After reading an interesting thread in AVS ref the pros & cons of 'Center Channel Speaker' vs 'Phantom Mode' I had to see what was up with my system. So yesterday I went into my Denon's Menu - not for the faint of heart, ha! - to see the parameters that I had since my Audyssey Calibration last year. I found that if any parameters were changed manually, the full advantage of Audyssey are not available which requires a new calibration. Some would say that's a good thing, ha!

So I decided to run a calibration again with the mic on a camera tripod in the 6 different listening area positions - easy to do but somewhat stressful. Of course the furnace came on in the next room during the first run & phone rang half way through the second run - had to start over twice. The third run was successful; however I found that my twin Velo subs were set way too high (-12 Db according to Audyssey which means that they are out of its correction range). I turned them down to where they previously were with Velo's remote & ran it again - success. Somehow the volumes had been bumped up to over 3.0 vice 2.5 where they need to be. I turned Off Denon's automatic level controls & it's all back to normal. No bright M22s with my setup, just nice, accurate sound. The BD THX demo is most impressive even at -10 Db volume that is about all that I can stand in my house.

I think that a new calibration every 6 months is probably in order, especially if you have subs or other components that are controlled by their own Remotes. Things can get out of whack with out you knowing it...

TAM