Marantz AV8801 Preamp/Processor Official Owner's thread - Page 111

Yep, had this happen before


That is what ive been saying, what a bad feature to not have.



Well in the guy's case it would be beneficial to bump it back up to start with, even though it still has nothing to do with LFE+Main, they were two separate suggestions on my part

I will be doing this along with my preout measurements when I get my other mic back from dayton. My rundown will be:

-Measure Sub out and create a cal file showing low-end rolloff
-Measure L/R outs in Pure, direct, and stereo with and without any DSP
-Measure Audyssey and non Audyssey speaker responses

I will document all of this with overlays and separate graphs.

Perhaps you should look no further than this site right here Contact Mike Garrett with av science sales (AV science sales 5)

Fantastic!

I can't wait to see your results.
I find distinct change in imaging and a bit brighter presentation with the 7.1 analog inputs going from Pure Direct to Direct.
It should be measurable.

- Rich

 

Good for you experimentation is all it takes, I love experimenting as well. What are your speakers?

Congratulations, if you are looking for numbers Classé SSP-800 uses 64 Bits processor :)

 

"The SSP-800 is a ten-channel preamp/processor, offering both balanced and single-ended connections for all channels. Audio Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is handled by Texas Instruments processors, which operate in 64-bit double precision. Floating point arithmetic is used for all audio signal calculations to ensure the most accurate results possible. All bass management filters, level adjustments and parametric EQ filters also benefit from the added precision. Two DSPs, each rated at 2800 MIPS (Million Instructions per Second) provide HD Audio decoding and the power to handle a vast array of post processing features at full resolution."

 

http://www.classeaudio.com/delta/delta-ssp800.htm

 

The SSP-800's lead design engineer was also the lead designer on the $20,000 Linn CD12. The DACS for the SSP-800 are:

- Texas Instruments/Burr Brown PCM1792 [One for each pair in differential mode.] (L & R, C & S and AUX1 & AUX2)
- Texas Instruments/Burr Brown PCM1796 [One for each pair in differential mode.] (SL & SR and RL & RR)

 

Also in the Classé CP-800 the DACS are Wolfson 8741: http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/dacs/WM8741/

Even so this DAC supports sampling rates up to 192kHz and also supports DSD bit-stream data format, in both direct DSD and PCM-converted DSD modes. Classé decided not to incorporate that in the CP-800 so they can offer an upgrade later for additional $$$ :( 

 

I own the CP-800 as well and am waiting for the upgrade!

 

If only they included Audyssey XT32 in the SSP-800 but that won't happen :(

For the price of the Classe at $9500, I think I'll stick with my cheap 8801 plus other toys....

Never thought I would hear $3600 MSRP classified as "cheap".

when compared to a $9500 Classe.... cheap it is. I could by the Marantz AND a parasound A51 for that much, still have a lot of money left

You're mixing up DSPs, which do the audio processing, and which typically run at 64 bits, with Digital to Analog converters, which these days usually can take up to 24 or 32 bit data. Of course the notion that one can hear the difference between 24 and 32 bit DACs is controversial at best, since even the best DACs and associated analog circuitry seldom exceed 20 bits in true resolution. By the way, the PCM1792 and PCM1796 are 24 bit DACs.

Well I did a quick run of Audyssey and frankly I thought it sounded terrible afterwards. First it said the polarity on my fronts was reversed, which is impossible as I'm using RCA's and I'm smart enough to hook my wires up correctly. Maybe the bi amping through it off? Other than that it set the bass so low I could barely tell I had a sub. Crossovers for the fronts at 250?? And others all over the place. Distances for my surrounds were basically the same as my fronts. All I could say was, huh? Thankfully I remembered my settings. This was my the first time running it and I thought the 8801 would remember my settings when I put it back to manual. I guess it's not for everybody was my conclusion.
Edited by comfynumb - 2/26/13 at 12:57pm

comfynumb,

Don't forget to check the level setting that the receiver is using for your subwoofer. A level of -12dB means that the subwoofer has been left uncalibrated because Audyssey turned the receiver's subwoofer output down as far as it could go but the subwoofer was still too loud. What happens with the subwoofer channel after that is "undefined".

Please be sure to read through the Audyssey FAQ and setup guide here on AVS. There are many things you have to consider which are omitted from the abbreviated instructions that manufacturers provide. Often speaker and microphone placements and orientations can cause problems for Audyssey. See http://www.avsforum.com/t/795421/official-audyssey-thread-faq-in-post-1/51750#post_21782993

I won't comment on you choice of cabling for your speakers. I think that horse has been beaten to death often enough already.

Thanks for the tips. I just tried bi amping to see what I thought and I will be going back to XLR's and a single amp for front speakers. Is 250 Hz's a good place to cross the fronts over? They are Revel F52's and pretty capable speakers.

To add to this, the fronts crossed at 250 actually sounds pretty good. Odd though I wouldn't think of even trying that manually.
Edited by comfynumb - 2/26/13 at 1:24pm

How speakers respond in a room usually is different from what the manufacturer measures in an anechoic chamber. Crossovers that high are somewhat unusual, though. I could be mistaken, but it almost seems consistent with the woofers not being heard at all.

Is there any chance the woofers actually are not connected?
If you select Direct (or Pure Direct) can you determine if the woofer drivers are vibrating?
Are they vibrating when Stereo or multichannel audio is enabled?

If the woofers actually are doing something, it could be that Audyssey simply isn't taking into account that you're bi-amping. The amp channels which normally are used to drive front L&R full range speakers are actually driving only the upper-frequency drivers and not the woofers. The crossover frequency for just those drivers would be unusually high.

Are the crossover frequency settings viewable for what normally would be the rear surround speaker channels but now are driving the woofers? If it's confused, I'd expect those channels to be treated as separate speakers with crossovers which are quite a bit lower than 250Hz -- like 60 or 40 Hz.

edited to add:
You do need to run Audyssey again whenever you change speaker configurations. I'd expect a calibration with the speakers are configured as full-range (i.e. with the woofer jumpers installed between the speakers' binding posts) to be somewhat different from a biamp configuration.

According to Revel F52 manual, the mid/bass crossover frequency is at 200Hz. I wasn't able to determine from the manual if the F52's have the input connector for you to feed one amp into bass input and the other input into mid/highs???

In theory, this would be ideal way to bi-amp your speakers. My speakers are also crossed-over at 200Hz and I do notice less strident (compressed) midrange sound at obscene volume levels:)

I forgot to mention, the AV8801 lacks bi-amp outputs. So, are you're using Y-splitter cables from AV8801 L/R outputs and individually feeding 4 separate amps?

AlxG,

Thanks for the reminder about no separate bi-amp connections on the 8801. I was thinking about how receivers are connected (like the Denon 4520, which is equivalent to the 8801, but with amps included).

According to their manual, Revel F52 speakers have separate binding posts for the high frequency drivers and the woofers. They come with heavy-duty jumpers between the binding posts for when the speakers are not bi-amped, which is standard in bi-ampable speaker designs. (In general, passive biamping really doesn't provide any audible improvement in sound quality.)

According to the manual, as AlxG points out, the crossover network designed into the speakers between the high frequency drivers and the woofers has a frequency of 200Hz, so a crossover frequency of 250Hz in the pre/pro is consistent with Audyssey not hearing the woofers at all.

They are playing but barely, it must be the way they are crossed over. All the bass is going to the sub. IMO they don't respond we'll to bi amping so I'm going to put the jumpers back on and try it. Audyssey also put out a polarity error for them which it must be confused because of the bi amping.

No, coming out of the 8801 through RCA's into my Sunfire amp and daisy chained from the Sunfire.

Yes the 52's are bi amp/wire capable. But IMO it made no difference in the sound in fact I think they sounded better with the jumpers in place.

Do you have any other tools like REW that would let you see the response of these speakers driven wideband? I wonder if a room boundary 2-3' away is causing a SBIR null around 200 Hz or so. Since Audyssey cannot fix such a null (no EQ can), it may have decided to set the crossover high enough to avoid it.

Can you please clarify your "daisy chained" definition.

Here's my definition of passively bi-amping the speakers (I'll just use the Right Channel to illustrate my concept):

AV8801 Processor output (R) ---> [amp #1] ---> [Speaker's Crossover High Pass Filter] ---> Midrange/Tweeter speaker driver
|
|
Y-splitter
|
|
----> [amp #2] ---> [Speaker's Crossover Low Pass Filter] ---> Bass speaker driver
Edited by AlxG - 2/26/13 at 3:02pm

Now that makes sense. I'm very limited on where I can place my front speakers. Revel recommends them to be 3' away from any wall or large object. It's not possible in my room right now. I do have the 52's set accordingly by the control on the back of the speaker. But what you just said makes a lot I'd sense, instead of dealing with it, Audyssey redirected most of my bass to my sub. My room is such a damn nightmare but it can't be helped right now.

Looking back at the context (below), I am no longer certain if Mr. Lynch was referring to the LPF in the 8801 LFE channel (as I first thought) or the filter on the Seaton's amp. If he was referring to the Seaton, then I agree it should not be set to 80 Hz. But neither 120 Hz. It should be turned off if at all possible, or set as high as it can go. I hope he can clarify which he meant.

This confuses the hell out of me. Audyssey is on and it sounds good. But I went back in and did adjusting manually to where I think it sounds better. I thought I turned Audyssey off but evidently some of its corrections remained. So is it Audyssey's dynamic eq making the difference now?

Anyone have this issue? The AV8801/MM8807 suddenly goes into something like a "mute state" and the only way to address the issue is to turn everything off and then back on.

Has happened to me three times over the past two weeks, the most recent last night when I was watching "The Colbert Report" on cable TV. The other two times were with FM and HD radio.

More of an inconvenience . . .

That is not the combo price. It is divided between both units. You can easily reverse that logic to discount the processor only, I know as my dealer invoice does not reflect that pricing logic since the discount is divided proportionately on each unit.

I am a bit confused on the bi-amp situation you are doing right now too. you are using 4 channels of amplification coming from the FL/FR of the marantz, into a 4 channel amp and two +/- wires going to each speaker with one for the mids and one for the highs? It certainly sounds to me as well that the mids are not either getting the proper wattage to operate fully compared to the highs. If the amp doesn't have separate gain adjustments, this would certainly be the case as the highs probably take 1/10th of the power to operate at appropriate listening levels as the mids/woofers do. feeding them both the same amount of power at the same gain level would be exactly what you are seeing.


Man, I like this thread, SBIR is all to often not even mentioned when properly calibrating systems Good points sir, I learned the effects of SBIR after way too late in my initial journey


In reference to this and your above quote, I will expound on how I take Audyssey's results. First off, it sets my subs a good 10-15dB lower than they should be to match the rest of the system, and it does it every time. A cheap radioShack SPL meter is your best friend. Quite possibly the best $40 I spent on my theater so I can go and see where Audyssey missed some very important things.

Dynamic EQ will only accentuate the surround mix, and the low freqs when listening below reference to help make the sound appear more "full" when not cranking the system to higher listening levels. My guess here is it is helping your already anemic sub system that was set incorrectly to bring it back to where it needs to be, but is still inaccurate. SO on to my post Audyssey regiment:

1) go in and adjust crossover points, my rears I know are not capable to 40hz, so I bump it up a shade to prevent damaging the speakers. Mains are set as full range but IN MY ROOM my system measures better when they are set to 100hz so I do that. YMMV

2) Confirm that the speaker distances look to be correct on all channels, which Audyssey does a much better job at this part.

3)and most important, I take my RS Spl meter and make sure that all the levels are matched at 75dB (or the standard 72 that your 8801 probably has them close to minus the sub channel)

4) If on any of the speakers your post Audyssey results show a -12 on the meter, as has been said, Audyssey could not EQ as it felt the level was too high and left it out. If you have any of these in your setup after a test, either move the mic further away from the MLP (not always the best idea), adjust the gains on the amp down so post Audyssey results show the majority of your speakers are at 0-0dB +/- 5dB or so, or if you don't have gain adjustments on your amp, then look into getting some RCA line attenuators from PE:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=266-244

The whole part about Audyssey reading your mains as reversed polarity could either be side wall reflections being too prominent in the frequency response or your overall delay coming from your front stage to the mic but I would guess the former. Side wall absorbtion/diffusion would be advisable, but before that try adjusting the toe-in of your mains to see if this helps.