Anthem MRX Receivers - 300, 500, 700 Owners Thread & Tweaking Guide - Page 309

Your graphs look really good. I bet things sound excellent!

3 Observations/thoughts:

1) Is your front right speaker closer to a wall/corner than your Left? The Right looks like it is experiencing some boundary gain the Left is not. ARC has done a great job with it, so nothing you really need to do, unless there is some room to re-position the right... but again, there is absolutely no reason to waste time on this as ARC has done a great job here. More of an observation than anything else.

2) Your sub looks like it may have some filters enabled. Set all filters to bypass or as high as they will go for Low Pass (typically something like 180Hz) and as low as they will go for any High Pass filters (something like 15, 20 or 30Hz usually).

3) ARC did not set much Room Gain for you. Based on the flatness of your graphs, I'm guessing your room is pretty dead? If that is the case, to much Room Gain may sound odd in your room, in which case ARC has picked a perfect value. However if you would like to try adjusting the Room Gain, a value of around 2.6 might be a good start.

I would recommened listening for a solid week before you play with #3, if you decide you want to play with it. Give yourself a chance to get a good base line without any changes from what ARC set first, hence the week of solid listening... once that is estabilished, you can try adjusing it and see if it is better or worse (as it appears your room does not naturally have much room gain).

Adjusting the Room Gain does not require re-running ARC, as you have probably already read by now, so we can do it at any time down the road (assuming you saved your ARC calibration file).

Enjoy! Your setup looks really good.

Looks pretty good. The right front is a bit heavy on bass but ARC has it under control.

Your sub is a bit weak, probably just doing what it is capable of. Doesn't go as high or as low as we would like to see but certainly not out of range as many we see here. The curves are a bit smooth falling off so you might check that you have any high and low pass filters bypassed or out of the way as much as possible.

The sub falling off on the high end is probably why you have little room gain. ARC can't boost it enough in the room gain region.

The sub has a digital or pro logic toggle. Not sure what to set it to when I run ARC. Could that be part of the higher freq falloff. And yes, my rf speaker is a little closer to the wall and corner.

Thanks for your response.

Thank you. Not sure if the issue with the cutoff on the higher freqs is due to me having the toggle on teh sub set to Digital LFE vs. the pro logic setting?

This could very well be but I don't know what this switch actually does. What is the subwoofer so we can look it up on line?

Oh yeah and what are your volume trim settings at?

Well I re-ran ARC this aft after replacing the sub driver, positioning the rears a little more out and dropping the center a little (too high as it was blocking the 3D sensor).

Results were as before except room gain down a bit but now I'm noticing the highs are a little brittle.
Levels are good (-1 to +1 except left rear +2) and bass is even and full. The mic was positioned on the couch about ear height in MLP, to the right, the left, ahead on the left and on the coffee table ahead of the MLP.

I realize mic height is crucial and will maybe try again tomorrow using the boom instead.
Was I too high or too low? How about the positions I used? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

* Also kind of a dumb question but do I have to set my sub to flat again even tho I did that last time?

It is a BIC Accoustech H-100 12 inch

FL +1
FR +2
center -2
SL -1
SR 0
SuB +1

hummm. Didn't help me much. I can can see is that it mentions

high level inputs, and both Dolby Pro Logic & Dolby Digital/DTS inputs

I guess you could use quick measure and flip the switch to see what happens. If it looks better where yo have the switch now yo only need to re upload the solution you have now. If it looks better the other way you have to remeasure.

Not a dumb question, everytime you run ARC you will need to adjust the sub to Flat as ARC will never set it to flat on its own due to the risks of using flat.

With regards to Mic position, make sure the mic is high enough up in the mic holder that it is well clear of the mic holder and boom. Then make sure it points straight up in the air. Lastly make sure the tip is at the same height as your ears

Just to note, if you manually change the filter you need to recalculate and re-upload again. As ninja and others have said, just leave it at what ARC has set and listen for a while.

These Levels look great.

Thanks to everyone for looking at my charts. It does sound amazing and I have learned a lot in this process.

Thanks again.

I second Shrike645, I didn't find much in the way of a manual on your sub. However I found pictures of several other Accoustech subs including:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...4&postcount=17

They all appear to have a crossover knob. I assume if yours has this it is set to 180?

Yep, I have the crossover set to as high as it goes. I ran a test on the sub using quck measure with the dolby v. pro logic toggle and didn't see any difference in frequency response. Now I am bothered as to why this sub can't get higher than roughly 80hz. You would think it could go up to 120 as the crossover on it has a dial that goes that high.

Update: It seems the digital option bypasses the subs crossover. I noticed that if I increase the volume on the sub itself the test sweeps seem to go higher than 80 but how high it goes is tied directly to the volume on the sub itself. I can certain turn it past about 20% to allow it to reach 100 and up frequencies but then the ARC when it completes lowers the sub channel to -8 to 9, not sure how to work around this or if I should even be concerned about it since my graphs seem to look pretty solid.

If turning the level up, helps ARC set the sub target to 100 or 120, than I would leave the level up, just try not to have the level adjustment go any greater.

I am a bit confused. Please ignore my posts about raising the gain on the subwoofer itself having an impact on the subs ability to play above 80hz. I was reading the graph backwards.

So I guess my question is, can I just change the target from 80, which is what the ARC set it up as, to 120 and re-upload my config? Is there any benefit or loss in doing that?

I understand I don't want any gaps and in looking at my graphs, as best I can read them, It looks like I have everything covered, I am trying to figure out, if that is the case, what I am missing by ARC not setting the target to 120 after a measurement for my sub?

Ok, that makes more sense. With this new information, I would leave your gain control where you had it as I seem to recall your levels were just about spot on before (+/- 3).

As a quick sanity check... the graphs vertical ("Y" axis) is the speakers loudness (higher up being louder). The graphs horizontal ("X" axis) is the frequency being sampled (left extreem is the lowest frequencies starting at 20Hz, the right extreem is the highest frequencies ending at around 20,000Hz or 20kHz). And trust me when I say... you are not the first to have issues reading these graphs

However, if you were misreading them when moving the speaker around using Quick Measure... than everything you thought you learned while using Quick Measure is probably of little use

I would recommend that you run Quick Measure again and see what you can learn now, with this new info, as you move your sub around.

As for simply setting the Target to 120, this may gain you a very small amount, if ARC is able to apply some boost where the sub is starting to roll off... but in reality it is unlikely to accomplish much. Simply changin the target number is a bit like taking a car that can do 80mph with a speedometer that goes to 80 and replacing it with a speedometer that go to 120 and hoping your car will now go faster. Just cause you raised the numbers doesn't mean that your speaker will magicaly be able to perfom better. Remember, ARC is setting the cutoffs where it find they should naturaly be after testing your speaker.

As an interesting experiment, run Quick Measure... and without moving your speaker, simply turn the crossover control down, look at the graph, than turn the crossover control up and look at the graph. You should be able to see that the graph will get narrower as you set the crossover control lower (the right hand side of the graph should move left while the left hand side should not move). As you turn the crossover control up, the graph should get wider (the right hand sided of the graph should move to the right, again the left hand side should not move). Of course allow a few sweeps, at each new adjustment you make, so you can see the change. Obviously our end goal is to get the right hand side of the graph to go as far to the right as possible, hence setting the crossover control as high as it will go (180Hz or as far clockwise as the knob will turn, I have a feeling that 180 may be the largest number displayed on the control but that the control will actually turn a bit further to more like 200Hz).

Looking at the Targets window you posted earlier, it looks like ARC set your Sub Target at 100, not 80.

Currently you should have excellent coverage as your fronts, center and surrounds are all crossing below 100. As such there should be no gaps between your main speakers and the sub. The only thing you may be missing out on is some LFE content that goes above 100. LFE content is known to go as high as 120 in some cases and as the LFE content is only played through your sub, you could lose a little bit of it.

I don't imagine you are going to miss out on to much and there won't be any holes in listening to music and other content not specifically designated as LFE. So I think you are not likely to miss much if your sub decides it really does not want to go any higher up.

fed up. I have my second unit, and the stupid thing still locks up all the time. I can not believe that Anthem would release a product like this.

1) What firmware are you running? (I see in an old post you state, "Yea, the latest", is that v50.19 you are referring to? Where did you get the firmware from? What version is your DSP running? Have you tried v50.12?)

2) What components do you have connected to your MRX and how are they connected?

3a) Are you using any sort of programmable univeral remote, such as a Harmony?

3b) If yes, do the lockups stop if you use the origional remotes (basically slowing down the time it takes for each component to be switched and powered on/off).

4a) Is there a way you have found to reproduce the lockups? Do they only occure when you try to change sources?

4b) If yes, what are the steps to reproduce your lockups?

How do I get music from my computer to my MRX 700. I want to play sirius,to which I have a subscription, and downloads from HDtracks. In addition to the 700 I have an OPPO 95 and a new IMAC I've got a wireless network and either the Oppo or the Anthem has CAT5 into the router. I don't remember which but it could be both. I have no interest in streaming video at this time but I assume if I solve my audio streaming I also get video. I'm old and not current on all this networking. Surely I have enough DACs to do this. The hook I used to get the Anthem and OPPO was that they could do anything I would ever want. If I need to tell my wife I need more equipment it isn't going to be a pretty sight. Can someone get me started?

I ran quick measure while moving my sub. Still trying to get a handle on this, but I am having fun even though my wife is sick of hearing sweep tones. I posted 2 graphs, first graph is my very first ARC run and original sub location, second graph is my second attempt and a different sub location. Is it possible that if I move my sub back where my first measurement was but pull it from wall some more it would be a better response.

I'm fairly sure you can't get Sirius from your computer to the MRX without connecting it directly. For music that is on your hard drive, you can run a DLNA compliant media server on the computer and your Oppo can play it.
I just got my Oppo and Anthem last week, I loaded XBMC (free) onto my mac, when it's running the Oppo can find and play the music on my macbook.
Once Mountain Lion comes out, it supports airplay mirroring, so you could get an apple TV and stream from you macbook to the ATV to your Anthem.
Another option would be something like Sonos, it will pick up all of the music on your computers and has sirius built in, you would connect it to your Anthem with a digital connection.

There is no way to predict that's why we have Quick Measure. Move it and test. A sure fired method.
John

Just to clarify, mic is placed at position at main seating area while running quick measure. I pay attention to the red line during measuring.

To my eye, the second looks better. It still looks like it is probably close to a wall though???

If yes, I would pull it out from the wall 1-2 feet. This will hopefully cause the mountain to drop down a bit. If the mountain does come down, you may end up needing to raise your subs level control a little (5-10% probably).

You could try brining it out from the wall in the origional position as well and see what happens.

Attached is a sample of what would be nice to see... this assumes that moving the speaker out from the wall lowers the mountain and that the level/gain on your sub was turned up slightly to maintain the average height. See the "Blue" line I added.

Again, Jayray has a picture perfect example of a really nice flat sub, here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attac...3&d=1308688275

But I think yours will look more jagged like my fake attached graph and that is ok.

Yes, use your main (primary) mic position, at least initially. Once you find a new home for the sub, you can quickly check at least position 2 & 3 to make sure neither of them are terrible (don't expect them to be as good as position 1 as that is where you have focused all your energy).

Pay attention to the strongest line in Quick Measure. Each time Quick Measure perfomes a sweep, it changes color... so don't look for a particular color as it will change with each sweep. If you are confused by seeing multiple colored lines (ie you don't know which is the newest line and which is the oldest), than move your sub, wait three sweeps and the only line left is your current position. Than move the sub again, wait three sweeps and review the new location.

If you watch the graph and have someone else move the sub, you will quickly be able to see how the new line is drawn and the old ones are from the old position or somewhere mid move from old to new location.

Basically there are multiple traces on the screen at once... the current sweep, the last sweep and 2 sweeps ago.

Should I turn up the sub's volume before starting quick measure?

Thanks for the clarification in your second post.

MRX can do next to nothing with files located on your network. Unfortunately its network jack was really only intended for internet radio. You could place your digital music on a thumb drive and play it through the MRX's USB port.

For network connectivity, with your current equipment, the Oppo is probably the way to go. The Oppo will allow you to play music, over a network, as long as it is on a DLNA compliant device. Many NAS (Network Attached Storage) systems support DLNA and there are numerous free and commercial applications for both the mac and windows that will allow you to turn your PC into a DLNA streaming device (and I suspect other platforms such as Linux as well).

As for Sirus... I don't know that this will be as easy. Have you considered a Pandora Account? The Oppo now supports Pandora. Otherwise you are probably looking at running a cable to the line out of your computer to the MRX's analog inputs. Or you could purchase an external Sirus receiver to connect to the MRX via Analog or Digitial in.

Those are my initial thoughts... perhaps someone has other thoughts on getting Sirus to the MRX?