I have an update regarding the serial data transfer rates when conducting a Pro Calibration on the Denon AVR-4520. Denon Customer Support left me a voicemail today stating that their engineers have determined that this is an Audyssey issue, and have transfered the case back to Audyssey Support for resolution.
I have opened a fresh case on Ask Audyssey asking that they confirm ownership of the issue, and requesting a status.
I could do this. I already have the software downloaded. Can you sen me a PM with exactly how you want the test conducted?
i'll go over with bfreedma what "we" need when i see him thursday... hopefully we will set something up for me to bring the 4520 over on a subsequent weekend to test out the "do you still need the distance tweak?" on his subs...
Hi guys. I just completed my Pro calibration of the system now that the room has been extensively treated and the Seaton Submersive F2s have been installed. System has never sounded as awesomely good as it does now. The treatments have hugely improved imaging and made the room feel and sound bigger than it is, while significantly tightening bass and the F2s have added serious woofage, helped by the bass traps of course. I had to do the sub distance tweak of course. Final result is + or - 5dB from 15Hz to 18kHz, with most of the range +/- 3dB, which I am happy with. The F2s are only slightly down at 10Hz! with terrific extension continuing to 7Hz!!!
Question for the Pro gurus: does anyone know what the consequences are of changing the crossovers in the AVP after running a Pro calibration? In regular MultEQ, we know that changing the crossovers from those detected is fine and does not affect the calibration, but is this the same with Pro? I would like to try XO of 100Hz for LCR but it isn't an option in the Pro set. I am currently running at 80Hz which was the No 2 choice. If I manually change the XO to 100Hz in the AVP, does this screw with the calibration in some way? Thanks!
Ah - one of Chris's famous 'non-answers'... :) I guess you are saying 'we will never know'...
Yes, I will indeed. Let me do some more listening and possibly some more refining...
Well.... I have just used the curve editor for the first time (thanks for the help, Jeff- how's the tutorial for the FAQ coming along BTW?).
As some of you may know <g>, I have just bought a pair of Seaton Submersive F2s and this of course meant I had to do a new Pro calibration.
After running the cal and also doing the sub distance tweak I got a fairly satisfactory result, as evidenced by the graph below (1/24 smoothing):
However, you will note that pesky dip between about 55Hz and 95Hz - as much as 5dB down. My subjective view would be that this dip would be robbing me a bit of 'chest slam'. I have to say that, overall, the sound was very good though.
Today I decided to have my first foray into using the Target Curve Editor. I established grips at about 50Hz and 100Hz and simply 'pulled' up the curve, using two 'handles' (the most allowed over that FR). I pulled them up by the maximum allowed which is 3dB. This then resulted of course in a 'hump' between the two reference points.
I then saved the curve and reloaded it back to the Onkyo 5509. I then did further sub distance adjustments to get the OM graph as smooth as possible and this was the result (1/24 smoothing again):
If I print out the graphs and overlay them I can see a good difference. There is still a dip but it is now shallower. Listening test revealed what I had expected - rather more 'chest slam'.
I suspect this is the best I can do given my equipment and my level of knowledge at this time. It is not perfect but I doubt if I would ever get a perfect result in my room as it is a poor shape (almost square) and not big enough.
The experiment shows that Pro is a very valuable tool not just in its measuring and filter-creating capabilities but also in terms of tweakabilty. All in all this only took me about an hour to do - an hour well spent IMO. I have a small dip at 500Hz which I may well attempt to correct too at some stage.
Any comments or suggestions gratefully received.
Sorry Jeff - I thought I had replied to this. IIRC it is offering 50, 60, 70 and 80 and Large but I can't remember the order. I think 80Hz was the second suggestion. I am using 100Hz and there seems to be no problem that I can hear, and 100Hz allows me to get a flatter curve with OmniMic and the sub distance tweak.
While I had the OM out, I did this experiment, with Audyssey off and then on. Settings are the same as for the OM graphs in my earlier post.
The blue line is with Audyssey OFF of course and the red line is with Audyssey ON.
While the red curve is clearly much flatter, can anyone offer an explanation of why Audyssey seems to be bringing the lower bass down so much? More than 5dB down at 20Hz and about 10dB down at 15Hz. DEQ is off of course and may well compensate when it is on, but it just seemed odd to me.
While I had the OM out, I did this experiment, with Audyssey off and then on. Settings are the same as for the OM graphs in my earlier post.
The blue line is with Audyssey OFF of course and the red line is with Audyssey ON.
While the red curve is clearly much flatter, can anyone offer an explanation of why Audyssey seems to be bringing the lower bass down so much? More than 5dB down at 20Hz and about 10dB down at 15Hz. DEQ is off of course and may well compensate when it is on, but it just seemed odd to me.
You got a pair of Submersives? I didn't know. Congratulations! ;)
Seriously, I think the response curve looks pretty good. Looking at the gradual dip going to the left, I looked at my most recent measurement, and I am seeing something similar, but perhaps not quite as pronounced.
Whether this is intended by Audyssey would be difficult to tell, given that we know little about its inner workings. Before the recent measurement in my system, I did play with an adjustment on my Hsu ULS-15 subs called "ULF Trim", which has a variable setting from 16Hz to 50Hz. Here is the effect of this adjustment (with Audyssey off):
Since the 50Hz setting produced what looked like the flattest response, I used this setting before re-running a Pro calibration. It's entirely possible that if I had used a different setting, the post-calibration bass response might have been flatter. However, I get tired of re-running Pro calibrations to tweak minor differences that I can't really hear (especially because a bug in the 4520 causes calibrations to take twice as long), so if I have a different reason to calibrate, I might change this setting.
Slightly OT, I have been green with envy ever since you installed the Submersives. I'm now trying to devise a plan to sell my ULS-15's and replace them with a pair of Submersives. I just need to read the info in the AVS Submersive thread to see which model would suit my perceived needs (space is not as much of an issue as it was for you). As someone once said, you can never have too much woofage.....
Back on topic, I spent several hours recently looking at every possible tweak to see if I could improve my bass response, especially the dip 90-100Hz, and the smaller dip around 50Hz. Treatments are no longer the issue, IMO, because I have eight 2'x4' bass traps in every available corner of my listening room. The final frontier is to see if the Curve Editor can be leveraged to provide some improvement. Thanks for sharing your experience, and for ruining the rest of my day... ;)
While I had the OM out, I did this experiment, with Audyssey off and then on. Settings are the same as for the OM graphs in my earlier post.
The blue line is with Audyssey OFF of course and the red line is with Audyssey ON.
While the red curve is clearly much flatter, can anyone offer an explanation of why Audyssey seems to be bringing the lower bass down so much? More than 5dB down at 20Hz and about 10dB down at 15Hz. DEQ is off of course and may well compensate when it is on, but it just seemed odd to me.
You got a pair of Submersives? I didn't know. Congratulations! ;)
Hey Jerry! Yes, I thought I'd mentioned it ;)
Quote:
Seriously, I think the response curve looks pretty good. Looking at the gradual dip going to the left, I looked at my most recent measurement, and I am seeing something similar, but perhaps not quite as pronounced.
Whether this is intended by Audyssey would be difficult to tell, given that we know little about its inner workings. Before the recent measurement in my system, I did play with an adjustment on my Hsu ULS-15 subs called "ULF Trim", which has a variable setting from 16Hz to 50Hz. Here is the effect of this adjustment (with Audyssey off):
Thanks for posting those. I'm not especially worried or anything about the Audyssey on/off difference, as obviously it's only with Audyssey ON that I actually listen to anything and my ON graph (posted earlier) is pretty flat since using the curve editor on it, and, more importantly, it sounds good - even better now I have raised that dip a few dB. I was just curious.
Since the 50Hz setting produced what looked like the flattest response, I used this setting before re-running a Pro calibration. It's entirely possible that if I had used a different setting, the post-calibration bass response might have been flatter. However, I get tired of re-running Pro calibrations to tweak minor differences that I can't really hear (especially because a bug in the 4520 causes calibrations to take twice as long), so if I have a different reason to calibrate, I might change this setting.
The Submersives also have a setting that boosts the bottom end by a few dB - it's called Pgm2 and the trick is, so the gurus tell me, to calibrate with Audyssey with the subs in Pgm1 and then engage Pgm2 afterwards for normal listening. I have not tried this yet, but when I do I will graph the difference. I expect it to make my curve flatter all the way into single figures.
Slightly OT, I have been green with envy ever since you installed the Submersives. I'm now trying to devise a plan to sell my ULS-15's and replace them with a pair of Submersives. I just need to read the info in the AVS Submersive thread to see which model would suit my perceived needs (space is not as much of an issue as it was for you). As someone once said, you can never have too much woofage.....
:) I honestly can say that I am sure you would not be disappointed. There is also a certain peace of mind to be had from knowing that you can then forget about sub upgrades, probably for ever. The regular Submersive HP and the F2 have, according to Mark, virtually identical sonic characteristics. The only reason I chose the F2s is they fit my space better, being taller, but with a smaller footprint. I think the Submersives would be the final piece in the jigsaw for you (as for me).
I too now have extensive treatments in my room - wow, what a difference they make. Best (under) $1,000 I have ever spent in terms of SQ improvement. So like you, I have nowhere to go in that direction now, and my sub placement options are very limited so that isn't going to be a fruitful area to explore here, in the quest for the ultimate bass response. So the Curve Editor was all I could see as a way to improve the response graph (and it did too, as my earlier post shows). If the Curve Editor allowed a 5dB lift, I could have gotten the graph more or less flat but it is limited to 3dB of boost. The only other thing I could think of would be to incorporate some form of outboard EQ which would let me tweak the 55-95Hz range, but I don't think it is going to be worth the bother TBH. My room is difficult and I have to accept the hand I am dealt - we all have compromises of one sort or another in our HTs and I have accepted mine and am learning to live with them. I think if we can put our hand on our hearts and honestly say we have done all that we possibly can with the rooms/budgets/etc that we have, then we have done well.
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Looks the same other than he included the 10-20hz range on this one.
It's showing down to 10Hz - the other is only to 20Hz - if you ignore the 10-20Hz section above, then it's the same.
Looks the same other than he included the 10-20hz range on this one.
Ooops - I should've read your post before replying to Jeff. Yes, +1.
:) Yeah, I'm going to have to do something about that dip at 12Hz... ;) If I switch the F2s to Pgm2 after running Audyssey I am told it will flatten that curve all the way int single figures.... that's something I have yet to play with....
Yes, the OM is at the MLP (only) for these measurements. On the last Pro cal I did actually include a couple of mic positions on the other seat - but all of the remainder were around the MLP. Hmmm... I wonder if I can get even flatter at the MLP by excluding the other seat entirely.... it's Tom Holman's fault <fbg>. I am fairly happy with the result - in fact, in my b&$t^rd of a room, I never thought I would even be able to approach these results - Pro and OmniMic together have been the key.
That would be terrific Jeff, thanks. Having had just this one tweak so far with the Curve Editor, and seeing a decent improvement as a result, I am keen to explore its potential further. Your experience would be invaluable. And as Stuart says above, the Curve Editor is perhaps something of an overlooked feature in Pro - unjustly so considering its potential.
