Settings And Operation — Continued
How much volume is enough?
When matched with the appropriate components, your RSL Speaker Systems can play at a very loud
volume. Your A/V Receiver or amplifier needs to be capable of delivering a sufficient amount of un-
distorted power. Strange as it may seem, too low of a power rating on your A/V Receiver or ampli-
fier is more likely to damage speakers than one with a higher power rating. That’s because when an
amplifier is called on to deliver more power than it was designed for, it will produce distortion called
clipping. This distortion is very harmful for speakers.
Using your A/V receiver’s setup
Now that you have your system placed and connected you’ll setup up your system with the setup
menu in your A/V receiver. Please refer to your owner’s manual. One setting you may need to set is
speaker impedance. If given the choice, set all speakers to 6-8 ohms, whichever is higher. This is cor-
rect for your RSL Speakers.
All of your RSLs are eager to pour out their little hearts for your viewing and listening enjoyment. All
they ask in return is for you to properly balance them. There are several methods of balancing your
speakers. The auto setup in your receiver will probably do an acceptable job. In addition, almost all
A/V receivers have the ability to play a test tone through each individual speaker. Usually this noise
is either white or pink noise, which sounds like a bunch of hiss. This sound is very handy if you wish
to balance the sound manually using your ears, sound level meter or sound level application for your
smart phone.
Using your A/V receiver’s auto setup
Most current A/V receivers have some sort of automatic setup. They supply a microphone that you
place at your main listening positions. Then, they play test tones through each speaker individually
(while advising you to maintain silence during this process). Then, the receiver will automatically cal-
culate speaker distance, individual speaker and subwoofer volume, and crossover points. In addi-
tion, most receivers employ room correction equalization. In many cases this room correction can
improve the sound where the acoustics of the room are less than ideal. You should experiment with
it on and off to determine which setting sounds best to you.
Please refer to your A/V receiver’s manual and how to use its auto setup feature. As handy as this is,
we need to caution you about a few things. First, it will often set the crossover to the wrong fre-
quency. After you do run auto setup, we strongly recommend going into your setup menu and set-
ting every crossover including the subwoofer’s to either 90 or 100 Hz.
When balancing your speakers, keep the following in mind:
1. The goal is to create a 3 dimensional sound environment all around you. For this you may need to
increase the volume of your surround speakers anywhere between 2 and 4 db.
2. We recommend setting the center channel speaker volume 1-2 db higher than the auto-setup.
This will help the clarity of dialog.
3. Set the subwoofer strictly by ear. Set the volume control on the subwoofer so that it points to the
12 o’clock position. Play some music with a constant bass track. Then set the subwoofer level in your
receiver according to taste.
19
