 adcom amps which drives infinity kappa 8's ( front and rears) and an infinity kappa 7 for my center channel, low end is handled by 2 rythmik audio servo subs. I also have 10 2x4' by 3" thick sound absorption panels throut the room, most of them straddling the ceiling wall area ( the panels up front all have foil/kraft paper on the front). The room itself is small and odd shaped. It is 13' deep ( couch to tv) and 13.5' in length, 5' from the tv wall, the room length gradually increases to 16.5', so there is an 8' ( depth ) x 3' ( length ) area where you enter the room at. This makes it hard for me to use the room mode calculaters to find problem areas and I still haven't figured out how to use rew correctly.

Now with that aside, my front speakers are all very close to the same physical distance with the center being 7" closer. The rears are directly to the sides of the couch and the subs are upfront just behind the mains, in the corners. Before my 990 quit recognizing the microphone, 9 times out of 10, it would set all the fronts (including subs) at 12'. Occasionally it would set the left front and subs at 13'. For the rears, it sets the right 2' farther and the left 3' farther. I have always used the mic pointing straight up and have tried it at different heights using my camera tripod. I do calibrate at 0 and I also use a couple of different calibration discs to set spl.

I appreciate all the help! If this post doesn't make a lot of sense or seems like I am rambling on, I apologize, insomnia is a bitch! Thanks again, Brian.

It could be that the mike is seeing some relected sound and affecting the distance calculation. Just set them to the correct distance manually and it will be fine. You can set the gain with the meter.

Thanks XenonMan, I always wondered what was correct, the physical distance or what the processor determined. I am still trying to figure out how to use rew, I believe it has a feature to determine distance as well, not to mention all the other goodies. Brian