Question about the Klipsch 400's

[MalorH]

I just got a pair of these and having heard all the talk of how "loud" they were i think i may have a problem. Many people have said they can barely turn the volume up to 50% without it hurting their ears. Right now, i can turn them up to 75% easily and at 100% it's very loud but certainly not deafening. I have the Master Volume in the Santa Cruz control panel all the way so it's not that. Any ideas?

 

[Valhalla1]

my klipsch promdedia setup with 4 satellites and sub are LOUD. with winamp at half volume, and control panel at half volume, speakers set at half volume, I can't hear myself think.

what sound card do you have? have good drivers? with my sb live! value, I had to install the creative software in order for the rear channels to work properly

 

[Valhalla1]

btw - the documentation with these speakers says to let the speaker's do the amplification, not the sound card or windows. i.e., turn down your control panel volume and your media player's volume, and let the speakers control the volume. much cleaner amplification

 

[MalorH]

I have the Santa Cruz sound card with the latest drivers. If i put the Control Panel volume to half (i use Audio Station 4 as my media player which uses the Control Panel volume setting) and i put the speaker volume to 100% it isn't loud at all. I can hear it clearly but it certainly isn't LOUD. This is probably a stupid question, but how do i "make" the speakers do the amplification? What setting should the Control Panel/Media Player volume be?

 

[troubledshooter]

2 ideas here:

1 check your plugs @ the back of your sub. You may think they are fine, and indeed they may be, but when my front left speaker suddenly started giving me a quarter normal volume I tried everything before poking around down there. I slid each wire back into place, made sure the connection was clean, and replugged the cords back into my sound card and.... poof, full volume.

2 try the Klipsch message board. I'm far to lazy to link you, but its on the klipsch home page so you shouldn't struggle 😉

-gl

 

[MalorH]

Tried replugging in all the wires and it's still the same. I'll check the Klipsch message board. Thanks.

 

[MikeyP]

They should be louder than that! Mine, when the volume is about half way up, I can cleary tell what song is playing when I walk into my dorm building. I live on the 2nd floor at the end of the hall. I love these speakers🙂

 

[LarryJoe]

I keep the control panel volume and wav volume at 75%. Sounds real good and loud.

LJ

 

[Valhalla1]

yeah, somethin's not quite right

 

[MalorH]

Hmm, perhaps i'm just expecting it to be louder than i think it should.
LarryJoe, at 75% volume on the Control Panel and 50% volume on the speaker i feel quite comfortable. It's relatively loud but it's not something that would even come close to waking up the neighbors (from some accounts i got the impression that it should). Is that about the same for you? Frankly, if it's not too much trouble could you give me all your Santa Cruz settings? I'm kind of clueless as to what is optimal for games vs DVD vs music, etc. Thanks.

 

[Raincity]

I also leave the volume slider at 75% and have the volume knob less than 25% and thats loud enough for me. I usually have turn up the volume for dvd,s or turn it down in Quake 3via volume slider so the control knobs on the right speaker have not been touched in over a year now.

Rain

 

[LarryJoe]

Volumes are different for different audio applications:

MP3's:
I use Realjukebox Plus and have the volume almost maxed in the application, 75% volume slider and 75% wave volume. I would say to have it cranked, I set the Klipsch volume knob to about 60%.

Games:
Much more powerful. I set the game's volume to about 75%, control panel volume and wave same as above. I would say to have it cranked, I set the Klipsch volume knob to about 45%.

DVD's:
Much, much, more powerful than the above. I set the dvd program's volume to about 75%, control panel volume and wave same as above. To have it cranked, I set the Klipsch volume knob to about 30%.

I don't have the Santa Cruz, I have the SBLive. Bottom line is that the loudness potential leaves nothing to be desired. Keep tweaking.

LJ

 

[Zucchini]

i keep wav volume at 100%😛 digital amp so no distortion anyhow. I leave my speakers at 50% and just control through windows volume😛 keyboard has volume control keys hehe. anyhow, original promedia's came with high gain preamps. My set originally had it was beyond loud..,but it hissed when not being used🙁 Klipsch fixed the prob by going with alow gain preamp.. no hiss and less volume.