Onkyo TX-NR818 "official" owner's thread discussion - Page 190

I can't track the exact post, but i remember Igor saying that a replacement mic solved his issues to a degree, but his concerns regarding audyssey remain. At least in my case, using the same mic and speaker positions, but adding a sub, and then substituting the Marantz SR5007 receiver with Audyssey XT (and a Denon 3313 earlier) with the Onkyo 818 with XT32 gave me really harsh sound. Same mic positions, same room layout, added sub, and the same detected F3 (40Hz for fronts) in both cases. Good, balanced sound with the Denon/Marantz, and harsh fatiguing sound with the Onkyo. Only change apart from the change in receiver was the sub added with the Onkyo. If anything, wouldn't afding a sub improve the balanced sound, rather than make it more fatiguing by being bright? On a hunch, and following recommendations from folks here to try a different mic, I borrowed my sister's mic from a Denon 3313, and that resulted in "better balanced" sound. My call is that the mic from Onkyo bought the farm.

There's not that much unit to unit variation... so if a mic is defective you can tell if the results are drastically different between two mics of the same model (for the same AVR).Also you can hook a mic up to REW so even though you can't get to the calibration file in your AVR (that I know about) then you could compare to mics via REW measurements.

I forgot if the AVR has individual cal files but the Audyssey wizards know, check over in that thread if nobody chimes in here on it soon.

You could even see how different it is between another type of known good mic (Dayton etc) Most mics in this price range are using the same sensor so you can get defective mic indicators like that.

Hmmm I wonder if the fella that got down to the linux command prompt on an 818 could find the cal file.
Edited by dstew100 - 3/13/13 at 8:46am

Going to the Shop Onkyo site;

https://www.shoponkyo.com/products.cfm?group_id=11

there are some interesting results. If you select the 515/616/717 you will be offered 2 mic options;



but the 818 only has the 7000 mic. The 1010 has the 7001 mic and the 3010/5010 have no available replacements.

Pretty confusing.

thanks for you post

i'm not saying that i have a problem with my mic, i'm not even clear on how i would even know so i'll just assume mine is fine.

Recalibrated today and not so good results again
He is not. The difference between his and my results is that in his case there is about equal amount of boost and attenuation below the F3. In my case it is pretty much the boost only. What is different between the correction and just a boost is that correction keeps the total (or average) amount of energy intact. You can see it on Markus graphs. Will send my today's graphs a little bit later.
Pretty much the only thing what has been changed is the very minor deviations in mic. positions. And sometimes I do 8-point calibration, sometimes 3-point. The 'successful' one was fast 3-point one, but I've done a lot of similar calibrations before.
I have replacement mic from Audyssey and what can I say while the mics sensitivity differs a bit (about 2dB), frequency response is quite consistent between them. The mic is definitely not the source of my problem and I haven't heard for quite some time that the mic was the cause of bad results. It was some batch at summer that was frequently reported that replacing the mic solved the problem, mine was bought in summer also, but it doesn't appear the reason.

Please present them like those graphs:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412714/onkyo-tx-nr818-official-owners-thread-discussion/5280#post_23017128

This is the procedure I've used:
- Run Audyssey (leave Audyssey mic at same position)
- Set mains to Full Range
- Measure preamp output of L and R
- Measure in-room response of L and R
- Switch Audyssey to Off
- Measure in-room response of L and R again

Some information from today's measurements session:
The slope look like it is 96dB/octave, for both high-pass and low-pass filters. In phase by default (who would think it is not anyway..). The phase is reverted by 360 degrees over the crossover region (180 degrees at the crossover frequency).

I would have attached the acoustical graphs also showing the LF and HF and combined response... But I have erroneously deleted them from the REW thinking that they were saved

It is pointless as it is very hard to compare them when before and after are separate. So, I overlay before and after one over the other.
Unfortunately no preamp measurements, had no time do deal with moving things and connections, but it is pretty easy to conclude what Audyssey does from the overlaid graphs when it is boosting and when attenuating Otherwise the procedure is the same (calibrated with three rounds at single position and tried to place measurement mic within an inch to the right position.



I drawn with thin lines that seems to be what Audyssey thinks is the target (with 2nd order slope or 12 db/octave)... Note that it looks pretty much like 50Hz for both left and right, while receiver set fronts to 40Hz. And another thin line that is the real acoustical slope, that is lower, or righter to Audyssey target... Seems that the slope is of correct order, but Audyssey 'builds' it lower - pretty much as simple as F3 misestimate. Pretty much shows visually that the misestimate of the F3 lower than the actual acoustical one and the total boosting below F3 is the same thing as I explained before many times already - this is very simple logical thing, but it seems without visualization nobody wants to understand that.

Got mine today, great amp... But SiriusXM gives me the error "Cannot Play" ?

I used the Mic from my 616 on my 818 results were basically identical so I'm assuming both Mic's are working correctly.

Are you connected with a wire or are you using wireless and do you have high speed internet connection or do you have a basic internet connection. Mine is 60megs down and I'm connected via wire and I have no issues.

Wired connection, updated to newest firmware

Pandora, Vtuner works (oddly when I play BBC Radio 1 via Vturner it works, but when I added it to my Favs and try to play it from My Favs I also get Cannot Play error)

Also am able to connect and use http://www.krautsourced.com/#software/oyremote.html to control it from my pc, and can control it from my iphone too

Forgot to mention I got a 100Mbit connection so speed inst the problem


It does log in because if I enter the wrong password then it gives me a Sign In Error. I am streaming Sirius fine via my web browser so my account can do streaming.
Edited by amrod - 3/13/13 at 4:13pm

Has anyone run into this with the Tx-NR-818: I am using an external amp to enable 9.1 channel playback with the 818. When I set up the SB speakers to the external amp via the SB/SH/SW EXT AMP jacks, the 818 will only allow speaker layout switching (SP button) between SB/FW or SB/FH in the 9.1 surround sound modes, and will not allow the FH/FW speaker layout - no matter what the listening mode or audio source.

If I move the external amp to the FW speakers, the 818 allows FH/FW and SB/FW speaker layout switching in the 9.1 mode, but will not allow SB / FH.

Is this the expected design? Why would speaker layout switching depend on which of the SB SH SW were powered by an external amp? Why wouldn’t all three speaker layouts (SB/FW, FH/FW, FH/FW on page 49 of the manual) be selectable irrespective of the choice to externally power either the SB SH SW?

When I spoke to Onkyo support, they concluded that my unit had a problem, but I’m not so sure since the behaviour seems symmetrical - allowing whichever externally-powered speakers to be combined with one of the 818-powered speakers, but never letting the 818-powered speakers be combined.

I think you can only do 9.2 SB/FH 9.2 SB/FW 9.2 FH/FW See page 41 in the manual.
Then check out the other pages that talks about listening modes.
Edited by bargervais - 3/13/13 at 7:44pm

I am just guessing here.. but does Sirius need you to authorize the client device (your receiver), similar to how Amazon Prime or Netflix require you to activate your client device before streaming would work.

Chris said that Audyssey selects the crossover frequency that matches best with the subwoofer (you'll find it somewhere over at ask.audysse.com). Secondly, the crossover point where the low pass and the high pass cross isn't necessarily the same as the cutoff frequency off each filter.

Matches best with the subwoofer doesn't mean it depends on the subwoofer measurement, it only means that is is matched with subwoofer and not with something else. Anyway if there is a choice, choosing crossover frequency lower than the natural rolloff of satellites is immediately not "the best one". The general rule again - you can chose higher frequency but not lower.
The difference is really negligible in this case. But the point was that the receivers thinks the best XO is at 40, Audyssey thinks it is at 50, and the real acoustical one is around 60 at best.

As was told before the Audyssey matches it best with the subwoofer. This generally means that to the 2nd order natural rolloff (or the one corrected by Audyssey, that should be generally the same (weighted or averaged), but somehow they are not in my case) added 2nd order of high-pass filter of bass management - this will produce 4th order rolloff. Then it will match best with the subwoofer 4th order low-pass (after proper delay alignment). So, the correct estimation of F3 is the key to the 'best match' and it is not the reverse that the 'best match' affects F3 choice.

No, it means matching the crossover region between subwoofer and satellite speaker. It is in Audyssey's case always a calculated value. There's a paper by Bharitkar/Kyriakakis that describes the process: "OPTIMIZATION OF CROSSOVER FREQUENCY AND CROSSOVER REGION
RESPONSE FOR MULTICHANNEL ACOUSTIC APPLICATIONS"

Can you point me to somewere where it tells it is normal to extend speaker capabilities (do bass-extension) for this purpose. What it tell is:
So, your points about the EQ or bass-management should not care about the speaker capabilities but only about the resulting frequency response and matching are wrong. Yet again, it there is the choice - you can only choose frequency higher that the natural capability of the speaker.

By the way, the paper is theoretical and the only product that probably following it is the Pro version where there can be choice of the XO frequency. On non-pro it is always just the 'capability' of the speaker. I haven't yet seen a measurement that is confirming Audyssey can set something like for example 90Hz for the crossover when the real acoustical capabilities of speaker is around 30Hz...

Edit:
Also some proof link to someone who wants to only argue with me to something insignificant where he can, but ignoring everything else that is really significant
Does MultEQ optimize the crossover region between satellite speakers and subwoofer?
Edited by IgorZep - 3/14/13 at 6:29am

Maybe im missing something but i think it makes perfect sense

The 818 can only do 9 channels (where one of them has to be powered externally) so you have to chose ONLY 2 from either SB/FW SB/FH FW/FH

You think its weird that if you power SB with an external amp you cannot chose FW/FH as an option? Why would you power SB with an external amp if you are going to run FW/FH and not use SB?

The Channel you chose to power with an external amp MUST be the one of the two options in SB/FW SB/FH FW/FH

Does that make sense?

/Jacob

I've never said it should not I just noted that Audyssey does not. If you think this should be different then get in contact with Audyssey or use another room correction system or simply adjust the crossover yourself.

I've asked Chris specifically about this and he said that the consumer version also uses the best-match process just like the Pro version. The difference is that Pro adjusts the filters when different crossover points are selected.

I see the 525,626 and 727 have been released, just the 828 left ?

When additional High or Wide channels are added, their directional and ambient effects are fully enveloping. These three expansion systems offer you freedom to choose your preferred speaker setup. Audyssey DSX expands 5.1 sources to include Wide or Height channels. The Dolby system adds Height channels and stereo source expansion, while DTS Neo:X offers Wides or Heights.

It seems it does... In most cases. There would be much more complaints if it didn't do it 'generally'. It does it for you too, even with the experiments with adding some artifical boosts - the energy still stays the same below F3, just overlay the pre-post Audyssey graphs and you will see, but it somehow fails to do it for me...
Sure I can adjust the XO frequency, but I can't adjust the F3 that the Audyssey itself thinks is the acoustical one. This is the problem, and adjusting just the bass-management XO frequency doesn't solve the problem. I would forget it long ago if it did. Or may be the problem is really completely something else inside the Audyssey and this F3 mis-estimate is the only sign on the frequency response that tells there is something wrong happened, just side effect... You know, the frequency response is not the only thing that affects SQ.
I cannot find that... But the rule is still there - the XO and rolloff could not be lower in frequency than the natural one... There is no way it could be considered 'the best one' by any sane person, or designed into the algorithm done by any sane person except if there is a bug in it.

I see the 525,626 and 727 have been released, just the 828 left ?
are these new onkyo receivers do you have a link
Edited by bargervais - 3/14/13 at 9:01am

cool

The onkyo site doesn't have the 727 up yet but at least the 525 and 626 stepped up from Audyssey 2EQ to Audyssey MultiEQ. At least it's an improvement from the 2EQ but I'd still like to see onkyo have a midline MultiEQ XT receiver. Well the 818 is priced midline so that's even better. I wonder if it was a package deal to get the XT32 affordable but keep the lower level Audyssey in the model lines right below. Just seems so weird to me. Awesome we get the XT32 at this price point but then such a huge dropoff. It really takes those other models out of contention for those that understand the audyssey levels.

Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Technology Debut in Onkyo’s 2013 Entry-Level A/V Network Receivers
Read More Here: http://www.onkyousa.com/press_releases.cfm?id=294
Onkyo Launches TX-NR727, TX-NR626, and TX-NR525 Network A/V Receivers, and HT-S5600 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver/Speaker Package

just posted on facebook

well i just got the 818 and a 616 so i'm all set