Anthem MRX Receivers - 300, 500, 700 Owners Thread & Tweaking Guide - Page 308

+1 (couldn't resist... and of course Jayray is so right on this one )

Thanks for the input. I set up the MRX in Manual and the listening modes as well as told it how many speakers which is 7 plus a sub. The only problem I am having now in manual is everything plays in 2.0. What do I need to do in the mean time to get 5.1 or 7.1?
Nothing is coming out of my center channel. I'm getting sound out of the front right, left, height right, left and my surrounds but no center.

Thanks

Gotcha. I've been doing 80Hz for sometime now. I will leave it were ARC puts it after I tweak my subwoofer placement.

Thanks guys!

I haven't changed anything in ARC. My sub only has settings for gain and phase. My levels are all between -2 and + 2 I think, except the sub which is at -10.
I can lower the sub gain before my next attempt if that's advisable.
There's little room for changing sub placement due to waf.

Brought home an MRX 500 today. So far so good...I did find out quickly that when they say leave space for air movement that they mean it. I nearly cooked my PVR. Live and learn.

WOW, yea, lower your sub. It is way to hot. we want it to be idealy between -3 and +3 but -6 to +6 is good as well. -10 is way to loud. See what happens if you turn the sub level down about 15%. Is it currently at max?

I got a replacement for my MRX-300 that was locking up and dropping audio randomly. The new unit has been working flawlessly for about 4 weeks now; keeping my fingers crossed

I ran first ARC measurement today with the classic 1-2-3 positions on the center couch and 4-5 measured little bit wider as illustrated by diagrams in this thread. My front speakers are Martin Logan Motion 12s, generic Onkyo making up rest of the speakers and Amazon branded Pinnacle 10-in subwoofer in a 6.1 setup. Attached are the curves and target window with speaker levels set as below:

FL : -3 dB
FR : -3 dB
C : +2 dB
SL : +3 dB
SR : +4 dB
SBL: +3 dB
SBR: 0 dB
Movie SW : -9 dB
Music SW : -9 dB

I notice that subwoofer level seems to be too high and ARC is compensating quite a bit; I plan to turn it down and measure again. Any other suggestions for improvement?
Eventually, I plan to have separate Movie and Music profiles with 6.1 and 2.0 setup respectively. The specs for ML Motion 12 describe frequency response down to 40 Hz and I thought that I can avoid the subwoofer for music. Should I go down this path?

You might also try just adding the monster with the other "thin" wires so you have a double run of wires.

Sorry to hear of your frustrations, I know how it is when you get a new toy and it doesn't work as we would like, it sucks!


The MRX AVR are great gear but they are not meant to be set up and installed by audio and or computer novices, a fair amount of know how in both areas is required and even then a lot of reading and understanding is required.

In fact, U.K. Anthem dealers insist on dealer set up only or warn they have no post sale tech responsibility, perhaps dealers selling the MRX line should make potential customers aware of what is involved.

Just my 2 cents.

Yes, definitely turn your sub down about 15% to 20%. Other than that, nothing is really jumping out to be really concerned about. What I suggest you do now is just listen for about a week or two to what ARC has set for you. After that, if you want to tweak, then at least you will have developed a baseline to refer back to.

Is it ok to change sub HP filter? ARC set it at 80, I changed to 120. Everything else is at ARC values.

Thanks

As suspected, I found the sub gain to be maxed at +10db, changed it to 0 and re-ran ARC. This second round only took about 20 minutes for 5 positions.
Here are the latest charts. Levels are now FR/FL 0, CC -2, SR +3, SL +1, Sub +2.
My in-ceiling surrounds were rattling at low freq, I wonder if ARC picked that up and set the cutoff too low. I plan on upgrading them soon. Room gain is still really low, but I'll live with it for a while before trying something higher.
Thanks for all of your comments, this is really fun (that's my inner EE geek speaking).

You can change it and see what the impact is on your charts; but, we prefer that ARC sets it to 120 Hz instead of manually setting it to 120 Hz.

Yes, your charts look good, and definitely listen for about a week or two to what ARC has set for you before you begin to tweak anything.

OK. Ran ARC for a second time and I moved my sub a bit while using quick measure. Changed back to 80Hz for sub, that is what ARC gave me. All crossovers to speakers are what ARC. I was so use to Audyssey before, changing values and crossovers. I'm loving ARC set-up at the moment.

Check out the sub chart I posted in the FAQ page. This is what you're aiming for and positioning is the best way to get that. If you can't move it then you just settle with what you have. However, there is still room for improvement. Mine went from 80Hz to 120Hz on it's own.
John

I have been in what I like to call A/V OCD for the last three months. I recently sold my Onkyo SR708 reciever in search for a 3d capable upgrade.
Over the last three months I have demod/tesed no less than 8 different receivers

Onkyo RC-370
Onkyo NR-709
Onkyo NR-809
H/K 3600
H/K 3650
Yamaha Aventage A810
Yamaha Aventage A2000

I am running Kef IQ seiries speakers all around
KEF IQ30s F L/R
KEF IQ10s R L/R
KEF IQ60 Center
I am powering the IQ30s with an Adcom G-535 and letting the AVR power the rest.

My review:

Onkyo - Sounded very compressed. The sound just never seemed to open up. Almost like I was listening to everything in a small box. These recievers were very good with channel seperation when watching movies and had tons of bells and whistels. I did not hear any appreciable improvment in sound quality between any of the Onkyo Models above. They all just left me wanting more from a sound perspective.

Yamaha- Many bells and whistles as well. Both of the Yamahas sounded very compressed as well and for some reason left me with listening fatigue after brief periods of listening to them. NOT impressed at all with the sound quality of any of the aventage recievers I tested. The Onkyos performed better than these Yamahas. They do have great solid build quality though.

H/K - Totally lacking in bells and whistles but sound far superior to both the Onkyo and Yamaha models. Musically I was very impressed with H/K. Clear open sound, great warmth and tone and a real joy to listen to. Movies however lacked channel seperation and had a somewhat muddy center channel. I tried my best to circumvent this with speaker placement but just couldn't deal with the movie/surround sound performance. If you are looking for a musical AVR though these are really great recievers. The E/Z set room calibration H/K offers is a complete waste of time and in my opinion actually hurts it's sound quality.

Well as stated above, I was not happy all around with any of the above recievers for one reason or another. I would definately put the H/K brands way above the others I tested for purity of sound. In the end though, all of them were returned as my hunt continued.


Onto the Anthem MRX-300

After reading review upon review I decided to pull the trigger. Contacted a vender in St Louis and ordered the 300 sight unseen (goes against my better judgment but I figured how could everyone be wrong in thier positive reviews) I picked it up in store 4 days ago and have been nothing short of astounded in how much better it sounds compared to everthing else I have had in my home over the course of 25 years.

This AVR is not a power house yet it drives my speakers futher, clearer and better than all of the above. I can crank this puppy up to -8 db with no audible distortion and hear nothing but clear, open well balanced sound filling my 14x12 room. I could probably go louder but that would be pointless as it is way beyond any comfortable listening volume...... AMAZING

I hooked up and ran ARC (Anthem room correction) and it made a noticable difference but things sounded a little tiny at first and the bass response was a bit boomy and overpowering. I decided to re-run ARC after re-positioning my sub, and realized that I did not have the mic pushed all of the way up the mic sleave so part of it was being blocked by the sleave during my first calibration attempt. I also took more time in ensuring that the speaker mic was exactly where my ears were in the 5 seating positions. I re-ran it, Correctly this time, and I was blown away at how much better things sounded. I am not talking about marginal difference here, I am talking about a WORLD of difference!!

Everything had perfect tone, seperation........ My sub never blended so well with the other speakers. It litterally melts into the room and just seems to be perfectly blended. ARC does and OUTSTANDING job of toning down the rough edges in the room.

I was thinking I might like to add more power but with it sounding as good as it does I really don't see the need. I am totally shocked how well this reciever performs. On top of that, I can easilly access the tone controls and channel volume with a few quick remote clicks rather than having to navigate a slow GUI interface to do so. The Gui menu's on this AVR are really fast and responsive as well. I also think the customization between outputs is a huge plus. You can have a music/movie mode for each source and also associate the tone controls to each source.

Movies sound perfectly natural and blended with extremely good channel seperation. The center channel is no longer muddy and comes through clear even during high buys high volume scenes.

It's Video capabilities also impressed me. It does a very nice job of upscaling everything to 1080p and a really good job of cleaning up noise in the source. Better than all of the other recievers I tested so this is just a bonus

I could go on and on about the sound quality of this avr. Never been happier with an A/V purchase. Great job Anthem..you have won a loyal customer.

I think you need to play around with your sub positions some more. You have close to a 15db null from 40 Hz to 60 Hz that can only be fixed by moving your sub to a different location if you can. If you can't move your sub, then you will just have to live with what you have. The rest of your charts look good.

thanks! not only did I add 10ft Kimber 8VS wireds, I added some Focal Chorus 26vs.. needless to say.. BIG help!! havent went into prot mode yet..

Quick question.. HOW do I enable or listen to the COAX imput?? i just put Cambridge I-Pod dock on.

Thanks Jayray & ninja12!

I will try moving the sub to the other side of room. Should I still use quick measure or should I just re-run ARC? While using quick measure I see the different color lines but they overlap each other. How do I tell if the sub has a better response this way?

+1

In all likely hood, this is not having the affect you are hoping for. Post up the new re-calculated graph of your sub and we can take a look. Really you need to try and get the sub to go to 120 Naturally, or at least very close and then you can try forcing it a bit.

Post up your graph and we can see what ARC thinks it cand do with it.

Saeyedoc,

This looks really good. I bet it sounds really good as well. Listen for a solid week and see how it settles on you. In a week, you might try boosting the Room Gain to around 2.5 and seeing if you like the change. Depending on your room it may sound better or it may not. But get a good weeks worth of listening in first so you have a base line before you try adjusting the room gain.

Enjoy

How close is your sub to a wall/corner? We really would like to see the mountain at 30-40Hz settle down a bit to where the rest of the graph is flat(ish) from 50 up.


+1

Use Quick Measure. Look for the Red Measure line to go up at the 100Hz range and it should be flat to 20Hz, depending on the sub's specs.
John

Quick Measure should be used before running ARC. You ALWAYS need to re-run ARC after Quick Measure... unless you didn't end up moving your sub in which case you NEED to re-upload your old ARC calibration as it is lost when you run Quick Measure.

Use Quick Measure to see the graph in real time as you move your sub. Try one spot, give Quick Measure a few sweeps in the new location before reviewing it. NOTE that Quick Measure leaves a line for the past couple of sweeps as well as the new sweep, so as you move the speaker you can see the changes as they occure. If you leave the speaker in one place and let Quick Measure run a few sweeps in that location before you review the graph, the older sweep lines will fade away.

Once you find a new location and the resulting sub line is more flat, re-run ARC (by Flat I mean when averaged out... it is ok if your graph has a bit of a jaged look, just try to avoid really high peaks or deap valleys).

Sub is 40" from corner, and 8" (measured from back of the sub) from wall. My sub is a Paradigm DSP-3400 v1. I do not have a USB port for PBK. I can go any farther from corner due to my radiator. I can go across to other side of the room. There is an opening along that wall to my dining room.

Well that is a pretty good endorsement, Anthem may add that to their online reviews You may want to post your charts so we may make some suggestions.
John

If you have the room, you might see if pulling the sub forward, away from the wall will do. Try about 15-20 inches from the wall and see if that helps any.

Again, Quick Measure should be able to give you some real time feedback as you move things.

Trying the other side of the room is always an option as well.

I have my charts below. I am fairly new to exploring speaker response at this level....so if there is anything you see in my charts that I can correct or should be accounting for feel free to help a novice out. Thanks

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