Mark Levinson N40 - Manual (Page 84)

5-18
Menu System Mark Levinson
turned up fairly high, it is easy to imagine the woofer being taken
beyond its limits.
With the bass peak limit control, you are given an opportunity to
establish a maximum volume beyond which you do not want your
subwoofers to go. If you are reasonably judicious with your main
volume control during listening, you do not have to perform this
adjustment at all. It is provided to give you the option of imposing
an artificially low upper limit on bass transients (explosions, etc.),
without affecting the perceived balance of bass at normal volumes.
1. Enter the bass peak limit menu and choose test signal: enabled.
You have the option of setting the bass level manager volume
level arbitrarily, without the benefit of listening to a test signal;
or by listening to a low-frequency (bandwidth-limited) pink
noise signal through the subwoofer(s). After experimenting
with the bass level manager, you might want to reset it to its
maximum setting (effectively disabling it). This would be best
done without having to endure an extremely loud test signal
(e.g., test signal: disabled).
When you choose to use the test signal by changing test signal:
from disabled to enabled, the low frequency test signal will be
sent to your subwoofer(s) at a modest volume, when you enter
the adjustment item on the menu. (The adjustment is made on
the next item down on the menu from test signal: enabled/
disabled.)
Regardless of the previous setting, the initial setting of the bass
level manager when you enter its menu is a low value. This is
done to avoid a sudden, potentially speaker-endangering level
of the test signal being sent to your subwoofer(s).
2. Raise the volume of this test signal to the loudest level you are
likely to want to hear from your subwoofers, being careful not
to overdrive them.
This is a potentially tricky area, since you don’t want to limit
the performance of your subwoofers unnecessarily. At the same
time, neither do you want to overdrive them during the calibra-
tion of the system! (One way out: have your dealer do the cali-
bration, since he or she is more familiar with the capabilities of
the speakers you purchased.)
3. Save this volume setting.
Save the setting by pressing enter, which also disables the test
signal and resets its next turn-on level to a low level. (This last
step on the Nº40’s part ensures that the test signal always starts
out at a modest volume.)