GUIDE
Calibrate your system, step by step
Seven steps, in the order that matters. Most of the improvement comes from the first four, and they need nothing more than a tape measure and a phone.
Place before you calibrate
Put the front speakers at 22–30° either side of the screen centre and the surrounds where the room check says, tweeters at ear height, toed in towards the seat. For the subwoofer, do the subwoofer crawl: put the sub on your seat, play a bass-heavy scene, crawl around the floor where the sub could go and listen for the smoothest, most even bass; put the sub there.
Set the speaker size and crossover
In the receiver's speaker setup, set the speakers to Small and the crossover to 80 Hz, the widely used default, so the bass goes to the subwoofer. A rule of thumb: raise it (90–120 Hz) for small satellites or in-wall speakers. Turn the subwoofer's own crossover dial to its highest setting or LFE bypass, so the receiver does the crossing.
Enter the distances
Measure from your ears to each speaker and the subwoofer and type them into the receiver. It delays the nearer speakers so every sound arrives together (sound travels about 34 cm per millisecond). The calculator below shows the difference it corrects.
Match the levels
Play the receiver's test tone through each speaker in turn and measure it at the seat with a sound level meter or a phone app (C-weighted, slow). 75 dB is the long-standing reference for test tones; any level works as long as every speaker reads the same. Set the subwoofer to the same reading; many listeners then prefer it 2–4 dB higher, a matter of taste.
Check the subwoofer's phase
Play a tone or bass music around the crossover (80 Hz) and flip the subwoofer's phase switch between 0 and 180°, or nudge its distance setting: keep whichever is louder at the seat. That fills the dip where speaker and sub overlap.
Run room correction last
Now run the receiver's automatic room correction (Audyssey, Dirac Live, YPAO, Anthem ARC or similar), microphone at ear height on a tripod, the main seat first, and the room quiet. It corrects what placement could not, but it cannot fill deep dips, which is why the steps above come first.
Measure and listen
If you have a measurement microphone, measure with Room EQ Wizard and open the file in the REW Analyzer: it points out a hot subwoofer, a crossover dip and ringing room modes, in the order to fix them. Then listen to a familiar dialogue scene and a bass-heavy one, and trust your ears for the last decibel.
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Common mistakes
- A subwoofer set too hot: boomy bass that hides dialogue. Level-match first, then add a little.
- Skipping the distances: sounds arrive out of step and the image smears.
- Room correction first: it then fights a badly placed subwoofer and still leaves the dips.
- Thin bass after correction: check the speakers are set to Small with a crossover, and re-check the sub level; some correction systems also offer a bass boost or dynamic EQ for low volumes.