Anthem MRX Receivers - 300, 500, 700 Owners Thread & Tweaking Guide - Page 250

Intersting Issue with the 50.19 firmware. I've had zero issues with my MRX-700 up until the 50.19 firmware. Once updated with the firmware. the unit began freezing up (about 50% of the time) when I switched from the BD player (Oppo BDP-93) to Direct TV. Remote buttons don't work and front panel buttons don't work. Only thing I could do was unplugged the unit. Went back to 50.12 and no issues in the last two days. Anyone else have this issue?

Hello,
I went back to 50.12, because of the Audio Codec popping issues. I suggest you email The Anthem Tech support group ASAP.

Thanks. I understand that there is no perfect system and need to compromise on certain things (unless I have infinite amount of money )

Other than that, how do you rate Anthem MRX 700? Any comparison with similar mid to high end receivers (like NAD, Integra) in terms of sound quality.

-iknown

At least as good but likely better. I'll save you the time to search google, they are the receivers to beat for sound quality. Great amplification and Anthem Room Correction, arguably the best room correction system in receivers in this price range.
John

A great improvement, i think. I've taken a lot of advice given by members on my past runs of arc. Turned the left integrated sub up a bit and the right one down. This got rid of those levels that were +/- 6. I do not recall setting the center at Full range cross over.??

Levels:

Front left: +1
Center -1
Right front +1

Guess it's time for a sub? Suggestions welcome.

These look very good. Suggestions for a sub? First, volume of your room, typical volume listening levels and available funds
John

I've been having freezing issues and video dropouts since 50.11. Anthem keeps trying to convince me the current FW is the best they have so far and far superior to 50.09. That's all fine for them, but not me. Since after many attempts of asking for 50.09 (since I had stupidly deleted it) and getting the same lame "non-helpful" response, I asked a fellow forum member who was helpful enough to provide it for me. You can make up your own thoughts as to how I feel about their lack of help in my issue.

I too have noticed the popping noise since upgrading as well as lock ups going from bdp to direct tv that were not present before. How would I go back to the previous firmware? On another note how warm are you guys mrx running? I usually listen at around -20 and notice the top getting quite warm. I have ascend acoustics Sierra 1s for the front and smaller htm200 for surrounds(5.1). I did just purchase a second sub running off a splitter from the mrx. I'm not sue how warm it was before as I never put my hand on it, it has 6" of free space above it and nothing crowding the sides. Should I buy a fan for it?
Thanks, Brad

Looks great! Bet it sounds great to

Did ARC set your center at 60? I noticed you checked the Full X-Over check box on the center, why did you do this, just curious. With the Full X-Over checked, I'm guessing you could lower your Centers Cutoff to like 50 and it would still look great. You can of course try this without re-measuring, just make the change in the targets window, re-calculate and upload.

I imagine this sounds pretty good but...if you could move your center to get rid of or reduce the dip between 60 and 100 hz and the Right Front to get rid of or reduce the dip between 60 to 300 ARC would be able to improve the room gain a couple db.

While ARC has tamed it you could turn both integrated subs down a bit but I would only do this if you are going to do another measure.

Ive got a weird shaped great room. I'll take some measurements and do my best to describe.

Thanks I don't recall checking the full x-over box. If I did it was inadvertent. So lower the cut off or uncheck the box?

Move the center forward or back? I've got about 6" either way that I could go on the console that it sits on.

The right front is in a corner and very little possible movement.

The amount that I moved the sub settings was a real tiny bit and it made a dramatic difference. Next time i run arc, I'll breathe on the settings. :-)

Hey guys, dont know if this has been brought up before, but is it ok to use an HDMI Splitter this the MRX? If so is there one that is better than the other or something like that?

I wish the MRX's had dual HDMI out. Does anyone know if they are coming out with an updated MRX line with maybe dual HDMI outs?

Thanks

Hello,
Please report this to the Anthem tech support site. They will send you the previous version. The more people who write to them the faster they will resolve the problem.

It's hard to say. that's where the quick measure feature comes in handy. You can move them around and watch in real time the changes. Don't forget that quick measure zero's all settings and an ARC upload must be reloaded after you are done moving speakers.

Your settings look pretty good and we're just looking to see if we can do some real fine tuning or you can sit back and enjoy.

I don't think it is ever checked by default (on the center that is). However, looking at your charts, checking it will let you set the centers cutoff lower... I'd give it a shot at 50. Keep in mind you can do this without re-measuring, just change your targets window, re-calculate and upload

You cant try moving your Center a little, but based on what I recall about your room description and the fact that you have a similar dip in your fronts as you do the center... I'm not sure you can improve it much.

Turning down the subs a touch more may help but I'm not really sure that it is going to gain you much more... I would save your current ARC config file and mark your subs where they are so you can put them back and re-load your old settings if you decide your new tweaks are not to your liking.

You are at the point now where you can play and tweak till the cows come home... but at some point you just need to sit back and enjoy

I think I'm at the point where I'll try lowering the center's cutoff and start looking for a sub and rear speakers. :-)

I thought what i had was a major improvement over my denon. There is clearly an audible difference with this last tweak.

Thanks for everyone's input and help!

I am a MXR 700 owner since this summer.
Today I finally found time to to the ARC setup but I ran into an issue.
My receiver is place in a bedroom next to the home theater.
I am following the quick startup written by Tigger.
It is my understanding that I will connect serial cable to the receiver, key span adapter to the serial cable and my laptop.
Now I need to connect the microphone usb cable to the same laptop?
My seating positions are too far away so I cannot connect the Microphone USB cable to my laptop.

Is there a work around for this?
Should I buy a longer serial cable or a longer USB cable?

Thanks

Get a longer serial cable. USB has a limited spec for length compared to serial.

I have adapters that I was using to send serial commands over Cat 5.
Do you see any problem in using these adapters to extend the length of my serial cable?

Yes, get a longer serial cable with the correct Male/Female plugs at each end. Be sure you get a "straight through" serial cable. It should say pins 1-9 connect to pins 1-9.

Do not get the identical looking "null modem" cable that swaps one pair of wires.

Don't know about your CAT 5 adapters. They SHOULD work.
--Bob

Can't see any problems. If you got them it's easy to try.

I was wondering if anyone had heard anymore about the possibility of adding FLAC as a codec? The WMA Lossless is ok, but is not as good as FLAC. WAV is obviously the best, but you can't tag the files with artwork. I've been archiving old lps, but holding out with hopes for FLAC.
In a related note, has anyone hooked up a turntable to the MRX? More specifically, a tt with a built in phono amp, via analog inputs. I'm guessing a tt with a USB port would not work.
-Peter

Hi:

I was cable to use Cat 5 adapters to extend the length of my serial cable.
I have taken my first stab at taking the measurements.
I was following these steps
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3849

Step 2 says that measure the distance from primary listening position.
I have 4 reclining chairs so the middle 2 chairs are my primary position. I chose one of them as my primary to calculate the distances.
When I went to the setup for MRX 700 I found that there were already some distances entered in the speaker distance setup menu. I just changed them to the actual value.

I uploaded the settings into the receiver.
I went to the sources to turn ARC on but found that it was already turned on for each source even though I ran ARC for the first time today.

Equipment
Anthem MRX 700
Amp: Anthem MCA 30
Speakers front, center, left : Studio 100
Sub: Paradigm Sub 15
rear and surrounds: in wall Triad Bronze surrounds

The graphs are attached.

I added Target customization.

11/21/2011 10:01 PM CST
Added the level calibration values
Dolby Volume leveler Amount 9
Dolby Volume Calibration Offset 0
Front Left +3
Center +4
Front Right +4
Surround Right -1
Surround Left -2
Movie Subwoofer -10
Music Subwoofer -10
Aux Right -3
Aux Left -4

Tigger,
You were correct that my Sub will have a large number and it is -10. I will reduce the sub woofer level, disable the cross over, move the front left/right away from the back wall and take measurements again.

I will appreciate any suggestions you have for me.

Thanks

Hi,

yours is a very interesting graph set

Because you have three very capable L/R/C speakers (Studio 100s) your subwoofer crossover is going to be interesting, especially using a full-range speaker like that for a center channel!

Your subwoofer slope is very sharp (4th order at least) at 50Hz so I am wondering if there is a setting in the sub that is turned on to crossover at that frequency? Can you check this?

Can you post what ARC recommended for your targets?

Cheers.

All looks good except for your sub. First question I have is is your sub functioning correctly? Second do you have any filters and/or crossover engaged on your sub? If so, please turn off all filters and crossovers in the sub. If you answer yes to question 1 and no to question 2, my next suggestion is to use Quick Measure (QM) and play around with different sub locations. Your sub chart should be looking way better than what it's looking now. Also, post your Targets' View.

Hello Hehateme,

Your distances should probably be measured from between the two middle chairs as would probably be the ideal location for your first ARC reading... unless you mostly only have one person sitting and listening/watching, in which case pick the chair that will be used for that purpose as your measuring point and first Mic location. (And not to worry that there were already some distances in the menu, these are probably just the default distances, unless you set them when you first setup your MRX and forgot ).

ARC being turned on after you upload your first ARC settings is typical on newer MRX firmware, we always like to check that it is on just incase though. Older versions of Firmware this was a manual step.

With the exception of your sub, the graphs look great.

If possible, you might pull the front speakers away from the wall a little more... I'm guessing they are about a foot away right now? Another foot may help tame the low end a little more and possibly the dip as well. In particular the Left and Right, though it wouldn't hurt to try all three. These recommendations are not needed though, ARC has done a nice job with all three speakers... however if your into playing a little those are my thoughts. Again, no need to make changes if you are happy as these look great as they are.

As for the sub, something doesn't make sense here... it looks like you have some filters engaged. A low pass filter of some kind. Make sure your crossovers are disabled or set as high as they will go, probably something like 170Hz. Also, it looks like your sub level may be way to high... can you post the speaker calibration levels ARC uploaded for us. Also post your targets window as that will help us understand more of what is going on.

Your sub is also a good canidate for "Flat" setting under advanced in the Targets window... but it looks like you may have already figured that out? Please post your targets window.

Once you adjust your sub levels down, get rid of your subs crossover and possibly adjust your front speaker locations, you will want to run ARC again... post up your new Graphs, Targets Window and Speaker Calibration Levels for us to check out

If you check out the Quick Start Guide you referenced above, there are screen shots of the Targets window and the Speaker Calibration Levels for you to reference.

I think I type to much... lol...

I have uploaded the target settings in my original post.
I will post the Speaker calibration level when I get home today. I am assuming that I should take the picture of the calibration level with a camera. I think the calibration level had all zeros just like tiggers sample but I will post it. Does ARC set the calibration level or do I have to do this?

I was playing with the sub and I did increase its level to 50%.(I will bring it down to 30%)
I think the sub woofer cut-off was set to 60 Hz.(I will disable this and set it to zero)
There is another setting in the sub woofer called Phase alignment. Let me know if I need to change this value.


I had built a 30 inch deep false wall to hide all the speakers. I do have a little bit of room to move the speakers but I am hoping that tweaking ARC settings will be enough and not require rebuilding this wall to get more room.

Many thanks for such informative responses.