Advanced functions, manual speaker setup – Harman-Kardon AVR 3650 User Manual

Page 36

AVR

Advanced Functions, Manual Speaker Setup

Contrast Adjustment

1. Adjust the contrast on your TV until you see a bright white bar in the lower right

corner of the screen and a deep, dark, black bar to the left.

2. If the brightness of the white bar no longer increases when the Contrast is turned

up or the borders of white letters bloom (overlight) into the black areas (drastically
decreasing the sharpness of the letters), the contrast has been turned up too
much. Reduce the Contrast until these effects disappear and the video still looks
realistic.

3. If you are watching TV with ambient daylight, adjust the contrast so that a normal

video picture looks the same as the surroundings in your room; that way the eye is
relaxed when watching the TV picture. Reduce the setting when the surrounding
light is dimmed to improve the sharpness of the picture.

4. The gray scale in the middle line should retain the same distinction between each

bar as before the contrast adjustment. If not, repeat both Step 3 of the Brightness
Adjustment and the Contrast Adjustment.

Color Adjustment

1. When the brightness and contrast are set optimally, adjust the Color control.

Set the level so that the colors look strong but still natural, not overdone. If the
color level is too high, depending on the TV, some of the bars will seem wider or
the color intensity will not increase when the control is turned up. Test the color
intensity with a video of pictures of faces, ﬂowers, fruit and vegetables.

2. Refer to a large white bar in your test pattern to tweak the warmth of the picture

using the Tint control on your TV.

Sharpness Adjustment

Contrary to intuition, the picture will appear sharper and clearer with the sharpness
backed off from the maximum setting. Reduce the Sharpness setting on your
television, and the setting on the AVR, if necessary, to minimize the appearance of
any white lines between the bars in the gray-scale portion of the test screen.

Manual Speaker Setup

Your AVR is ﬂexible and may be conﬁgured to work with most speakers and to
compensate for the acoustic characteristics of your room.

The EzSet/EQ process automatically detects the capabilities of each connected
speaker and optimizes the AVR’s performance with your speakers. If you are unable
to run EzSet/EQ calibration, or if you wish to set up your AVR for your speakers
manually, use the Manual Speaker Setup on-screen menus.

Before beginning, place your loudspeakers as explained in the Place Your Speakers
section, on page 13, and connect them to the AVR. Consult the owner’s guide for
the speakers or the manufacturer’s Web site for their frequency-range speciﬁcation.
Although you may set the AVR’s individual channel levels “by ear,” an SPL (sound-
pressure level) meter purchased at a local electronics store will provide greater
accuracy.

Record your conﬁguration settings in Tables A3 through A12 in the Appendix for easy
re-entry after a system reset or after the AVR’s Master Power switch has been turned
off or the unit has been unplugged for more than four weeks.

NOTE: When using the AVR’s Manual Speaker Setup menus, select a video output
resolution of 720p or higher to view graphics that simplify conﬁguration.

Step One – Determine Your Speakers’ Crossover Frequencies

Without using the EzSet/EQ process, the AVR can’t detect how many speakers
you’ve connected to it; nor can it determine their capabilities. Consult the technical
speciﬁcations for all of your speakers and locate the frequency response, usually
given as a range, e.g., 100Hz – 20kHz (±3dB). Write down the lowest frequency that
each of your speakers is capable of playing (100Hz in the above example) as the
crossover in Table A3 in the Appendix. NOTE: This is not the same as the crossover
frequency listed in the speaker’s speciﬁcations.

For the subwoofer, write down the transducer size. The AVR’s bass management
determines which speakers will be used to play back the low-frequency (bass)
portion of the source program. Sending the lowest notes to small satellite speakers
will result in bad sound and may even damage the speakers. The highest notes may
not be heard at all through the subwoofer.

With proper bass management, the AVR divides the source signal at a crossover point.
All information above that crossover point is played through your system’s speakers,
and all information below the crossover point is played through the subwoofer. This
way, each loudspeaker in your system will perform at its best, delivering a more
powerful and enjoyable sound experience.

Step Two – Measure the Speaker Distances

Ideally, all of your speakers would be placed in a circle, with the listening position
at the center. However, you may have had to place some speakers a little farther
away from the listening position than others. Sounds that are supposed to arrive
simultaneously from different speakers may blur, due to different arrival times.

Your AVR provides a Distance adjustment that compensates for these real-world
speaker placement differences.

Measure the distance from each speaker to the listening position, and write it down
in Table A4 in the Appendix. Even if all of your speakers are the same distance from
the listening position, enter your speaker distances as described in Set the Speaker
Distances, on page 38.

Step Three – Manual Speaker Setup Menu

Now you are ready to program the receiver. Sit in your usual listening position, and
make the room as quiet as possible.

With the receiver and video display turned on, press the Setup button to display the
menu system. Select the Speaker Setup menu, and then select Manual Setup.

Automatic Setup – EzSet/EQ

Automated Speaker Setup and EQ

Manual Setup

Manually Adjust Speaker Settings

Speaker Setup