Anthem MRX Receivers - 300, 500, 700 Owners Thread & Tweaking Guide - Page 340

I'm guessing Flageborg is confusing you for another poster? I didn't recall you mentioning REW before and from your response, I would say my recollections were correct

REW is a measurement tool for analyzing sound in a room, however it is not a part of ARC and would require you to use an SPL meter and/or calibrated mic (other than Anthems unless you send it off to get a calibration file).

REW is not something we privide advice on or typically talk about in this thread.

With regards to your sub, your adjustments look good. If you have a serious desire to run ARC again for no partiular reason... you could of course bump the sub level up a hair to try and hit a level of close to 0... but honestly, I would not re-run ARC and make such an adjustment unless you had some other reason to do so. Anything inside +/-6 is good and you are already inside of +/-3! Adjusting it again would likely just overshoot the other direction lol

has anyone compared a MRX to a Pioneer SC55/57 ?

I know ARC is a better EQ solution - no doubt in my mind - but how is the underlying Audio performance ? Is the MRX as good ? I wondered how the MRX amplification stage matched up to the new Class D amps in the Pios ?

A SC55 is around same price as a MRX300 over here

Onespock,

Thanks for the reply. I had done some testing and swapped the speakers over and realised that it's only out of the FL channel and was not the speaker so that was a big relief for me. I noticed in the latest firmware they do have a note about fixing this when no sub and speakers set to full range. My speakers are set to 30 and i have no sub but i think the firmware has fixed this which is good. I haven't had a chance to test properly but i am sure it has. I was thinking it was interference from all the power cords or something as the back of my cabinet is a mess. Fingers crossed it's sorted.

Speaking of the mess i am planning on cleaning this up and trying to make it alot neater over the weekend but in my reading i have been seening this inductance term. If i coil speaker or power cables will it cause this. Whats the best way to neatly bunch cables that don't need all the length they do have.

Hope every one has a Happy Easter

Ok I've left my centre set by ARC to 120hz, I have no movement to move it forward or back by any more than 3mm. I have re run ARC several times and it sets 120hz each time. My fronts and surrounds are set to 80hz and are smaller than the centre. I feel that the centre sounds slightly thin. Is there a reason I should not change the centre target to 80 or 100hz and re calculate or should I just stick with ARC' setting?
The centre is on a mantelpiece below a wall mounted LCD.
Thanks all.
Also do you think I could set my sub to flat? It does have inbuilt protection.

Your sub is dropping 10dB from 50 to 20Hz. For the flat setting, it should approach 20Hz with no drop. Make sure any filters on the back of your sub are set to be bypassed. If they weren't, you need to remeasure after resetting the filters and then see if the sub chart response changes to like one I described.
John

Thanks John. My sub has all filters bypassed and it is hooked up to an Antimode 8033c sub EQ that was run before ARC.

Then I wouldn't set it to flat.
John

Thanks John,it only has a 10" driver but does sound very good.
Rich

Rich,
It's got a pretty good response so enjoy.
John

The Anthem is in my opinion from a pure audio standpoint - equal to if not better than the Pioneer. The amplification section of the MRX is phenomenal, Anthem knows amps. Add ARC - and the scale is very much in Anthem's favor. I researched long and hard, listened to alot of receivers, and bought an Anthem. I have had it several weeks now and am absolutely ecstatic with its performance. You will not be disappointed.

How much extra speaker wire we talking? And any reason you can't just cut them down to size? Are they pre-terminated?

Realistically, I don't think you are likely to notice any real difference... assuming you don't get carried away. In other words, a few large loops will not be an issue... if you decided to go with a tightly wound 2 inch ball... I'd be a little concerned.

Tigger

I ordered 13 ft cable from Blue jeans for the fronts but the left front is only a few feet away from the equipment so there is about 7 feet extra, i have just pushed it under the back of the cabinet for now. I ordered same lengths just for future proofing if i have to move. Both are terminated with banana plugs.

What about the HDMI and electrical cables can they be bound or do they suffer the same sort of things. I figured if need be it will be 12inch lengths back and forwards with the cables together to get it neat and just use some sort of cable tie. At the moment it's a mess and i am just like things to look neat but performance comes first.

I have been tweaking and messing around with my ARC settings and managed to somehow get it to where when I run ARC my sub won't target past 80hz.

The first time I ran ARC it was 100. As a general sub placement recommendation if I want to get my sub up from 80 to 100 or preferably 120 should I move it closer to the wall, away from the wall....Just not sure where to go from here. Overall my system sounds stellar. I have an Onkyo 809 I have been directly comparing it to and the sound quality of the Anthem is just way beyond what I get coming out of the 809. It is astounding how much better, cleaner, louder and clearer everything sounds.

I have not attempted to place the sub in the corner since I have experienced bass pull with other receivers and want to avoid that. Perhaps it wouldn't be a problem with ARC.

Any input you might have on sub placement to get it to measure higher would be greatly appreciated.

Over here in the UK we now have a dealer for all things SVS and KKriesel subwoofery!

Had been looking at a sub 15 which I can get for £2.5k, a KK MX5000mk3 will be about the same? I perused the svs site and using merlin it gave me , due to my jamo d500 , a pb12nsd or a sb12, the cylinder is a no no!

I am a bit confused by that as my speakers are on walls so i thought it would suggest a ultra! It did when i had floorstanding huge atc scm35?

If i went with svs' recomendations would dual pb12's be better?

Ok, I understand the reasoning behind not wanting to cut up a nice, clean, pre-terminated set of speaker cables

As for your other interconnect cables, again, larger, lose coils (12-18 inches) of differing lengths with in the coil. However, I don't really think you are going to be able to notice anything different even if you did small tight loops. I was really pointing out in my other post how extreem people can go, even when you can't possibly detect a difference. For example, the link I had posted in that post, they used 100kHz to make a point (again something so extreem and out of the human hearing range it is silly).

If you want something to watch out for, make sure you keep your power cords seperate from your other interconnects. Avoid running power cords in parallel with you your interconnect wires, especially close by. If your interconnect wires need to pass by power cords and power wires, try to have them pass at 90 degree angles of each other.

As for coiling your speaker cables an interconnect cables... a few lose loops is not even worth thinking about. If you were to decide to take your wires, and tightly wrap them around a spool for a bunch of turns... then we need to start getting concerned.

Hi BiotypE, I'm often not familiar with some of the common terms out there, but I have no familiarity with "bass pull" and a quick search on google didn't return anything that looked useful either?

Your sub is attached (I'm assuming) to the LFE output of the receiver and therefore has its own internal amp. As such, nothing the Sub is doing should have an impact on the MRX, no matter where you put the sub. Can you define what you mean by "bass pull"?

As for placement, can you post up your current sub graph? Some subs need more boundary gain (though often this is to help them reach lower, not higher). Some subs need less (this is often to help extend up higher).

If your sub is exhibiting a mountain down around 30-50Hz peaking at over 90db and then things settle slightly between 60-100Hz (mostly flat) around say 70-80db and then your sub starts to roll off after 100Hz. Than in all likely hood you have to much boundary gain or even possibly a standing wave that is causing the mountain you are seeing. Repositioning the sub so that the mountain drops down to more in the 70-85db range will help ARC to see the higher extension of your sub.

NOTE: when you get the moutain to drop, your levels will likely also be lower, so you may need to turn your sub up a bit to keep the levels that ARC sets in the +/-6 region. This is not a problem and nothing to worry about.

Alternatively, if you are trying to find the best place to put your sub, check out the FAQ post where I believe a number of techiques are discussed for sub positioning, such as putting the sub in your listening seat temporarly while you take measurments.

When it comes to subs and rooms... every room is different and it all comes down to location, location, location.

I have changed the target for my centre from 120hz to 80hz and recalculated and uploaded.
After extensive listening changing the target from ARC's 120hz setting gives a much better result as the centre was far too thin sounding before. I have NO room for movement re the centre and have re run ARC several times.

I made the term "Bass pull" up. Basically it is my description of being able to localize where the sub is sitting and with some receivers I have had the vocals would often pull to the side the sub was sitting on. If I place the sub in the corner outside of my L/R fronts I can audibly tell the base is localized to the left or right depending on where I place it.

I will experiment a bit with placement. I have been reading quite a bit and it seems the golden number everyone would like to hit is 120 and I want to make sure I am not missing out on a lot by not hitting that. After I run ARC again I will post my charts to see if anyone has any ideas.

Thanks again. So you never heard the term "bass pull?" I may have just invented a new term...AWESOME.

Be sure to post up your 1) Your graphs, 2) Your targets window and 3) Your Speaker Calibration settings (after you upload ARC as it will set them correctly for you).

Hey, there are lots of terms I don't know... but you may have a new one there... Google seemed to be struggling to find any meaning with it as well and Google knows so much more than me lol

Thanks Tigger. I am afraid to run ARC again because the sound is so good that I don't want to touch it now.

You can always upload your present configuration if you don't like the new measurent.

John

I am having some serious USB/Internet radio mode lock ups on my MRX500 running 50.23 and 1.1.0 multimedia

Before running 50.12 it would occasionally freeze in internet radio mode.

Now as soon i switch to internet/usb it locks up the receiver completely every time, usually before even showing the interface on the TV

After pulling the plug and booting up again if i dont switch to another input fast before booting the internet/usb interface it just locks up again

this $1500 high end AVR, the basic features are not even working, comeon Anthem wheres the quality, and does anyone know of a fix?

Haven't heard anyone report these issues. Have you contacted Anthem Support? PLEASE REPORT THIS TO ANTHEM ASAP.

I also will admitt I have not tried the internet radio since upgrading to 50.23, I'll give it a try this weekend.

1. As we have pointed out earlier, in this thread, Anthem ARC does not deliver what it promises in its charts - ref. green corrected curves.

To find out what is the actual "corrected" frequency-response we did test Anthem with RoomEQWizard software, external soundcard M-Audio Solo Firewire and Behringer ECM-8000 microphone.

Results confirmed our listening experiences - very little was done - ARC is not even capable of setting correct speaker distances either....

In the last few months, several owners of Anthem running ARC - experience the same - as we did.

Graphs are available - if you are interested...

2. Yes, i know - but you should try to stay below zero before calibrating...

regarding ARC - I can't remember seeing an answer to this - but does ARC correct both amplitude and phase/time ? or just amplitude ?

XT32 does I think ? and I think MCACC does as well (although it's core EQ is less sophisticated)

I got my 700 setup and I'd like some feedback on the attached ARC results (music is the 3 channel capture). I've also included a picture so of my theater layout so you guys have an idea of the layout. It's a lofted area so it's open on one side to my second floor. Any feedback is much appreciated.

Speakers:
L/R: B&W 804s
C: B&W HTM4
Surround:B&W CWM652 (in-wall)
Sub: Velodyne SPLR-1200 sub (has it's own room EQ that can't be turned off)


**EDIT** I have no idea why the pics are upside down. They are right side up on my Mac. Also Dolby Volume was auto set to Low. I changed it to off. Should I have left it at low?

Added pics of the layout. Again..sorry they are upside down..they don't look that way on my computer

These comments don't even make sense? I'm not interested in starting a heated debate... but the Signature thread (which uses the same ARC technology) has lots of examples of people who have compared before and after with REW and ARC does a great job. Heck even in this thread we have seen examples of this with PBK run on subs (ARC technology) followed by ARC on the MRX and you can see the improvements made by PBK in the MRX's sweeps.

As for setting the levels to 0 or as close as possible before hand... again, this makes little sense. If you are suggesting that one should manually check the sub with a sound meter using the manual sweep... and manually get the sub calibrated before running ARC, that is all fine and nice. However, if you don't have a sound meter handy or simply run ARC and the levels turn out to be close to spot on (which is now the case with Usxplong settings), then what is the issue? The levels he is posting are post ARC on the MRX. At no point does he talk about pre ARC settings of his sub or manual calibration of his sub with a sound meter (except a quick mention early on of the position the volume knob on the sub was set). It almost feels like you are responding to post from some other thread on some other forum?

Are we really going to discuss the fact that ARC does not enter speaker distance for you? This is well covered ground in this thread. Anthem has opted not to input the distances and simply have you do a one time measurement to set them... this take all of 2 minutes, if you own a tape measure. Do you really not own a tape measurer? Maybe Anthem should have included one with the mic? The reasons Anthem has gone this route are discussed throughout this thread. Once you set the distance, if you need to adjust it slightly, you can... and many have found with the distances set by other receivers turn out not to be correct and they still have to adjust them as well.

And again, no one expects a single mic reading location to match the green target line... that would be impossible as the green target line is correcting for an average of multiple listening positions. I think you need to re-read what ARC is attempting to do and how it works.

End of subject from me.

Hi Djseto,

First, no worries about the upside down pics... I have a laptop, so I just tuned it upside down

Your pics of the room are very helpful... they actually confirmed my first though when I looked at your graphs... your front right is trapped in a corner really close to the walls. Looking at the pics, I'm not sure there is much you can do with your current subs placement. IF you had more room, I would have suggested that you move the Front right further away from the walls. That being said, ARC has mostly done a nice job of correcting for all of the excessive boundary gain on the right front speaker.

As for the surrounds... the left surround could use some more boundary gain, but given it is fixed in the wall, clearly not an option. Again, ARC has done a nice job of helping to fill what is missing, so no worries.

The center looks pretty good as is. If it is not flush with the front of the table it is on (or even with the grill slightly hanging over the front), you could try pulling it forward slightly to see if that helps smooth out those dips you have at around 120Hz and 220Hz.

The place I would really focus is the sub. First off, the subs level is WAY to high. I'm guessing it should almost be turned down 50% from where it is now. Is it at max volume at the moment?

Also, it looks like you may have a crossover or low pass filter engaged on the sub. Set all crossovers and low pass filters to bypass, if possible, or as high as they will go (probably like 180Hz?).

You may need to try a few different possitions with your sub as well. You can use Quick Measure to help you. You want to try and get the 30-50Hz hill to settle a little more and get the 120 (and a bit at 60) to come up.

Feel free to post a pic of the controls on the sub if you want us to take a look at them to help out.

are you saying the MRX series does not measure/set speaker distances ?

how do you set the Subwoofer distance then ? I mean both my Pioneer and Denon set the subwoofer to 1m further away than it actually is (2.5m vs 1.5m) I guess due to delays from boundary reflections etc - as obviously sound doesn't necessarily travel in a straight line.

also if you have any on-board subwoofer EQ then that also adds "delay" which you have to account for - a tape measure won't help ?

for main speakers this seems less of an issue