Home Cinema Calibration Experts | London | Cheshire | Dubai
Professional Calibration — Demand the Best from Your Home Cinema System
As home cinema specialists, we are experts at designing and installing home cinema systems. For every system we install, we perform a full calibration service — after all, the best equipment in the room still needs setting up properly. Taking into account speaker positioning, room acoustics, seating positions and client preference, calibration ensures a home cinema system performs at its absolute best. We work across the full range of equipment — from professional custom-install processors such as Anthem, Audio Control and Trinnov through to consumer-grade AVRs from Denon, Pioneer or Sony. They all share one thing in common: every one of them needs calibrating properly to perform as it should.
Calibration for Standard AVRs
Most home cinema receivers ship with a small microphone and an automatic calibration routine. These systems deliver reasonable results, and clients can toggle between the calibrated settings and the factory defaults to hear the difference for themselves — the listener’s own ears are always the best judge of the result. It’s worth manually checking over whatever the auto-calibration applies: do the distances from each speaker to the listening position look correct? Are crossover settings consistent across speakers of the same type? Is each speaker’s size setting accurate? These checks matter, because too much can otherwise be left to a small, low-cost microphone and a generic algorithm.
Our approach goes further. Our own measurement microphone and calibration software give us visibility across the full audio spectrum, letting us see precisely where the response needs correcting. Every AVR manufacturer offers different settings and different levels of customisation, but we typically improve the result through a combination of AVR-level adjustments, repositioning subwoofers and other speakers where practical, and addressing the room’s acoustic behaviour directly — a well-placed item of soft furnishing can make a genuinely significant difference to the sound. Dolby Atmos systems with overhead channels add another layer of complexity, but the underlying principle holds: careful attention to crossover settings and distance measurements calibrates the height channels exactly as it does the main channels.
Trinnov Calibration and Commissioning
Trinnov rightly makes headlines for its channel count and decoding capability, but what impresses us most is its class-leading calibration system. Using a Trinnov 3D microphone, we capture extremely precise acoustic information about the room and the speaker array — including the height of every speaker. From there we perform a full calibration, with considerably more depth than a standard AVR offers, and save the result against specific sources or presets. The result is correctly tuned audio for every use case: more bass for films than for music, for instance, set up once and recalled automatically. We can even switch specific speakers on or off depending on the source — useful for garden audio, where music plays through ear-level speakers in mono, while film content through an outdoor TV brings those same speakers into a full surround configuration, directed exactly as in our high-end cinema rooms indoors. A full EQ pass lets us correct for elements of the room that are colouring the sound — delivering the result the system was designed to produce.
Two-Channel and Hi-Fi Calibration
Our team are equally experienced at getting the most from a two-channel or hi-fi system. There is considerably more to tuning a hi-fi system than installing the speakers and a well-built rack for the amplifiers. For serious listeners, speaker positioning relative to walls, toe-in angle and seating position all materially affect the result. We also pay close attention to room acoustics — a strategically placed rug or piece of furniture can transform the soundstage of a two-channel system. Beyond positioning and acoustics, we can fine-tune a system’s character further through considered changes to interconnects and speaker cable, subtly shaping the result to taste.
The image above shows us on site at our Derby home cinema installation, mid-calibration. This dedicated cinema room performs brilliantly: a Sony 4K projector delivers a sharp, bright image, and a high-end Artcoustic speaker package — visible here, with the front channels installed behind the acoustically transparent projector screen — delivers the audio side of the equation. Calibration is what ties the two together.
Frequently Asked Questions — Home Cinema Calibration
Is automatic AVR calibration good enough on its own?
It’s a reasonable starting point, but it’s worth checking the settings it applies manually — speaker distances, crossover frequencies and speaker size settings can all be verified and corrected, since too much is otherwise left to a small built-in microphone and a generic algorithm.
What makes Trinnov calibration different from a standard AVR?
A Trinnov 3D microphone captures the precise position and height of every speaker in the room, enabling a level of correction and per-source preset customisation that standard AVR auto-calibration cannot match.
Does a two-channel hi-fi system need calibration too?
Yes. Speaker positioning, toe-in angle, seating position and room acoustics all materially affect a two-channel system’s performance, and can be refined well beyond simply placing the speakers and connecting the amplifier.
If you’d like your existing home cinema or hi-fi system professionally calibrated — regardless of who installed it — get in touch to discuss what we can do for your room.
Read more about our calibration service → · Trinnov Home Cinema → · Artcoustic Speakers →
