Read or watch our the top Home Theater Set Up Mistakes we see. You received your new speakers and you want to get them playing, stat! But if you don't take time to make sure they're set up right you might end up underwhelmed. Related Article: Home Theater Set Up Mistakes So long as the station engineers kept the incoming signal levels at or below the “0 VU” indication, they were likely to broadcast or record a nice clean undistorted signal. The use of the VU meter in broadcasting and recording was to ensure a strong enough audio signal that was well above any noise, yet prevent a too-loud signal that might distort or overload any recording equipment or the input circuits of the control consoles in the other radio stations. The “0 VU” setting was standardized as a certain voltage into a particular impedance, and in a sense it reflected the perceived loudness of the incoming source signal (not quite the same as “0 dB,” but close enough for illustration). In the old days, Bell Labs and the broadcast networks came up with the concept of “0 VU” (which stands for Volume Units) to standardize electrical audio signal levels between interconnected radio and TV stations sending programming across the country over telephone lines to affiliate stations. Another might label the control going from 0 to 100.Ī little bit of history helps to explain how the concept of 0 dB and its negative and positive values migrated from the professional broadcasting and recording environment to consumer audio gear. For example, one manufacturer might rate his volume control from 1 to 10, “1” being minimum volume and “10” being the maximum. So whatever one manufacturer chose to put on the front-panel volume control or display applied only to that particular receiver. The confusion occurs because we’ve grown up comprehending that bigger numbers mean larger values or an increase.Īfter reading this article, however, I think that you'll find the relative values of negative speaker level dB settings are actually logical, because in the old days, the settings on AV receiver volume controls were entirely arbitrary and unrelated to actual dB values. In fact, it seems counter-intuitive: As you reduce the playback loudness on your AV receiver, the negative numbers grow larger, and when you exceed the “0 dB” mark as you crank up your AV receiver’s volume to extremely loud levels and possible distortion, the positive numbers are tiny: +3 dB, +6 dB, and so on. Loud equals big numbers soft equals small ones.On current AV receiver/preamps, it’s the negative values of dB loudness settings that are confusing. It was simple, logical, and easy for anyone to understand.
![decibel relative scale in negative decibel relative scale in negative](https://www.apogeeweb.net/upload/image/20201104/2020110411503558.jpg)
Previously, if a volume control had numerical values marked on the receiver’s front panel or shown in a front-panel display, the numbers got bigger as you increased playback volume when you reduced the volume, the numbers got smaller. It’s only in the last decade that the concept of “0 dB” as it relates to AV receiver volume controls and playback loudness has become common on AV receivers and AV preamps.