Anthem MRX Receivers - 300, 500, 700 Owners Thread & Tweaking Guide - Page 217

On the back of the sub there are 2 knobs. 1 for volume and 1 for frequency, 90hz is the highest it goes to on the knob. Also, there is a "auto" and "off" switch, as well as a 0 degree and 180 degree phase adjustment. Hope this helps you help me I am attaching images so you can see what the layout and speaker placements are so you can see exactly what I am up against. Pardon the crappy house, my wife that filed for divorce on me a few months ago has the nice home. LoL

Thanks again Tigger! and Jayray for all your help.

Set phase to 0 and the auto/off switch to off. After following Tigger's suggestions on speaker placement, remeasure and then upload the correction file.
John

Well.. I finally got my MRX 500 hooked up. Since I'm moving in a few weeks I'm not doing anything with the sound..

I'm really not impressed with the video so far though. Feeding my TV STB via HDMI and then out to my 50" Kuro I was watching a TV show with a lot of dark scenes. The blacks all looked blocky and it was distractingly horrible. This was a HD broadcast.

So I quickly set the receiver to Through mode, so no processing. Instantly looked better.

I paid $1700 for this thing and my old $500 Onkyo with old Faraouja and even NO processing looks better. Pretty unimpressed so far and I'm not seeing a lot of control over the video processing.

I've officially tried every video processing option there is.. Tried matching output resolutions manually etc etc..

The only good picture is Through mode. If I let the Anthem do any processing the picture is blocky as all hell.

I'm not even a picky picture guy. I'm an audio guy, so if I'm noticing it you know it's not great.

So, I just did a search for your subs manual... think I found it. Do you have a "Crossover" switch labled Out/In? If yes, set that to Out (bypass).

Looking at your room... if you want to play... I would move your surrounds forward at least 2 feet, and down from the ceiling about 2 feet. Of course in order to do this, I'm assuming that the door you have lights strung across is not in use (it looks like it is not).

Thanks jayray, i shall give it a go.

Crossover was set to off already. Phase= 0 Power=On
Crossover frequency dial can go from 30hz - 90hz **What should I set this to? **

Also... You guys would fricken kill me if you knew what I did to this poor little cheap sub of mine. I had some great idea of painting it a silver flake color instead of the dull black. Well, when I applied the Envirotex pour-on high gloss finish it somehow managed to get around the taped off portion and poured down the back of the sub dials,knobs,etc. I managed to get the volume dial and the frequency dials un stuck but the tiny little cheapo metal switches wont budge. So I am afraid to move them with pliers cuz I think they will snap. I think with the exception of the power switch being stuck in the on position instead of auto or off position as jayray suggested they were set correctly.

Am I correct in assuming jayray suggests to set the power switch on the back of the sub to "off" ? I didnt think the sub would turn on if it was set to off. Thanks so much for helping me through this guys.


One last thing Tigger!

Are you saying to move the left rear surround ( the one directly above and to the right of that door with the red lights in front of the door) down 2 feet lower and 2 feet out? Which is to say have the speakers on like 5ft-6ft tall stands? Or just move it over closer to the fireplace (still on the back wall)and down to a height of about 5 ft? Sorry for all the questions guys.

Crossover should be as high as it will go. Crossover switch (if it can be moved) should be set to out (off). As for the power... think Jayray was suggesting you set it to on, not off (or he may have meant the crossover should be set to off (labled out on your sub I think)... but if Auto is working for you, that should be ok. When you had your subs volume up to high, it may have caused the MRX to send a really low level signal that may not have always triggered the sub... but if you turned the volume down, I suspect it should work fine on Auto.

As for the surrounds... I assumed they were on your side walls, if you assume the front is where your TV is (but maybe I was not seeing your room correctly).

If they are on your side walls I would keep them on the side walls, but bring them down 2 feet from the ceiling and move them away from the back wall by 2 feet. No need for stands, I don't think, you can keep them mounted to the wall (which maybe the unused door in one case?).

All the switches in the back of the sub are at least "frozen" in the correct positions, and I can move the dial for volume and frequency so I will set the frequency all the way up to 90hz correct? Not 30hz.

I added some more pics (excuse the garage sale furniture, yes my wife got all the furniture too, but I have a new sectional coming next week which will be positioned along the wall with the lights and the white wood blinds and going in front of the fireplace about 4-5ft). Unfortunately you guessed wrong about the rear speakers being on the side walls as u will notice by the pics. I tried to take a few pics along the entire right wall so u could get a better idea pof what I am up against. I really have no way to mount a rear right speaker due to the large window. So I suppose I would have to go stand mounting and then the couch will be an issue and I cant cancel the order on the couch (to switch to a right hand chaise on the sectional instead of the left. Hmmmm....Audio sure is fun when its fun but soo bad when your house is your worst enemy.

I think, given your room, we should simply focus on the sub. Most of us (at least those that have smaller budgets) do not have ideal rooms and as such, compromises must be made... so not to worry, you are not alone! We do the best with what we have.

That having been said, a lot of us, myself included occasionally, tend to get a bit carried away tweaking everything. ARC has done a very nice job with ALL of your speakers and as such, even if you got the speakers in a more ideal location, you would probably not hear much difference. Of course the reason we try to get things more ideal before running ARC is so that it can focus all of its resources on "fine tuning" our environment, instead of dedicating a lot of them to fixing larger issues. But in reality, most of us would be unlikely to notice any difference between what you have now, and what you would get if you spent money on stands and moving things.

The sub currently (or at least when we began reviewing your environment) had the volume set far to high. Lowering the volume may actually help improve what ARC can do system wide, as well, as the levels will not be pushed to there extreems.

I would suggest that you lower the volume to like 60%, post up your graphs, levels and targets window (don't think we have seen your targets window yet and it is sometimes very helpful!).

Once we have your levels settled down a bit, I think you will be were we should be aiming. In fact I suspect it already sound very good where you have it now!

The first replacement was maybe 2-3 weeks after my initial purchase. Any real issues reported here have been with the same unit I've had since early January. But problems would disappear with new firmware updates and reappear again later. There's really not alot of point playing around with v50.12 if the beta is already at v50.14 Whatever problems I'm experiencing may already be resolved. Outgoing email to Tech Support today.

Just so you know... That speaker on the top of the fireplace is not hooked up. My ex managed to scrape it up pretty good so I am only running 5.1 not 6.1 like you may have thought by it being in the pics.

Also just put another coat of envirotex pour-on glaze onto the front of the sub. I have to do it in 4 different sections at a time with about 1 day between each sides coat.

I ran a quick measure of the sub with different volume adjustments and frequency adjustments but to be honest I have no idea what I should be "targeting" for best results. I am guessing that the blue graph line should be the measurement with the utmost best response I can get from these speakers.

Can you tell me exactly how to post the "targeted measurements" ? I suppose I run ARC and then click measure, then target, then print screen that ?

Thanks again Tigger! for all your help, if you have any computer problems give me a shout and I'll be more than happy to help.

The easiest way when running ARC is to use manual mode and simply capture the print screen. You can also re-open in manual mode your ARC calibration file (if you saved it). You are correct, to see the targets window you hit the targets button.

Checkout the Quick Start Guide... it has a description on how to capture the graphs and targets window as well as screen shot examples: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3849

As for interpeting the graphs, the Dashed line is the "Ideal Target" line. The Red line is the "Measured" line from what ARC heard when it did its sweeps. The Green line is the "Calculated" correction line, or what ARC hopes to achieve after you enable it.

Keep in mind that generally we do not hear anything under a 2db difference, so little spikes and dips are not a big deal. We are trying to smooth out the big spikes and valleys.

As for the volume control, often it is easier to see if you got it right by seeing what levels have been set in the MRX's Level Calibration screen after you run ARC and upload it. A negative number means the speaker is to loud by comparison to the other speakers, a positive number means the speaker is to quite compared to the others.

As I recall, your sub is strongly negative and your other speakers are all very positive. If you reduce your subs volume to be closer to the other speakers, then they should all end up with numbers between about -3 to 3 (I'm guessing that will mean that your sub needs to have its volume set somewhere around 60% maybe 50%). If a couple of speakers are still around -5 to 5, that is ok as well. However if it is just your sub that is strongly negative still, turn it down further. We would like it to end up close to 0, give or take a a few db.

I'm guessing that after ARC runs and I save and upload the file I then need to go into settings and turn ARC on? Or does it do it automatically?

Maybe I should have started by reading the quick setup post. LoL
Off to do some reading while my speakers gloss coat dries.

Just check it after the upload.
John

+1, if you are on a current Firmware release with a current ARC application I think you will find that ARC is enabled automatically for you. But always good to check.

Yes, I think the Quick Start Guide may answer a few questions for you. If you work with computers I think you will find it all pretty straight forward. I would also recommend you check out the 2nd post of this thread on page 1... the FAQ post. After reading through everything there, you will be in great shape and have a much better idea of everything. (and it is a lot faster than trying to read the whole thread! Look at the FAQ post and its links as cliff notes to thousands of posts )

Will do, thanks John & Tigger!

I set it up last week via cat 5 and it connected perfectly. I have listened every day since. Now I get ERROR unable to log in. Is their server down? I have done absolutely nothing on my end. I haven't done anything to the Anthem except turn it on and off. What gives?

Still having an issue? I just listened with no problems.

I am running zone 2 with boston acoustics in the kitchen. Sounds great but I want to control the mrx zone 2 from the kitchen as well. has any body used an ir extender? If so what brand and where from? Is there any schematic for the pinouts on the ir in port?

Internet radio up and running. I guess it must have a glitch at their end.

Ahhh... the joys of being at the whim of the internets, sometimes all those tubes just break down ya know!

can anyone confirm if there is a new software version out yet to eliminate the popping noise between scences on the mrx 300?

thanks,

Latest version on the website and several prior beta versions were supposed to address this.
John

Hi Guys,

I am running firmware 50.08 and i have no issues at all. However i am about to upgrade my front 3 speakers to MA platinuims and re-run ARC accordingly , so is it worth upgrading to V50.12, Am i missing anything in the ARC set-up, i think i read there was an improvement/adjustment in the SUB woofer sweep during auto-calibration.

Or should i just leave as is .i.e if it ain't broke why fix it , i am nervous about firmware upgrade's on any AV receivers !!!

I can't find the correct search terms so can anyone point me to info on a small screen to use only for non video sources and specific info on hooking it up?

I can fully understand your hesitation to upgrade. That having been said, you are on a Beta release and it would be good to be on the final production release.

If you are running a sub with all of your configurations, I'm not sure you will experience the "Music Profile" bug where in some configurations bass was lacking when configuring ARC not to use a sub. (not directly an issue with the subs sweep however).

If you were doing manual measurments (not using ARC) there is a bug with the test tone being to loud, for this you would need to contact Anthem for the latest Beta, but if you are using ARC to do your calibrations you will not be affected by this bug.

Hope that helps.

Hi Tigger,

Many thanks,

From what you have said, does not look like i really need to upgrade just yet as i use the sub for music and use ARC for all calibrations. I also plan to get a pre amp with HT by pass for pure 2 channel at a later stage. So my main focus is for movies.

I think i have read that you are on 50.14 so i will wait until that becomes official before making the leap.

thanks again for the advice.

cheers.

Can anyone say what changes 50.14 has made in comparison to 50.12?

A quick search for "50.14" and...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=6319

Hope that helps