Denon Audyssey Users Poll

Interesting poll. I'm curious as to the results when more people participate.

For me I selected:
Set Multi EQ to "Audyssey" - I've tried it set to flat and off with a variety of sources and none sound as good to me as it is when it is set to on.

Set Dynamic EQ to "On" - this is a must. I do not like the way it sounds when off.

Use Dynamic Volume - yes I use it, but only when viewing/listening late at night. I work nights so on my nights off I am often up much later then the rest of the family so I only use the midnight setting and generally my volume level is down around -40 or so. . So it is either off or on midnight, the other settings are pretty useless to me.

Re-set Speakers to "Small" - after running auto-cal I do reset the speakers to small and set my own crossover.

Re-set Speakers frequency to "80Hz" - yes, mostly. When I am listening to 2 ch music my mains are set to 60hz, all other times all my speakers are crossed at 80z....except my heights which are crossed at 100hz.

Overall satisfied with Audyssey end result - Yes. Is it for everybody? Probably not, but when used in my room with my gear I can achieve outstanding results and am very pleased with it. I have only used multi-eq and multi-eq xt flavors thus far and both have provided excellent results. Now having said that, I have never independently measured my in room response so I do not know if I am getting a flat curve or a biased curve, but to my ears it sounds too good for me to care about what kind of curve I am actually getting.

I did not check off any of the other options in the poll.

Audyssey doesn't set speaker sizes or crossovers. Just FYI.

Hmm, then how do you explain this: I ran Audyssey for first time (new 2112) and I found front speakers set to small (bi-amp). Few days later I bought new speaker stands for the surround speakers and I re-wired those so I re-ran Audyssey and as result the front speakers were set to large. Also the crossover frequencies were different.
Thanks in advance.

read up here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...tcount=51803#C

Audyssey sends info to the receiver and that sets your speaker to large or whatever

^^^
Thanks!

By that logic guys, Audyssey doesn't ever set anything then. Everything Audyssey does is handed off to the receiver for final implementation. It's a piece of software that tells your receiver hardware how to act, wether that is EQ-ing channels, rolling off the high-end, or deciding where to crossover.

The receiver does not pick it's crossover in a vacuum, and is absolutely influenced by what Audyssey reports. Well, unless the receiver design is utterly retarded. Insisting that "nun-uh-uh Audyssey doesn't set crossovers" is being pedantic for no good reason.

^^
Not really no. The point is that if Audyssey was responsible for making those settings, you wouldn't have to change your speakers from LARGE back to SMALL, or raise the crossovers from 40hz up to 80hz, Audyssey would just do it. Folks are often confused, why, after running Audyssey, they should make those changes (LARGE-->SMALL, 40hz-->80hx) reasoning that doing so isn't what "Audyssey" has recommended and many believing that doing so somehow will impact the Audyssey filters, which isn't the case at all. You must make those "Audyssey recommended" changes because it's the AVR that sets them, not Audyssey.

I use Audyssey, Dyn EQ on, Dyn Volume set to "evening" (only because I live in an apartment and need to limit volume). I am very happy with the result - compared to 2EQ the bass has been cleaned up considerably.

I use Dynamic EQ and set Dynamic Volume to Day and I am very pleased with how Audyssey has improved my sound on my AVR-4310.

No. Audyssey simply does not set speaker size. Period, end of story.

The main function of Audyssey is DSP. It applies filters to the sound the receiver plays. The bass management and speaker size settings are handled by the receiver's software. Denon, Onkyo, Marantz, etc, write their own software for that. That's why you have the same speaker size and distance and crossover settings in an Audyssey-free Denon 1312 as a 1612.

It is a little pedantic, but only a little. I think it's an important distinction.

Again, although Audyssey makes the recommendations, it's the AVR that makes the final decision as far as the non EQ settings go. If Audyssey had control over the process, the front main speakers would always be set to SMALL with 80hz crossovers, which the owner could then change if preferred.

^^^

yup... chris k. made that very clear on more than one occasion...

comments:

- if you are using deq... unless the only thing you use your avr is for blurays, you should be using the offset as well on different material...

- satisfied with xt... much more satisfied with xt32.... incrementally more satisfied with pro...

That's symantical!

It's really not. People ask all the time "why does Audyssey set my speakers to Full when the Audyssey website says I should set them to small?"

The answer is "because Audyssey didn't do that. Audyssey doesn't do that. That's Denon's/Onkyo's/whoever's fault."

guys, this is an important distinction and NOT a meaningless pedantic point.

the key thing is that, as this poll demonstrates, when you ask the question "do you leave your speakers the way Audyssey set them or do you change the settings (small/large and/or crossover freq)?" there is a tacit implication that you are manually overriding what AUDYSSEY has recommended, i.e. you are moving away from the "optimal" setting.

Audyssey however does not have any control over the bass management functions, receiver manufacturers have refused to give up control of that. The primary reason is purely marketing, in that uninformed end-users get insulted when their big tower speakers are set to "small" (this is not a joke, it's really the reason).

With respect to these settings, all Audyssey can do is pass along its measurements to the receiver, where the manufacturer's logic determines the settings. This is usually a "dumb logic" decision where they simply set the crossover as close as possible to the measured -3dB point reported by the measurements. That decision is in no way "optimal" and it's important for users to understand that. Many people implicitly "trust" the auto setup because they assume it's smarter than them and is optimizing their system, and thus are concerned about deviating from these settings (thus polls like this).

Audyssey explicitly recommends changing all speakers to "small" and raising the crossover if necessary, for example read this: http://www.audyssey.com/blog/2009/05/small-vs-large/

If Audyssey was allowed to control this aspect I can guarantee you would never see a speaker set to "large" (unless there was no sub in the system). Ideally they would be able to do what happens with the Pro Kit, where they actually calculate an optimal crossover freq which provides the smoothest response at the crossover region.

The key point of the distinction is that by changing speakers to "small" and raising crossovers, you are not "overriding Audyssey", you are in fact conforming to their recommendations. It's an important thing for people to understand so that they don't feel they may be doing something "wrong" by changing a setting after auto setup.

I use Dynamic EQ on everything and Dynamic Volume(evening) for TV. I also change ref level offset to 15 for TV because bass is overpowering on some material at 0. I am not a big fan of Dyn Vol for movies but I will use the Day setting on rare occasions. I did change my speakers from large to small and I set the crossovers for my front 3 at 110 and 80 for rears. Right now I'm using MultEQ XT but plan to have XT32 soon.

BTW, to answer the question, I use Dyn EQ for everything with the sole exception being that I will turn it off sometimes for video games when it makes the surround effects too loud.

I also use Dyn Vol for nearly everything, since I live in a smallish townhouse with shared walls and a wife+baby often sleeping upstairs. I generally have it set to "evening" mode nearly all the time, although I will use "midnight" when it's really late and I'm watching a movie with loud effects. I don't even bother to change that with music listening since mostly it's "background" and not "critical" listening, although I will change Dyn Vol to "day" mode often to let some more dynamic range in. Since I have my Harmony One remote programmed with Day/Evening/Midnight as the "1/2/3" buttons it's very easy to flip this setting.

I also leave my speakers as calibrated via auto setup since none of mine get set to "large" (I have a setup based on bookshelf speakers).

I'd "like" this post if AVS would let me. Thanks for the clarification.

Okay I acquiesce. It isn't symantical but nevertheless it is set by the f/w of the receiver based upon measurements provided by Audyssey so it is interelated. I don't really care whether it is one or the other that makes the final setting because I'm going to make some final tweaks based on recommendations of Audyssey and also my speaker manufacturer.. As my speakers are physically smaller (HTD Flat Panel) than most for WAF, I actually need to set the crossover lower than it is automatically set by the Denon f/w.

I'm using a 4311ci with full 11.2 setup.

As most others have found...

Regular Audyssey mode with the high end roll-off works best in my (well-treated) room.

Dynamic EQ is awesome, and I ALWAYS leave it on, for everything. Messed around with the offset, but end up always leaving it on zero.

Dynamic Volume is never used. Tried it and didn't like it. I rather turn the volume down myself.

As mentioned, the x-overs have nothing to do with Audyssey, but I do set them to 80hz, small. Some of the surrounds only go to 100hz, so I leave them there.

One Audyssey feature that I am still tweaking is DSX. I find that this really is effected by the content. Plain stereo is sometimes better for music, sometimes not. On movies, (which is what it is made for) DSX generally is nothing but positive. My next step is playing around with the offsets for this mode.

As already well explained, Audyssey does not determine the final settings of speaker size.

For instance on my Onkyo, it goes something like this

- Audyssey runs
- Audyssey determines the -3dB point of my speakers in room ---> 40Hz
- Audyssey calculates the EQ curves/filters based on its measurements
- Receiver calibration process looks at the resulting 40hz recommendation
- Here's the dumb part:
- receiver selects small or large:
If (Audyssey recommended-crossover < 80Hz)
then select LARGE for speakers

So yes, you hit it on the nail, the receiver IS retarded. Audyssey DSP processing calculations are the same on every receiver, but which speaker setting is chosen is essentially maker or model dependent.

as far as the other things in the poll

Dynamic EQ, love it.
Dynamic Volume, terrible. Don't use it.
Reference offset, for TV input I select -10, for BD, no offset
For Music, Audyssey flat.
For Movies, Audyssey Movie.
Movie mode sounds terrible for music, dulls the highs (cymbals sound like they are coated in jello, thought my tweeters were burned out)

I always reset to small with 80Hz, to give my sats some more headroom

Primary use is for music in a 2 channe set up.

I pretty much stick with the manual recommeded settings for music on my 3311ci. Audyssey flat, dynamic eq, and off set at -5.

I read that Audyssey has redesigned the mic for all the new upcoming AVRs and that all the bugs of the old mike have been fixed.. Will the new redesigned Audyssey mic work with the older XT32, XT and multEQ systems ?

Just a general comment.

I guess Audyssey does not tell you exactly what the -3b point of my speaker is. May be the pro kit does. The new Antimode has an option to set my own range for the speakers. I guess the new Antimode also does not tell what the -3b point is. That is something I have to find out by measuring or use the specs as an estimate (there will be some room gain). Most receivers only go down to 40Hz for the crossover setting. So that is the lowest an AVR will let me set. It does not mean that the -3db point of my speaker is 40Hz. This has been argued to death already in another thread. So please don't start a heated debate again.

I set the crossover at 80Hz if I am using a sub and the fronts/center to SMALL. When I am watching just TV or Music Choice, I set my speakers to LARGE as they can go down to the low 30's and I dont like the annoying bass from the sub when I am watching just TV. In fact if I am going to be watching just TV (no Music Choice) for a long time, I set the L/R volume to -12db (lowest on my Denon 3311) so that I dont get all the annoying background music or people laughing. Well that is my preference. I dont care about background music when I am watching "How they do it" or "Ancient Aliens" or some Nat Geo. program. It is just annoying. I wish there were an option to just turn off L/R. Why is that no AVR that I am ware of has this option? They let you set center channel or surrounds to "NONE" so why not L/R to "NONE"? Huh?

The bass for 2ch music on cable (Music Choice) is just fine with my fronts. I dont switch to 2ch stereo when I listen to Music Choice. I leave the DSP at Neo or what ever. I have 3 large speakers for the front stage. So I get plenty of bass for 2ch music on cable.

When I listen to 2ch music on my CD, I dont use Audyssey at all. I use manual EQ as I prefer laid back mids for serious listening and at higher volume. I just use the Antimode 8033 for the sub. I run Audyssey on top of Antimode. So Antimode is always on whenever the sub is on.