Problem with Home Theater Volume

Thanks for the input. The weird part is when I got the gear, I could easily over drive the speakers/myself. Things got very loud. Electronics don't usually degrade, which is the hard part. Watching the same movies, same room, same gear, using a spl meter to confirm I am not going nuts. The part in "Enemy at the Gate" where the bombs are falling on the factory, big explosions ect. the unit it maxed and the meter is maxing out at 95dbs. Really average volume. I should be able to shoot the speaker drivers across the room...

I wear manuals out, they really can be useful. More than once I have at a later date paged thru one and said, wish I had know that.

I have reset all the settings to factory defaults, using the manuals procedure. The Sim has very few settings, you would be surprised. The digital inputs do not, as far as I can tell, have looked specifically for this, input trim. The analog inputs do. I have not found that I have needed to use these. I also have the Simaudio Stellar cd/dvd player and use the analog outs for all 2ch listening.

Side note, boy 2ch can get addicting.

In two channel play back using analog pass thru I an not sure if things are right. The system gets louder, with the woofers in the mains seem to bottom out at around 105db. This is another topic, I thought the system should hit 120 but that is for another thread. Using the analog/digital inputs in "stereo" mode leads to the same basic results as analog pass thru.

The amp has no settings...on/off

I would like to eliminate all the possible errors on my end before sending the unit in. It could be the surround circuits are messed up. The worsening over time part really leads me to think I am doing something wrong. Electronics usually do not react in this fashion, but anything is possible. Voltage is stable, 120-121v. Dedicated lines, I have tried different lines, no difference.

I tested the voltage output(rca output) of the processor in analog pass thru with a "full weighted"(? test disc with the max output -0db 1kz sine wave) with the processor volume at -0 and the output was a touch over 8 volts. Should blow up any amp.

Just for reference the processor has a digital true logarithmic scale. -0db max.

The room is 16x24x8, average room. Speakers are Meadowlark Heron-i's for the front three. New rears are on order, currently 3.2 system. Inputs used are the BNC digital, coax rca digital(different dvd player), rca analog, optical for sat(tried from dvd, same), XLR to amp.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated. This just does not seem right, I guess the next step is to find out what's bad, the processor or the amp. Any ideas for controlled tests are appreciated. I have a old 2ch Denon 200x2 amp I was going to play with.

Marty

Marty,

I think I might know aht could be happening. When I first set up my system, everything was fine and nice and loud. Once, when listening to my CD, I saw that the LED on my Pre/Pro said "OVERLOAD - Attenuating"

Basically what had happened is that it noticed the signal coming in was too high and it auto adjusted that input to a lower level and kept it there. Perhaps your system has attenuated the input too much and now you cannot get it to run at full power output.

Try to adjust the gain on your inputs and possibly on the output channels and see if you can turn them up. I know that I purposely did just the opposite at my friend's house when he borrowed some equipment so that his wife and kids wouldn't overdrive my amp and blow out my speakers. Full power wouldn't clip anything.

Mike

Are you finding all 5 channels are too low , or is it just certain channels like the rears for example. Is this just a digital isssue, ie only from the DVD player, How is the surround sound off of the TV feed.?

One interesting thing learned, with the rear speakers turned off the processor seems to cut the output for all channels by 5db's. I flip the settings and can hear a difference.

Reset all settings to factory defaults, with rears on(I physically do not have any hooked up), the opening battle in "Gladiator" maxes out at 100-105db's. The voltage output on the amp end is between 30-35volts. This is loud, just worries me that this is at the max volume settings, -0. A month before -10 was producing insane spl levels.

The unit does not have an automatic attenuating, the reset to defaults should clear this I would assume.

Thanks for the help.
Marty

From what it sounds like, the speakers are damaged. Do you have another pair of speakers to play around with ? With 35 volts hitting a woofer, the cone should be popping out of the basket.

I would also be concerned with the fact that your signal to the mains was changing if & when you engage the rears into service on the processor. Sounds like you may have multiple problems here.

As to trying to hit 120 dB's with 90 dB speakers and 200 wpc, good luck. Maybe if you're in a room the size of a walk in closet. Most speakers go into compression WAY, WAY below that point, especially if you are talking about average listening levels and not peak. Sean
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