setting up surround sound speakers

Very new to all this stuff, recently purchased Yamaha RX530rds amp and Mission FS1 speakers set afetr listening to many in lots of shops.

At present all are at standard settings.

Can someone give advise n setting up the speakers in terms of sound levels and delay times.. Is it worth going to teh expense of a SPL meter


Cheers

 

Ideally all of your speaker channels should be balanced so that they are all at the same volume level at the spot where your ears would be under normal listening/viewing conditions. With most set-up procedures you would sit where you normally sit and either guestimate this with your own ears (difficult in my opinion) or use an SPL metre to make life easier and more accurate.

Volume on the amp should be ideally set to '0' decibels or any other fairly mid to high range point: your 'reference' level.

You then balance the volume to either 75db per channel or 85db if using the Avia set-up tones. Your sub may need to be increased or decreased according to your own taste/neighbours.

In terms of speaker placement, I find the diagram on the link here: www.bryston.ca/newsletters/65_files/vol6is5.html gives best results for me but you may find your own solution through experimentation.

 

doen't 0 decibels sound pretty high using a test tone. My amp works backwards from about -95 upwards to zero.

Also any info on setting delay times etc and how do you use one of those SPL meters

Any advise is much appreciated

 

Sure you should use a SPL meter, but...

Then it won´t sound right, at least for me, and I have to set everything again by ear, with DVDs or CDs for DPLII...

I have the surround channels louder, and the center quiter, this way it works better for me with DPLII and movies, for most music DVDs I have to adjust again, they don´t have the levels uniform...