How long can HT reviews ignore room correction/EQ?

We have raised this point previously..

However 1 primary point is that each Room EQ scheme be it Audyssey, MAAC, YPAO or EZSet/EQ has its own unique transfer function...
So whatever the respective software/microphone measures, then the processor will try to correct/adjust to this unique transfer function.

IMHO..
The best objective articles for this subject have been authored by Dr.Sean Olive of Harman International, google and you will find some of these...


Just my $0.02..

Well said. Voodoo is more seductive than science.

I have an Anthem right now. I'm OK with reviewers talking about RC.

But Anthem has reinforced for me that good SQ trumps RC, any day. Moved my speakers around a little and now I can turn off ARC AND not suffer the thinning of the midrange.

No RC can fix static in a left channel from bad processing. Or what the Anthem does to music. No soundstage, no depth, a real mess. But then this is my second one, maybe the third......

It's really disappointing to see so many people think RC is so important but SQ is a "voodoo" concept. That's sad. Makes me wonder what brands they keep listening to that "all sounds the same". or is it just crappy speakers?

But if I only listened to Denon/Marantz/Onkyo/Anthem and such they would all sound the same too, because they often ARE the same.

But in an ipod/itunes world SQ has fallen off to the wayside for many for gadgets.

I was reading the Sherwood R-972 review the other day that Home Theater Magazine did and they did spend a little time talking about Trinnov. I do think they should give more information about different version of Audyssey and Ypao. They don't really mention much that I've seen about which ones EQ a sub and what the differences are sound quality wise between them. I also think some measurements would be nice. I've found more info just reading the forum than reading pro reviews. I agree that the room correction will play the biggest factor in sound quality between different receivers so I wish more attention would be paid to the differences. My current receiver has everything that I need right now but I'm still planning to upgrade this year just so I can get MultEQ XT32.

On the subject of comparisons as opposed to single system reviews notable exceptions are Kal's reviews as you noted and this one by David Rich:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/integ...i.html?start=7

Offhand I don't know of others so my apologies in advance if I left anyone out.

Home Theater magazine seems to do a pretty good job of covering all of the features of the receivers, including the various room correction schemes.

One thing that is regrettable is that so many receivers, even fairly expensive ones, give you the latest gee-whiz room correction software and amplifiers that deliver mediocre sound quality, at best.

The result is somewhat akin to putting some high-performance tires on a Yugo.

Room correction is a poor substitute for having some decent audio quality to start with.

If you read the Home Theater review on the Cambridge 650R receiver, one of the few receivers that actually HAS some decent-sounding amplifiers, they discuss this issue. Cambridge takes the approach that if you have good sound quality to start with, only a relatively basic room-correction adjustment is needed. It works better than trying to put some fancy band-aids on a pile of crap.

With the availability of relatively low cost hardware and software for measuring things like FR, it would seem to me that it would be advantageous for the reader to know what the FR and any other measurable parameters for the reviewers listening position.

Putting aside the fact that despite repeating the comment in regards to amplifier quality many times without any substantiation that it's audibly significant, even if there is a difference between various amplification sections, they would have a minute fraction of the impact on audio reproduction that modern Room EQ has.

Addressing room issues is vastly more significant than any difference between amplifiers running within spec. This can be vetted via measurements which remove the subjective elements of the comparison. IMO, Room EQ is the single most important development for improving home audio quality in the last 20 years. How would better amplification address room issues as you seem to be suggesting?

Leaving aside if those sorts of claims would even stand up to blind listening tests, I do find some people tend to concentrate on the wrong qualities when making audio/video choices, or for that matter with other products as well. Especially when limited funds are a condition, some people fail at getting the most bang for the buck.

In terms of auto-EQ, I have never tried it, but last week purchased my first AVR with auto-EQ - the Denon AVR-1712 with Audyssey MultEQ XT. The thing is, it is not like I was covering my ears listening to my previous non-EQ receivers. I could be wrong (and will soon find out once I run the auto-EQ) - I suspect the auto-EQ will be nice, but not the be-all some persons claim. I am still going to listen to and enjoy my vintage 1979 stereo receiver regardless that it has no auto-EQ. How much more would I have enjoyed it over the years if it had auto-EQ? Blind testing of auto-EQ vs. non-auto-EQ would be interesting.

I also envision a down side to auto-EQ - what if I don't like the curve/qualities that the EQ maker programmed? I know, I am supposed to like it, because it should be closest to original config? But what if I personally prefer something different, does the receiver have the attributes to allow setting to my preferred sound? For example, I kind of like a wide open type of front sound stage. As a test with a 2 channel source material, I was switching between matrix 5.1 and matrix phantom channel settings, and while I did not like the loss of center location for spoken voices of the phantom setting, I did like the more wide open front sound stage it provided. For this reason, I can see how some of the DTS options available on other receivers such as Yamaha, could be nice for my preferences, and maybe MultEQ/lack of DTS flexibility might not allow enough variability to suit my tastes? Guess I will find out. The MultEQ in particular seems to limit some flexibility the user has in tailoring the sound away from what the MultEQ programmers intended (unless MultEQ is deactivated).

That's Cambridge's spin and marketing gobbledygook. What they're really saying is they're a small player and don't have the technical or financial resources to implement a more comprehensive and modern room correction system. Like many smaller companies, to keep prices somewhat competitive, they will offer room correction that's several generations behind if at all.

Now we know their marketing worked on at least one person.

So is Cambridge replacing Nad as the new audiophile "my room is perfect" brand?

100% correct. The amplification dross that inundates this hobby (and forum) has to be- by far- the most nauseating dialogue we beat to an absolute death...every week.

And while I'm ranting..."boutique" AVRs are a close second, although nowhere near as rabidly hyped, thank god. Weak on connectivity. Dated or non-existent RC. Lacking feature set. Junk GUI/OSD.

But GREAT amps.

Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.

James

+1 on that.

I just moved my Cambridge 540R V2 into a new home and the lack of room correction shows up. In this place the family room has issues from an audio perspective which I really cant avoid. For example an angled ceiling. Also the couch is against the wall and you know what, short of divorce it aint going anywhere else. Bass traps? Are you kidding? No way thats gonna happen.

Cambridge, Rotel etc are putting spin on things. If they offer room correction, no one who doesnt want is is forced to turn it on, not any more than they would have to use the treble and bass knobs that are there. Or the volume compression etc or any of the useless DSP modess that fake being in a stadium or theater albeit at unmentionable distortion levels. But room correction that's actually useful. "Oh horrors no, we couldn't possibly offer that - we're audio purists, dont you know?".

BTW amplification is not voodoo - but good amplification has measureable qualities. So it can be verified and then just spare us the flowery descriptions that no one can possibly be sure of.

Similarly, its incredible that not one single magazine, all of which indulge in the flowery subjective comparisons of amplifiers, have ever had the guts to line up say a receiver running audyssey, one with MCACC, YPAO, ARC, TACT/Roomperfect, Harman etc and then give us even a flowery comparison of them, let alone a blind test.

"In this place the family room has issues from an audio perspective which I really cant avoid. For example an angled ceiling. Also the couch is against the wall and you know what, short of divorce it aint going anywhere else. Bass traps? Are you kidding? No way thats gonna happen."

That sounds pretty familiar. And there isn't going to be any bass traps or acoustical treatments either. My Family Room has hard as a rock reflectivelly and the couch is 1" from the wall in the new configuration now. But remember, there's more to life, I suppose. That's where good room correction comes into play.

If we had a MacMansion we'd have a dedicated HT room separate from the family room but we don't have a MacMansion and as has been seen many that did have them really could never afford them either.

If you believe RC accounts for most of the SQ attributes then in reviewing RC you are reviewing the RC technology as such leaving little worthwhile to talk about the receiver itself. It's like when you start reviewing and comparing Dolby Volume to Audyssey's version, or different versions of height, wide and night modes you are reviewing third party products that are only part of the receiver. Look at it another way, if every receiver review talks at length about these third party technologies then you're just reading the same stuff over and over again. By comparison amplification isn't third party in that sense.

I do think there needs to be some space devoted to explaining these technologies in magazines but arguably these would be better covered separately as they have general and not product specific application (with some exceptions).

Actually the implementations of Audyssey for example are not exactly the same from Denon to Onkyo. Also can't see why room correction cannot be compared because it is "third party" - but it's okay to write poems about capacitors and chip amps that have been made in the same 3 factories in china.

Basic difference between Onkyo and Denon is that they both implement the Audyssey S/W..
But use different DSPs, Onkyo uses the CL 49800 while Denon uses the TI DA780..
The S/W has been certified by Audyssey.

Just my $0.02...

Good point M Code is making, as always in a factual and cool headed fashion without exaggeration.


I didn't say they can't be compared but better separately. Do you really want to read in every review the same stuff about Dolby Digital vs Dolby TrueHD vs dts vs dts-HD MA, Dolby Volume vs Audyssey Volume, PLIIz vs. dts Neo, and how Audyssey XT compares to XT32 to MCACC to YAPO to ARC to Trinnov, HDMI vs. SPDIF? Where exactly have you been reading poems about caps and (chip?) amps? Since you own a CA AVR you obviously once believed in those things, hehe...

If you want to know what makes them sound different, well that's where it's at these days. Yes that means the AVR is increasingly a commodity, as reflected in declining average sale price.

The flowery writing on amps is well documented. No more need be said there.

The CA 540r v2 I picked up on closeout sale when I lived in the UK. It was a very good value for the specs it tested out at and a good small size. Poetry not a factor in purchase. ;-)

Room correction in mainstream AVRs was not really mature enough back then a half decade ago, but at this point its pretty much a must have, as The hardware has enighet processing power to handle available solution.

No dogma here - I'd just much rather that The reviews I read eschew voodoo and spend column inches on the aspects that actually colour the sound. Neutral amplification at affordable everyday pricepoint is a done deal now.

Also, a competent reviewer will have access to measurement gear, and proficiency in using it, that the average owner will not.

I'm not really interested in subjective reviews of room correction systems. What I'd like to see is more like an annually-updated version of Dr. Olive's survey: measurements that indicate:
(a) what the respective target curves of different room correction systems are;

(b) on systems with some variability in setting (e.g. ARC's "room gain" or Audyssey Pro's curve-drawing), how a change in setting corresponds to a change in actual measured target curve;

(b) how well they utilize their onboard measurement systems to hit those curves, with a variety of different speaker designs (say, a representative crappy mushroom-cloud-midrange-polars 7" 2-way with tweeter flush on a 180deg waveguide; a properly-designed speaker with a Dual Concentric, coincident, or waveguide -mounted tweeter to maintain consistent midrange directivity; an "exotic" such as perhaps a Maggie or Quad ESL.);

(c) how repeatable those results are, using the same microphone positions; and

(d) how tolerant the systems are to variance in measurement protocol/user error.


Thanks for pointing that out. Both because I was thinking of buying the HK part one for my bedroom system - alas, Anthem's INT-225, which would otherwise be my first choice in the price range, doesn't have ARC, or even digital inputs or bass management! - and because one wishes more reviewers were as knowledgable and thorough as Prof. Rich.


There's no evidence from any controlled listening test that corroborates your assertion.



Not true. There's ergonomics, build quality, thermal management, etc.

Sound-wise, there hasn't been anything to talk about for years...


Which have to be implemented.

Sometimes those implementations are buggy, and the specific bugs vary by platform.

Such information is relevant and material to a review. One may even consider a reviewer negligent (in the common, not legal sense) if s/he does not seek to find such bugs by measurement and listening, and expose them when found. (First to the maker/marketer, so that a firmware patch can be released, of course.)


How do you know that?

Many AVRs use chip-amps that are very much third-party parts. Others use off-the-peg amplifier modules that are mixed and matched to off-the-peg power supplies.

The amp is generally no more or less a "third party" solution than the room correction. Sometimes much less so. For example, on the Anthem MRX boxes, the amplification is bog-standard Chinese commodity parts. The room correction is proprietary and unique.


Despite the faulty premises leading to your point, I do think your conclusion is sound. An annual review, along the lines I mention above, would probably be more useful to consumers. Though each review of such a box should discuss implementation. Prof. Rubinson is the only one to consistently do that.


Actually, yes. Much better than some idiot flight of fancy about how many veils one lifted by swapping out a damn wire...

Come to think of it, I've yet to see a review compare the major competing loudness compensation programs (Dolby Digital Volume's "modeler" and Audyssey DynamicEQ). I'd like to see that review as well.

The reasons is super simple. You guys are vastly over-thinking this.

Reviewing room correction as part of a receiver review results in immediately discounting the entire Sony, Pioneer, and Yamaha lines, as their room correction is still stuck in 2005. This is the same as saying "We do not want your advertising dollars". Those are marketing budgets that you do not say "no" to, if you want your magazine to last the year.

Self-preservation, plain and simple.