Manual Arcam AVR450 (page 16 of 206) (English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish)

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E-27E-26

English

Before you use your AV950/AVR750/450/380 it is

essential that you enter some information into the Setup

menus about your speaker conguration. is allows the

AV950/AVR750/450/380 to process any surround sound

digital source to exactly match your system and give you

the ultimate surround sound experience.

ere are three pieces of vital information which are

outlined in the sections: ‘Speaker Types’, ‘Speaker

Distances’ and ‘Speaker Levels’.

e way you enter this information manually into the

AV950/AVR750/450/380 is given later in the ‘Setup

Menus’ section on page E-28. e settings can also be

established automatically using the Arcam Auto Speaker

Setup function. However it is important to understand

why these speaker settings must be entered, which is

why this section is presented rst.

Speaker types

You need to set the type of speakers that you have

connected to your AV950/AVR750/450/380:

Large capable of full frequency range reproduction

Small not capable of full frequency range

reproduction at the low frequency end

None speaker not present in your configuration

e terms ‘Large’ and ‘Small’ do not necessarily relate to

the physical size of your speakers. As a rule of thumb,

ifaspeakercannotreproduceaatfrequencyresponse

down to about 40Hz (and very few can!) it is oen better

to consider them as ‘Small’ for setup purposes of home

cinema.

When a speaker is set to ‘Small’, very low frequency

sounds are redirected away from that speaker to a ‘Large’

speaker or a subwoofer, which are far better suited to

reproducing these low frequency sounds.

Note that it is not possible to set all speakers to

‘Small’ unless there is a subwoofer in your speaker

conguration. If you do not have a subwoofer, you will

be forced to set your front speakers to ‘Large’.

(Advanced users may wish to automatically override the

‘Small’ speaker setting for purely stereo music listening

when not watching movies. is can be achieved in the

‘Input Cong.’ menu – see page E-29.

essential

setup

Crossover frequency

If you have set any speakers as being Small, then you will

be required to set a value for the crossover frequency.

is is the frequency below which signals are ltered

away from these Small speakers and redirected to Large

speakers or the subwoofer (if present). A frequency of

80Hz is oen a good starting point, however you will

probably have to experiment with dierent values to nd

the best value for your system or consult your speaker

handbook.

Use Channels 6+7 for

If not used in the main zone, it is possible to assign the

Surround Back channels to bi-amp the Front Le/Right

channels or to provide an amplied output to Zone2.

Speaker Distances

It is essential for the distance from each speaker to the

listening position to be accurately measured and entered

into the ‘Setup’ menu. is ensures that the sounds from

the various speakers arrive at the listening position at

the correct time to recreate a realistic surround eect.

e distance can be entered in centimetres or inches.

Speaker Levels

Finally the levels of all the speakers in the system need

to be adjusted to match each other at the listening

position, again to create a proper surround eect. To

help with this the AV950/AVR750/450/380 can generate

a test noise for each speaker which should be measured

with a sound pressure level (SPL) meter. e meter

should be set to ‘C’ weighting and slow response. e

level of noise measured at the listening position from

each speaker should be adjusted on the Speaker Trims

page of the Setup menu so that the meter reads 75dB

SPL. It does not matter what the system volume setting

of the AV950/AVR750/450/380 is before turning the

test noise on as the volume setting is over-ridden for the

duration of the speaker noise test.

ere are several basic SPL meters on the market at

reasonable prices aimed at home cinema enthusiasts.

Check your local technology store, search online or ask

your dealer.

If you do not have an SPL meter, you can try to adjust

the noise level of each speaker by ear. In this case it is

not possible to adjust the speakers to the absolute 75dB

SPL volume level, but you should aim for all speakers

sounding equally loud. Setting speaker test noise levels

byearisnotrecommendedasitisverydiculttodo

accurately, but is oen better than doing nothing at all!

auto speaker

setup

ere is a proprietary automatic loudspeaker setup

function built into your AV950/AVR750/450/380. e

Arcam Auto Speaker Setup function attempts to set

all the essential speaker settings for all the speakers in

your system. It also calculates room equalisation (Room

EQ) lter values to remove some of the worst eects of

resonant frequencies in the listening room.

Your AV950/AVR750/450/380 package is supplied with

a calibration microphone, which should be inserted into

the AUX jack socket on the front panel and positioned

at the main listening position. is microphone picks

up the special calibration tones generated by the

speakers when Auto Speaker Setup is run. e AV950/

AVR750/450/380 then analyses the signal and computes:

which speakers are present,

speaker type,

speaker distance,

speaker level,

crossover frequency to the subwoofer (or large front

speakers if no subwoofer is present),

problem resonant frequencies in the room which

need control by ltering.

To help the system be as accurate as possible when

performing Auto Speaker Setup, there are a few

guidance rules that should be followed:

Minimise any background sounds in the listening

room and other nearby rooms.

Close all windows and doors in the listening room.

Turn o all fans including air-conditioning systems.

If holding the microphone in the hand rather than

mounting on a tripod or similar, keep your hand and

ngers still to avoid generating ‘handling noise’.

Position the set up microphone pointing upwards at

roughly head height in the normal listening position.

It is not necessary to point the microphone directly

at the speaker generating the test tone. (It helps if

you are able to position the microphone exactly

where your head would normally be for listening,

with the microphone in direct unobstructed view of

all speakers.)

If your system includes an active subwoofer, start

by setting its output level / gain control to a value

halfway between maximum and minimum.

When activated, a calibration tone is played through

each channel of the AV950/AVR750/450/380 in turn,

including the subwoofer channel. e calibration tone

cycles round each of the speakers multiple times as the

dierent parameters are calculated. If you do not have

a full 7.1 speaker conguration there will be periods

of silence between some speaker channels. Follow the

‘progress’ information on-screen.

Aer all the channels have been measured, a summary

of the speaker conguration will be displayed on-screen.

You can then choose to accept the settings, re-measure

your system again or cancel Auto Speaker Setup without

storing the settings.

e Auto Speaker Setup function is found within the

Setup menus, see page E-30. By default, Room EQ is

not applied to any of the source inputs. You should

enable Room EQ on inputs you think benet from this

feature, as required, by listening when playing typical

source material through each input. is is enabled from

within the Input Cong menu.

While room equalisation can help to reduce problems

with listening room acoustics, it is usually far better

to try to solve these problems with the room directly.

Proper loudspeaker positioning, acoustic wall

treatments and moving the listening position away from

walls should produce far better results overall. However

itmaybediculttodothisinahomeenvironment,so

Room EQ is your next best choice.

Problems

We advise you to look over the reported measurements

on the screen following Auto Speaker Setup for any

obviously incorrect results, in particular to ensure the

reported speakers match your conguration and that the

speaker distances to the listening position appear look

roughly correct. If the results are not what you expected

re-run Auto Speaker Setup.

e Auto Speaker Setup function is normally quite

accurate but occasionally false results can be generated.

Problems may be as a result of:

external sounds or rumbling / handling noises

picked up by the microphone

soundreectionsohardsurfaces(e.g.windowsor

walls) close to the listening position,

very strong acoustic resonances within the room,

obstacles (such as a sofa) between speakers and the

microphone.

Ifyouarestillexperiencingdicultiesoryouwishto

have the most accurate results for ultimate surround

performance, we recommend using the manual method

of establishing speaker distances and levels.

Using a subwoofer

If your system includes an active subwoofer you may

need to re-run Auto Speaker Setup with the subwoofer

output level / gain control set to a higher or lower value,

if the summary screen reports problems setting the

subwoofer up.

Auto Speaker Setup will attempt to choose a crossover

frequency that allows the smoothest low frequency

transition from the main speakers to the subwoofer.

However if this does not produce pleasing results we

recommend manually trying other crossover frequencies

to nd something more to your preference.

See the next sections for information of how to enter or

change speaker settings manually.

NOTE

Auto calibration is possible only for a 7.x, 5.x or 4.x

speaker conguration. Other speaker congurations,

such as a 2.1 setup (le, right and subwoofer),

must be congured manually using the speaker

conguration menus (see page E-31), referring

to the guidelines on page E-26 for speaker types,

speaker distance and speaker levels.

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Arcam AVR450 Manual

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