Harman-Kardon AVR 146 Step Two Measure Speaker Distances, Step Three Manual Setup Menu

INITIAL SETUP

Your subwoofer’s frequency response will include only the very lowest frequencies, since the subwoofer is only designed to play bass materials. A typical frequency response for a subwoofer is 25Hz – 150Hz. In this case, the higher number is most important and should be noted in the worksheet.

The purpose of programming this information into the AVR 146 is to program the receiver’s bass management, which determines which speakers the receiver will use to play back the low-frequency (bass) portion of the source program.

If you send the lowest notes to small satellite speakers, you won’t hear these notes very well, and you may even damage the speaker by going beyond its capabilities. If you send the highest notes to the special-purpose subwoofer, you may not hear them at all.

With proper bass management, the AVR 146 divides the source signal at a crossover point. All information above the crossover point is played through the satellite speaker (front left/right, center or surround left/right), and all information below the crossover point is played through the subwoofer. This enables each loudspeaker in your system to perform at its best, delivering an enjoyable sound experience.

Figure 39 – Manual Setup Menu Screen

The Manual Setup menu is the gateway to four submenus: Speaker Size, Speaker X-over, Delay Adjust and Channel Adjust.

Speaker Size Menu

Press the Set Button to display the Speaker Size submenu. See Figure 40.

Step Two – Measure Speaker Distances

Ideally, all of your speakers were placed in a circle, each at the same distance from the listening position. However, your room may not be ideal, and you may have had to place some speakers a little further away than others. This could affect the overall sound of the receiver, as sounds that are supposed to arrive simultaneously from different speakers blur due to different arrival times.

The AVR 146 has a delay adjustment that enables the receiver to compensate for real-world speaker placements.

Before you begin making adjustments, measure the distance from each speaker to the listening position, and note it in the Table A3 worksheet in the appendix. Even if all of your speakers are the same distance from the listening position, you should enter your speaker distances into the Delay Adjust menu, which is described in Step Three.

Step Three – Manual Setup Menu

Now you are ready to program these adjustments into the receiver. It’s best to sit in the usual listening position and make the room as quiet as possible. Don’t worry if you make a mistake; you can always go back and change these settings.

With the receiver and video display turned on, press the OSD Button on the remote (see Figure 37). Use the ¤ Button on the remote to move the cursor to the MANUAL SETUP line, and press the Set Button to display the Manual Setup menu. See Figure 39.

Figure 40 – Speaker Size Menu Screen

The Speaker Size menu lists each of the speaker groups. You will be programming the correct setting for each group, indicating how many speakers are in your system and what their capabilities are, based on the information you obtained in Step One – Determine Speaker Size. Each of the main speaker groups can be set to one of three settings:

LARGE, SMALL or NONE. These settings don’t refer to the physical size of the speaker, but rather to the size of the frequency range of each speaker. These may or may not turn out to be the same.

If the lower number of the frequency response for your speakers is less than 100Hz, choose the LARGE setting. If this number is 100Hz or greater, choose the SMALL setting. If you don’t have a speaker con- nected to that position, choose NONE. You may record the speaker size settings in Table A5 in the appendix.

As you can see, the system requires you to use both speakers in a pair. For example, you can’t connect just a front left speaker without a right speaker, or just a right surround (rear) speaker without a left one. However, you can connect only the front speakers, or both front and surround speakers without a center, or the front left/right and center speakers without any surrounds.

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