Operating instructions

16THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1
If you are happy with Auto-EQ, you can stop here. If a screen full of adjust-
able settings and a real-time frequency response sweep have you itching
to play around some more, leave the microphone out and keep reading.
SETUP: MANUAL
“
Several Outlaws were discuss-
ing who should tackle this entry. We
debated it for some time, with at least
one person voting for the boss’s cat
(after all, the Auto EQ entry really
was quite good). Before we could
decide, one of our technical support
wizards broke up the meeting by hand-
ing this entry to us. We don’t think
even the cat could have done better
than she did.
”
We’ve been saying all along that the SMS-1 is a surprisingly sophisticated
system for such a compact package, but now we’re going to really prove
it to you. In this section of the guide, we’ll show you exactly what we
meant. Since we already got everything connected earlier, our focus here
is going to be the menus: System Response and System Settings. Two
menu screens shouldn’t be a big deal, right? It isn’t – we’ll get you ying
through them in no time. Those two menu screens pack quite a punch,
though, so to wrap this section up we’re going to run through an example
problem at the end.
Before we start this section, go ahead and get the microphone out and
plug it in to the SMS-1 if you don’t already have it out. If you happen to
own or have access to a musician’s microphone stand, you can use the
stand adapter included in the plastic case along with the microphone
to locate the microphone at ear level in the preferred listening position.
For the rest of us, use the table stand that is included in the accessory kit
– even though they call it a table stand, it’ll work just ne on a couch or
chair. Whatever stand you use, take the dust cover out of the microphone
case and slide it over the end of the microphone. Once all of that is done,
put the microphone at your preferred listening position. We’ll need it
there for some of the steps coming shortly.
Now that the microphone is set up, we’ll take care of another piece of
general housekeeping. First, turn the volume down on your receiver and
then select the input that the SMS-1 is connected to. While you’re at it,
mute the SMS-1 – we’ll explain why later. You should see the introductory
screen, which means that you have the right input selected. Enter “1-2-3-
4-5” on the SMS-1 remote to get into the menu.
SYSTEM RESPONSE MENU
The System Response screen is probably starting to look familiar if you’ve
read the previous sections of this manual. It is also the rst thing you see
when you enter the menus. It contains the frequency response graph
(generated using the SMS-1’s test tones and the microphone) and the
eight parametric equalizers.
We’re going to leave the in-depth discussion of the System Response
screen for a little later, but since we’ve got you here we may as well get
the various volume levels set up. If you have previously used a sound
power level (SPL) meter and test tones to calibrate your system, you can
probably leave the subwoofer amp volume and channel trim settings
alone. If you aren’t sure, here are some pointers. If you have a powered
subwoofer (a sub with a built-in amplier) or a subwoofer amplier with
a gain or volume control, look at the setting of the amp’s volume control.
This setting should be near or somewhat below the 1/2 position. Next,
check the channel trim setting for the subwoofer in your receiver or sur-
round processor’s speaker channel calibration menu. You may want to set
this 0dB or a few dB below zero to let the SMS-1 volume control handle
the ne-tuning.