Featured Reviews & Articles

Do your speakers sound like they are in a tunnel, cave, bathroom, auditorium, or a similar location? If so, chances are that you have some type of DSP, or Digital Signal Processing, going on in your system. AV receiver manufacturers often include a number of different DSPs that are supposed to recreate the sound of a particular venue, but these modes can be distracting. Yamaha tends to be the king of DSPs, with options like Hall in Munich, Hall in Vienna, and The Roxy Theater. Their current flagship receiver, the RX-A3020, actually boasts a total of 23 different DSP programs! Check your A/V receiver settings to be sure you're running Dolby TrueHD / DTS HD without DSP processing if your experiencing undesirable results.

In stores, manufacturers purposefully crank up brightness and contrast, among other settings, to make their TVs look "better" than the competition. We know that "better" actually means, "We jacked with the settings as much as possible, at the expense of an accurate picture, so you would buy our TV." Unfortunately, this means your brand new TV doesn't look anywhere close to how it should. If you can afford the money to have your display professionally calibrated by an ISF or THX certified technician, great! If not, you can still get 80% of the way there by utilizing a test disc. Below are a few of the most popular tests discs on the market. If you don't want to spend any money on calibrating your display, then look through your movie collection for a THX certified disc that has the THX Optimizer included. Set your TV's picture mode to cinema or movie (or THX if it's available) and run through the THX Optimizer.

Just because your new-fangled receiver has an automatic calibration mic doesn't mean it's guaranteed to setup your speakers properly. Sure, the automatic calibration can be beneficial, but it will almost always get a few things wrong. We frequently read posts that say something to the effect of "My receiver set my speakers to +10dB, my sub to -10dB, and set my mains to large." Results like this are a good indicator that the auto-setup mic on your receiver has some major flaws. Sometimes the answer is just to relocate the mic and retest or change the position of some of your speakers, but typically the best route is to scrap the auto-setup mic and do things manually. For extra tips on how to properly place your speakers or setup your receiver, checkout our complete "Tips & Tricks" section.

Years ago we used to wax on endlessly about calibrating your television and getting the perfect calibration. While there are some of us who still love to pull out the calibration kit and dial in our settings for that perfect picture, it's not like it used to be. Manufacturers are starting to get pretty good at providing workable and truly helpful default picture modes on their flat screen television sets. While the generic or near-generic brands may not be nearly as good as some of the more widely-known manufacturers, televisions can deliver a pretty decent picture right out of the box these days. You just have to know what Picture Mode means and how to use it.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or in this case, their hearing. Even a modest sound system is capable of delivering sufficiently loud sounds to cause significant damage to your hearing over time. Investing in an SPL (sound pressure level) meter can be useful for things like system setup, but it is also an important tool to let you know whether you are indeed getting too much of a good thing. Have fun, but be careful!

Whether you're calibrating your surround sound system or taking a photograph, a tripod can make a big difference in the results you get. The tripod will lift the microphone to your ear level and reduce the potential for interference and noise that would be present if you physically held the microphone in place. A good quality tripod can be inexpensive and are they readily available at a variety of retailers.

If you have read any of our past HAA articles (there are two on Level I and Level II training) then you'll know that we eat and sleep acoustics. You will also know that we have a great deal of respect for the HAA organization. They have a unique perspective on acoustics for home audio and home theater which is to apply concepts, measure, listen and adjust. Now the HAA has come out with a new training course and I was privileged to be able to attend the pilot class. The course is called TurboCal and it is designed to provide a high value calibration process that is affordable to the consumer and efficient for the calibrator. Most TurboCals are completed in less than two hours.

We often get flooded with emails from readers attempting to troubleshoot why their home theater systems no longer work correctly. This assumes at one point your system was operating correctly but has recently gone out of whack. As a result, we have captured some of the most common problems reported to us in this short editorial and offer real solutions to resolve them. So if you're system just doesn't sound right anymore, or you want some tips to tweak it to perfection, check out this article.

If you’ve got a multi row theater room, you’re probably wondering what the best method of calibration would be. Setting channel trims and delay settings properly are paramount to ensuring good sound quality, but at what seated position should they be set too? This article explores how to effectively ensure good calibration across the whole listening area and not just one sweet spot.