New owner of avr300, couple questions

I just got an avr-300 and have two questions:

1. I have a new magnepan cc3 center channel, and I am
getting some "crackle" on it at very high volumes. Granted
I likely won't listen to movies at this high level and with
analog direct, the center is not in use, but I'm still concerned.
I have the center sent to small and the mains set to
large (they are maggie mg-i's). Is there something
wrong with my set up or possibly my new cc3?


2. I sometimes get some "noise" on my screen when I change
the volume and do other things. I thought I had tracked it
down to OSD being on, and no noise with it off, but it seems
to not be consistent. OSD works fine for my music source if
I have the TV on, but I get noise from my satellite receiver --
but just sometimes. I have not decided yet if I want OSD
on or off, but my avr300 is in a cabinet so it may be nice to
see sometimes. So instead of noise it would be good to
see the text from the OSD. Any ideas?

3. I'm somewhat surprised at the volume levels I'm using -- they
are higher than I had before. I was using an acurus 2x100
amp to drive the maggies, but it seemed to get louder on the
same inputs. Should I adjust the input trims from 2v down to a
lower level? I do have a large room -- 14.5' x 22', but the back
wall is open another 12 ft, it's a 18' ceiling, and one side wall
is actually very open as well with a 10' wide foryer.

Thanks for any input/advice,

Sean

 

Hi Sean!

I have an AVR300, as well as the same center and surround speakers. (I am using Quad ESL-57s for my front speakers). My room is 24 ft (l) x 15.5 ft (w). So our set-ups are very similar. WRT to your questions...

1. I do not have any crackle sounds on my CC3. When I first got my Maggies, I felt the the CC3 sounded a little "tinny." However, after breaking it in for awhile, and fine tuning the volume levels and crossover points, I have found the CC3 to be the most natural sounding center channel speaker that I have ever heard, especially for dialogue. You might want to check out the post that I made regarding running the AVR300 in direct mode with a subwoofer. Several people made some very good suggestions. BTW, I have both my CC3 and quads set to "small."

2. No noise here.

3. The maggies require a lot of power. I had to increase the dB levels for the Maggies several points to get a good balance between the center and front speakers.

 

Isn't that 3 questions....but i'm no maths genius!

 

Well, yes and no...we don't use metrics in the states. Two questions in England is equal to 3 in the US - or something like that.

 

You know there's three kinds of mathematicians. Those who can count and those who can't.

 

Sorry, there were 2 questions when I started and 3 when I finished!

The noise seems to be due to OSD not working with a HD source as the manual explains this is not supported. I'm not 100% it is consistent yet but am pretty sure this is the problem.

As far as the crackle, or distortion, on the cc3 it is only at very high volume levels so I'm not so sure if it is a problem or not. The mg-i's have no issues but they are a much larger speaker. I did set the cc3 to small.

The center is set to about +6db and the mains (mg-i's) are +0. That gave the same 75 reading on all 3 speakers with the pressure meter.

I have no sub or surrounds though I do plan on adding them sometime in the not too distant future. I'm somewhat new to anything other than simple, clean two channel music, so thanks for all the input.

Thanks,
SEan

 

Sounds like your centre is not very sensitive (hence the +6dB). This means you're putting twice as much power into it as into the mains for any given signal level - you are probably driving the centre amp into clipping on high volume settings.

So you either need a larger power amp for the centre speaker, or a more efficient centre speaker (or just turn the overall level down, of course)

 

I am getting exactly the same "crackling" on high levels in stereo mode. It occurs around 90dB, and my L+R loudspeakers can certainly handle sound pressure levels up to 110dB without problems, and I have experienced the same problem with other loudspeakers. The volume levels when calibrating are uncorrected on L+R. This happens on both Stereo Direct mode, and on sterePCM (letting AVR300 do the decoding).

I wonder what might be the cause of this. The high pitched crackling is so loud (obviously partly because the volume setting is loud in the first place), that I seriously fear for my tweeters. I therefore have to keep the volume around 85dB to be on the safe side, and this simply isn't good enough. I expect an amp as the AVR300 to get much more of the potential from my speakers.