Sony Str-DB790 Speaker setup help please

Hi guys wondering if anyone can help.

Just bought this Sony and anyone who mentioned the "manual" being in Chinese was right! Seeesh..... what a waste of paper

I was most frustrated when it came to balancing/calibtrating the speakers. I can adjust the center channel, Surrounds L+R and subwoofer, but what about the 2 fronts?

The Denon 1804 i had previously (which i only had a few days admittedly. I exchanged it after reading HCC's Reciever roundup) was a breeze to setup and would quite happily allow you to adjust each speaker.

Its so frustrating as i'm sat in my listening position, an SPL meter in one hand. Yet i can't adjust the fronts

Anyone help would be greatly appreciated

 

Hi there, it was probably me who said that the manual could as well be written in chinese!
I'm not at home and so I don't have access to the amp but I seem to remember calibrating ALL the speakers myself. I'll check this out when I get home and tell you the results...

Love the amp! How do you like yours?

 

Hi thanks for the reply.

Yeah great receiver. Loving the results.

Also bought the Elac Cinema2 Speaker Package. Fantastic

I was just frustrated by Sony's OS and manual

 

My dad bought this same receiver just before xmas. Spent 1.5h on the phone talking to his wife (international call, I'm in Finland) helping them to set the thing up. What a nightmare.

There's me in Finland without access to the manual (managed to find the PDF for the manual in the end, but by this time it was too late) and them at the other end with absolutely zero knowledge of how one goes about setting an amp up.

Its a miracle they'd even got the speakers wired up correctly, but by the time they called me somehow they'd managed to get the TV connected to the amp via digital co-ax (their TV is a panasonic that has DD decoding built in) and expected their DVD's to play in DD (despite the fact that their DVD player wasn't connected to the amp in any shape or form).

1.5h later we finally got the DVD, TV and Video connected to the receiver. Phew

Anyway, nothing at all to do with answering your original question, but just wanted to say that I totally feel your pain!

 

Oh yeah i'm feeling pain Mr. W

Anyway just been through the manual again for the umpteenth time and there is no mention of being able to adjust the volume output from the front left and right speakers.

How can i balance such a system that doesn't allow me to adjust every speaker

 

Just taking a look at the PDF manual for the 790, and it looks like page 23 is what you want. Have you followed that?

Can't copy anything out of it, but there are 4 steps

1) Turn on receiver via remote
2) Press test tone on remote
3) Adjust speaker level and balance using level menu (Chinese ) to get the same levels from each speaker (presumably using your SPL).
4) Press test tone again when you're done.

Page 36 has more details on entering the level menu.

1. Play a dvd
2. Press "Main menu" repeatedly until you see the Level option.
3. Rotate the Menu dial until you see the speaker or option you want. Options are:

T. Tone => Test tone
Bal XXXX => Front speaker balance (bias towards one speaker)
Ctr xxx.x dB => Center speaker level
SurL xxx.x dB => Left (front? Chinese...!) speaker
SurR xxx.x dB => Right (front? Chinese...!) speaker
SB xxx.x dB => Rear center speaker
SBL xxx.x dB => Rear Left
SBR xxx.x dB => Rear Right
S.W xxx.x dB => Sub woofer

There's a couple of others too (see page 37).

Hope that helps? My Chinese isn't any good either!

 

I have had 2 sony's i couldn't adjust the levels of the fornt speakers only the balance .So all you can do is match the rest of the spaekers to match the fronts.It's easy to do just a bit of messing around getting the balance right on the fronts ,once you have them set you can ajust the rest of the speakers.