Problem with Home Theater Volume

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
>

I was looking at peak volume levels. All numbers listed were peaks.

Multiple problems are not fun to deal with. I do have a second set of speakers to play with, good old Cerwin Vegas...

Thanks
Marty