Almost finished, but could use a little advice!

[EFW]

I recently purchased a new home theatre system consisting of (2) monitor 70's (Front), (2) Monitor 40's (Rear), (1) CS2 (center), & (1) PSW12 I am using an Onkyo TX-SR703 AV Receiver to push them! In which way would I hook up the speakers to give me the best sound? And for those of you familiar with this receiver, how should I set it up to give me the best results? I would appreciate any and all advice this is my first home entertainment center of this caliber! Thanks................EFW

[schwarcw]

Congratulations and welcome to the Clun. Nice setup! All speakers (except the sub) should be at your ear level if possible. You may need some speaker stand to do this. Try to get the sub in a corner if you can, or against the from wall. Polk website has some good tecnical information if you go to the home page and look under home theater. They have an instruction booklet you can down load. There is a disk you can buy at Amazon.com by Avia called "Home Teater Essentials". You will need a sound meter that you buy buy at Radio Shack to help set the channel levels. If you don't want to go the extra expense, use your ears to set the channel level. Have fun! Welcome to the Forum and please post any questions you have. Good luck!

[michael_w]

I'm asuming the main hookup question you need answered is how to hook up the sub? I would suggest you used the sub out from your onkyo and use the low level inputs on the sub to hook it up. You would probably want to have the crossover at around 80Hz to start and set all your other speakers to small. You can play with setting them to large to give them the full signal but it all depends on what sounds better to you. I'm thinking setting your front speakers to large would be best, but once again just a personal decision.

Do you have an spl meter? It's the best way to calibrate a new system. What you do is just run a test signal (or pink noise) through your speakers and set them all to around 75 dB. This way they'll all produce their seperate sound at the level they're intended to. From there you can fiddle (eg turn up the center channel for louder voices for night listening or w/e).

Welcome to club polk!

[michael_w]

Just noticed someone posted before I could... I agree with much of what schwarcw said except for the everything at ear level. It is best to have the surrounds placed two to three feet higher than ear level. Some people have them firing foward (from behind the listener) but as THX reccomends, it is best to have them on opposite walls playing towards each other.

Also, for sub placment it really depends on your room. Since the psw12 isn't the most powerful sub you'll probably have to put it in a corner or up against a wall but in doing that you will probably make things a little boomy. Cleaner sound can be achieved by taking it out of the corner, but you'll loose a lot of output from lack of room gain.

One method of finding the best place for your sub is to put it where you would sit when listening and then crawl around the room on all fours. Wherever you find it sounds the best that's where you put it.

[EFW]

Thanks guys great info and alot of help! One more thing Michael, my receiver has a seperate setting for each speaker Front, center, surround, and surrback. I know not to worry about the surrback, as I don't have that many speakers. But should I set all the others (Front, Center & Surround) to 80Hz(THX)??? Thanks again Guys.......EFW

[michael_w]

80Hz is a good place to start. If you have your speakers set to large it won't matter, but if they're set to small then that setting is crucial. THX recommends to use 80Hz all around but some like it a different. For my 2 channel system my sub is set to around 45 - 50 Hz. It's all personal opinion on what sounds best to you. For me it just blends the best in that range but it will probably be different for you.