The Audyssey Pro Installer Kit Thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 7

When I first got my kit, I tried it w/o the midcomp because, surely, my speakers didn't need such a fix. One quick listen to some music with a female vocal and I turned it back on and re-loaded.

I have a M&K S-150-based system.

Jeff

Perhaps we have a differing concept of what "science" is. To me science is something that is never finished. It is always questioning what we think we know, and therefore is constantly developing and refining our understanding. These papers describe that rather well. It seems that to you, it is a set of final correct answers. Sorry, if this topic does not fulfill that for you.

Yes, I think it is highly system and listener dependant. I am glad it is a option in Pro. My speakers are all Matin Logan electrostat hybrids with crossovers well below 500 Hz. To me, it sounds much better with midrange comp off.

I have seen comments from another Martin Logan owner about preferring mid-comp off. It definitely is something anyone performing a Pro calibration should experiment with on/off to see which is preferable.

I did the majority of my mid-comp tests with both male and female vocals and it was easy to hear the difference in my system.

Can you or Jeff please describe the differences you hear when you experiment by turning midrange comp off and on? I want to conduct the same test, and I would like to know what to listen for. I assume that the differences are revealed by paying attention to human voices?

For me it was a recess in the vocals as if the singer was in the back of the stage with mid-comp on. For me there was a disconnect with the vocals in 2 channel when mid-comp was on. There was also one track by Allison Krause which is recorded in a diffuse/airy style but with mid-comp on it sounded very odd. Really it was that last track that I have heard so many times on so many other pre-pro's that cemented that something was not right. I generally use the same tracks from different discs when trying out a new component so it'e easier to notice differences.

I actually first tried re-running the Pro calibration before I figured I would try turning mid-comp off as I initially thought I had done something wrong. My first thought was I had made a mistake in purchasing the pro kit and license when I first heard it but the mid-comp was the main reason for this.

The first speakers I used was a pair of Emerald Physics CS2 which is a 2 way waveguide crossed over at 1000hz to a pair of 15" dipole woofers. I thought this might be the reason but when I put my conventional 3-way Von Schweikert VR-4's back in and did another Pro calibration I still preferred mid-comp off.

I am convinced that it is just speaker and room dependent though or just listener preference as mentioned earlier. I am not as concerned about what is more accurate than I am with what puts one of these on my face

I have to experiment and run more calibrations with Pro but so far I feel it by far makes it's biggest impact with music. I personally would not go to the expense of Pro for a movie only system as I have not found a significant difference over normal XT32. There is a difference for movies but it is slight compared to music, what do others think?

For me, turning midcomp off produced a harsh female vocal.

Jeff

I'm not quite sure what your response has to do with my question but ...

1) Well beyond the lack of roll-off at the low end and the dip I suppose the high end roll-off could have been lifted from or inspired by SMPTE.
2) I don't listen in the far-field. I suspect few people do at home.
3) I suppose. But most rooms and most speakers need EQ of various sorts.
4) I don't think there's any consensus on that point. All live music is idiosyncratically modulated by the performance space often with deliberate intent. Cinema at least offers standards even if they're not used.
5) I don't think there's any consensus on that point. But certainly the most common complaint I read about Audyssey is thin bass (followed by harsh treble).
6) Have you compared other ARC/DRC systems to Audyssey Pro?

I missed FilmMixer's comments on wides, what did he say?

I tried wides one day when I had the Integra 80.1 and thought they were worthwhile for movies, not for music but I have never tried them again with my 5508. I was thinking about getting proper speaker's for wides but now you have me wondering if it's worth the trouble.

Thanks, Guys, that is the guidance I was looking for. I'll run a test.

I find that surprising, and that they would have it default to "on", as by far the most common type of speaker is a 2-way with a dome tweeter.

I thought I remember Chris saying that it was intended to deal with the latter type of speaker, which typically has its XO at that freq.


The hallmark of science is that its findings are reproducible by measurement and therefore verifiable.

This includes measurements of what is subjective, i.e. x% of the subject study preferred this or that freq resp.

That discussion waived me off, plus I heard a system with Wides and wasn't impressed. In all fairness to DSX, I will be listening again to that system with more of a focus on A/B'ing them.

I heard Wides and Heights in a decent demo at CEDIA last year, and it definitely sounded different ... "bigger" but I can't say "better."

Plus, I looked closely at my room and cannot mount two M&K S-150's for Wides as anyone who walked to the front of the room would bump them. I *could* use the SS-150 set to monopole, but I had already bought the long OOP S-150's for Wides. Guess I could sell them on ebay .. or just keep them as spares.

I've been toying with the idea of replacing front left, right and ceiling absorbers with diffusors. The buzz about beneficial early reflections is making me lean towards *that* as a way to widen and heighten my front soundstage.

Jeff

I agree with you that music sounded horrible with wides engaged it was just a scattered mess of sound from what I remember. For movies though it made the pans to the surrounds more seamless and gave more of a feel like you had speakers surrounding you completely.

Thanks for the link, I will check it out.

I recently ended my experimentation with DSX Wides after about six months. I spent a fair amount of money on two new speakers that were tonally matched to my LCR's. I was not able to achieve the recommended placement because of the limited width of my listening room, which may have contributed to my disappointment. I didn't like the Wides for any type of music. For movies, I was never able to distinguish that much difference from standard 7.1. And for television viewing, the Wides added nothing for most content, and frequently added an unwelcome ambience, especially to human voices (probably because of the poor quality of most broadcast audio).

I guess I will experiment with Heights sometime in the future, but I am extremely pleased with 7.1 for now.

I used my back surround Von Schweikert TS-310 in tri-pole mode and didn't connect the added binding posts so they would act as direct radiators. I liked the effect but my current room is only 15' wide and it looked odd so I only tried it for a day.

I would think the SS-150's would work great in this role or maybe you could pick up some older S-85's or something like that. The S-85's are great little speakers and would be a great wide speaker for your set-up.

I used to have the same system and sold it to my best friends uncle. He still comments on how much he likes the system. I miss that M&K system, great sounding speakers.

I think you just saved me some $$$$ I was on the lookout for some matching mains for wides but it's not cheap. I am going to experiment more with just my back surrounds moved up front for wides but our experience was similar in that music just stunk but from my recollection movies were pretty good, I never did try TV. I am not really sure it's worth the added expense though.

The height channel has never interested me but I wonder if anyone has tried it here and it it's worth consideration. I know Audyssey recommends wide channels first, then heights.

1) Yes, plus independent research done by Audyssey and others.

2) Au contraire. Most home listening is done in the far field. Unless your speakers are about 1 meter away, it is farfield listening where room reflections start to become significant. That is the meaning of "far field."

3) Agreed.

4) But with music, you have a live sound reference in live concerts. With movies, I really do not know exactly what Meryl Streep's voice sounds like. I have never met her in real life, much as I would like to. Car crashes, explosions, helicopters, etc. are not good references, because they were recorded under acoustic conditions unknown to us. Yes, they sound "real", but we do not know which version of "real" is actualy on the soundtrack.

5) No, I think there is broad professional consensus that bass should be measurably flat in your room (at reference level). It sounds more like live music to me that way, as well.

6) I have several friends with Anthem D2V's with ARC. It provides very similar results. We once did a listening session of a D2V (ARC calibrated) vs. an Integra DTC 9.8 (Pro calibrated MultEQ XT) side by side in the same room. There were no obvious differences in the sound; they were virtually indistinguishable with Mch SACD - hats off to Integra for matching the sound of a > 4X more expensive unit! But, personally, as an EQ system, I believe XT/32 with Pro is superior to ARC due to the higher filter resolution of XT/32 and other factors, but I have not done an A-B comparison. ARC is, however, much faster in doing the calibration than Pro.

As I said, it is listener and system dependent. I should add source material to that, as well.

I really have seen no convincing justification for the midrange dip in the Audyssey thread or anywhere other than Chris's reference to crossover frequencies. However, different speakers have crossovers that are all over the map. So, the notion of a fixed "blip" at 2K is unsatisfying to me with weak justification.

But, you gotta do what sounds best to you. Fortunately, trying it out with Pro is easy.

The terms "far field" and "near field" are somewhat ambiguous.

Energy distribution of a driver is different in its near field when compared to the far field. The sound level drops 6dB per distance doubling in the far field (point source).

Then there is the concept of critical distance. Shorter distances are sometimes called near field and longer distances are called far field. The critical distance is where the direct sound is as loud as the steady state reverberation. Critical distance is a concept relevant to large room acoustics. I don't believe it is meaningful in small room acoustics. Here the sound field isn't diffuse, it's highly directional with strong early reflections and diminished late reflections.

The SS-150's would likely work ... I don't think the DSX channels carry the same "load."

Jeff

You can get the correct angle by bringing the wides forward along the side walls.

^^^ That's where my placement became an obstacle. Generally, you either have the room width or you don't. If you think about it, many have sized their screens to the room width ... and "scaled" the seating to it as well. I got three seats across in two rows, but it's so tight you couldn't fit a fart in.

Jeff

I wish I could, Noah, but there is a fireplace in the way! . The best I could do was about 45 degrees, which just didn't enhance the audio experience, IMHO.

Hi Guys,

Returning to the thrust of Fitz's remarks the reason for the Audyssey high frequency rolloff is to account for differences in the acoustic environment between the recording studio and the typical small listening room. It really doesn't have anything to do with the "X-Curve".


With regard to using the term "critical distance", I believe that Markus is technically correct that the classical definition of critical distance was developed for large performance spaces and is less meaningful for small spaces. Toole supports this view and states that in small spaces the listeners are in a transitional sound field which is "neither direct nor reverberant".

However, the fact remains that in most instances the recording studio mixing position is much less reverberant than in a home listening position and adjustments in the high frequency response are usually warranted to avoid overly bright presentations in small rooms.

Whereas Toole is dubious about the usefulness of the concept of critical distance in home environments, others, including Chris, see some utility. I liken this issue to the issue of reverberation time and Sabine's formula where experts concede that these measurements are technically not totally accurate when applied to small rooms, but nevertheless these measures continue to be used both by hobbyists and acousticians when designing home listening environments.

Siegfried Linkwitz has no reluctance in refering to the critical distance concept for small spaces at http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm. Dr. Sean Olive discusses how easy it is to measure critical distance and makes no mention about qualifications for small spaces. http://www.tonmeister.ca/main/textbook/node287.html

This website allows us to calculate the critical distance, also without any qualification regarding room size. When I used the calculator for my home theater it states that my first row of seating is within the critical distance and the second row of seating is beyond the critical distance. The calculator may not be perfectly accurate, but it may give us a rough feel for this so-called nearfield/farfield issue in small rooms.

Larry

Just wondering if I could use that as my tag line for a while?

If we are trying to recreate the acoustical space of recordings we must first determine where the recording took place. Most movies the final mix is not done in a recording studio but in a dubbing stage. This is a medium sized theater with a mixing console in the middle. It is considered large room acoustics and would definitely be far field.

High frequencies are frequently boosted in this environment because high frequencies dimminish quicker than low frequencies. When you transfer a soundtrack to a DVD/B-ray this will make the material sound bright if not compensate for in the transfer. It is the reason for many THX/theater/cinimea modes in processors.

For reference most home theaters will show a natural roll off at ~6-8 khz depending on the distance if the seating. This shouldn't be compensated for with EQ as the tonal changes make it vey noticeable. Theaters being a larger space roll off at ~2khz and is routinely compensated for with EQ. I'll explain further.

If we back up a bit and look at how loudspeakers are measured at typically 1-2 meters from the speaker. This measurement is the reference for that speaker. If we listen 10-20 feet from that speaker we will still be able to tell the timbre of the speaker. Just like if you were across the room from a friend with a stuffy nose you can tell his voice sounds different than normal. Compensating for this small amount of roll off in small rooms can often make the source sound un-natural.

In a large room sitting 50-100 feet or more from the screen with roll off that starts at a lower frequency and is steeper we need to have some compensation so dialogue doesn't sound distant and lose the illusion of dialogue taking place as if we were in the room.

The good thing about dubbing stages is they are acoustically similar as they have standards. Also there aren't that many of them (~20) so it is easier to recreate their acoustical properties.

Music and TV are a whole different animal. Most of these are recorded in recording studios which vary quite a bit acoustically. Some are very near field with speaker (monitors) sitting on the mixing console. Other have baffle mounted speakers (like in wall speakers) which are 10-20 feet from the mixing console. Most have acoustical treatments in the room but there is no standard and the room acoustics differ greatly. As the previous poster mentioned the high frequencies may be boosted because the room has lots of absorption. Unless you know the exact recording studio a piece was mixed in, it is highly unlikely you will recreate the acoustical space for music or TV.

Large room vs small room each has its own set of acoustical issues. Large rooms deal with much more reverberration while small rooms have standing waves problems. Where is the cut off between large and small. Well opinion vary but IMHO once your space is bigger than 50 ft x 50 ft you are dealing with large room acoustics. I don't think anyone would argue that 100 ft x 100ft is a large room.

Defining near field depends on the person but the recording studio with monitors on the console I think everyone can agree is near field. From a technical standpoint nearfield is less than 2 wavelengths, usually referred to in other areas of electronics. Far field is greater than 2 wavelengths. For audio this would be a tough definition because wavelengths change with frequency. A 20hz wave is greater than 50ft and 20khz is less than an inch. I'd say nearfield is less than 2 meters but there is no definition and not all recording studios would be considered near field.