NC252 + Arendal sub - gain question

[dacfan]

Hi Everyone,

I have a Wiim Ultra, feeding an Arendal 1961 closed sub and an NC252MP driving fairly efficient 90dB B&W CM4 speakers. I have to set the subwoofer gain to around 15dB to match the volume of the sub and the speakers.
A. The Arendal manual says that the gain should be set based on the level of the source, -6dB for 1V sources, 0dB for 2V sources. How can they even know that? Doesn't the appropriate gain depend on the efficiency of the speakers and he gain of the amp? Or is there some standardized gain for home theater amps that they are referring to (which would still leave the question of speaker efficiency though)?
B. Is it better to set the gain on the Wiim Ultra, on the sub, or half-and-half?
C. Is there a way to reduce the gain of the NC252 instead? It is more than loud enough at half volume.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JD1]

I'm using same setup wiim ultra + sub (arendal 1961 1s) plus Audiophonics AP300-S250NC+ kef r5 meta and I had a grounding issue so I set sub gain to -3 db (at gain setting not at input gain setting) and wiim ultra to +13 db at sub out.

But arendal manual says that about 2v (is 0db input gain) and if you check sub out voltage of wiim ultra it's also 2v so I guess that is the correct setting, mind you in arendal manual it says subwoofer can go safely to +20db gain.

edit: but i'm a noob so might be wrong here.

but yes the speakers do go much louder than sub without its gain amped up.

if you level match they will go well with each other atleast after level matching (while controlling volume from wiim) they do go in tandem.

 

[dacfan]

I'm using same setup wiim ultra + sub (arendal 1961 1s) plus Audiophonics AP300-S250NC+ kef r5 meta and I had a grounding issue so I set sub gain to -3 db (at gain setting not at input gain setting) and wiim ultra to +13 db at sub out.

Thank you for confirming that these large gain values aren't unique to my system!