OT- Fine Tuning Powered Monitors: Question…

[dkrz]

I've got Genelec 1030a monitors and on the back are treble and bass tilt/rolloff controls as well as an input sensitivity control.

They are front wall mounted in a non reverberant 24'x16' room and I was trying to better tune them so that my mixes would be a little brighter in the high-mids and less muddy in the lower end. (I would put them on stands but I have a cat that just loves woofers..).

Anyway I think I've finally got a good setting on them and a/b'd a couple mixes in my car stereo system.

So on to my question; I decided to (mess around) with the input sensitivity controls on the back and to my surprise, after adjusting them from the factory default setting of
-6dB to +6dB, I found that I had actually LOWERED their volume. Could someone explain to me why going from -6dB to +6dB does this.

I'm more just curious than anything else and I switched them back to their default -6 setting anyway.

dk

[Lowfreq]

Input sensitivity adjustment of amplifiers are based on adding or reducing gain in order to drive the output circuit to full power at a given voltage (usually .775 volts (+4dBu), but not always). So '-6dB' means that the incoming signal is -6dB 'too low' and therefore increases the sensitivity of the inputs to acheive the proper output. While '+6dB' dictates that the in coming siganle is 6dB 'too hot' and therefore decreases (or pads) the sensitivity of the iputs to achieve the poroper output. There is also a nominal ot '0dB' setting that just means unity gain gain (no increase or decrease of signal). What is the proper setting? That depends on what volume level you use to mix at. For instance when I my master fader at unity (0dB) and I run (full band) pink noise through my system and I adjust my monitors sensitivity settings (equally of course) until I get 85dB (A weighted) on my SPL meter at the listening position. Then to make sure each monitor adjustment is correct (as I never believe the numbers on the dial) I do each channel by itself (which are 3dB lower than with them both on. In my case 82 dB). When I play a mix through the system it will sound much lower in volume, of course, than the pink noise but I prefer to mix at lower volumes. Hope this helps

[dkrz]

Ok thanks, I get it now. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

dk