Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 461

Thanks Bob,

Looks like I will be tweaking for a while
John

I don't know if there is any fix for this but I'll ask anyway.

I have a SA8300 HDPVR hooked up to my D2 with an hdmi cable. When I change channels or press guide I get a quick flash of the picture I'm changing to then my screen goes black then the picture comes back. It takes about 2-3 seconds. The sound though is uninterrupted. On some channels my guide comes up instantly without any cutout.

I have tried setting my cable box to fixed 720p, fixed 1080i and pass through and still have these issues. The weird thing is that it does not do it for all the channels. I can be channel surfing when set to 720p and it will work flawlessly then I will get to a channel and poof I get the quick flash then black then my picture again.

I had component cables on there before and seem to remember the same thing happening. I will try all the modes in the cable box again with component hooked up.

Hdmi repeater is set to no. Frame lock is off.

Thanks for the help.

John

If it is happening with Component video connections, then it is not an HDMI handshake problem (obviously).

Even with Component, when you change output resolutions there is a brief delay as the DVR gets its act together to output the new resolution and as the input and scaler in the Anthem sync up to the new input resolution. But of course this shouldn't happen if you have the DVR set to output a fixed resolution.

There will also be a brief delay if you are changing to a premium channel, depending upon how the box implements your access privileges.

Off hand it sounds to me like you may have a hardware problem in your DVR, perhaps related to the way it switches its disk buffers (i.e., the ability to rewind live broadcasts or record what you are currently watching) when you switch channels. Can you swap it out for a replacement DVR? That would be the easiest way to check.
--Bob

I have a suggestion. You may have already tried it.
Check in your 'speaker configuration' section in 'set-up' and make sure that you have the subs turned on in both movie and music set-ups. The 'speaker level ' won't send a signal to the subs if they aren't turned on in the 'speaker configuration'.
Tom

The June issue of Sound & Vision has a rave review of the D2 w. ARC.
The only minus point the guy could state was no HDMI 1.3
Bottom line...if you can afford it, the D2 may be the best high end pre/pro in the market.
Makes one proud! :-)
/\\/\\

would you be on ROGERS cable at all? If so< that's your answer. I've had similar quircks, and it was the cable, hope this helps

If Rogers treats the 8300 the way Comcast treats their Motorola DVRs then software and firmware upgrades are delayed for some markets or pushed out too soon in other markets (before being adequately tested). You might want to check the 8300 related thread in the HD set top box forum here to see what's known about various software releases, and to find out how to check which version is currently in your 8300.
--Bob

Do they have any direct comparison against the Audyssey products?
--Bob

Yes it is Rogers.

Stupid rogers. Is Bell any better?

John

[quote=ChantheMan;13619097][quote=gdc;13619076]
Just wanted to report that the 1.31b seems to have fixed the startup issues I had. Can't say enough good things about Anthem. It has been over a month and no problems.

Thanks.

Hi,

No the piece is more of an actual review of the D2, which they have never reviewed before, with the ARC being a key point throughout. Nowhere near as technical or indepth as Brian Florian's.

I will quote the closing paragraph though as it always makes me feel great when I read this kind of stuff about our beloved D2!

BOTTOM LINE
"It's true that for the cost of the Statement D2 and a suitable amplifier, you could buy a flagship model A/V receiver, appropriate speakers and a 50-inch flat panel TV and Blu-Ray player - with something left over to start that Blu-ray disc collection. But leaving money aside (and don't we all just wish we could?), the D2 is one of the all-around best A/V products I've evaluated across more years of doing this than I care to admit to. The day when Anthem's representatives show up to retrieve it will be a very sad one here at S&V's subpolar satellite lab. And they'd better be carrying sidearms when they do."
Daniel Kumin

Gotta love it!

/\\/\\

It's been a year now with my D2 and just wanted to share my feelings about what won the "Do I finally buy that motorcycle or a high-end A/V system".

My rig comprises of the D2, A5 for amp, Anthony Gallo Reference speakers all around with a MJ Acoutics Reference 200 Sub-Woofer, Devon 3800 for BD, ARCAM 137, (purchased while waiting for the HD war to end), Sharp D92 TV, HD-PVR from Rogers and good but expensive cables all around. Finishing it off was getting the ARC-1 at the beginning of this month.

Though I had to send the D2 back to Anthem once, Truetone in Mississauga, Ontario provided me with a temporary Pre/Pro to hold me over. They have been outstanding in servicing and support and are highly recommended. I control everything with a Aurora MX-950 remote from Universal.

Obviously, I have learned a lot from this forum over the year and become much more critical in my listening but what is providing me with so much pride in my A/V choice is the quality of sound and image the D2 delivers. I have friends and business associates that have come over for either a listen/see or for diner parties and often find someone in the A/V room just sitting in one of the chairs, listening to the music, enthralled with the quality of sound.

There are not enough superlatives in my vocabluary that can explain the quality of the ARC-1 tuned music and video that makes me join that person and take them on a audio/visual tour with music from the recently released, Anjani, Blue Alert CD produced by Leonard Cohen, (her voice is pure silk), To the Moody Blues, (Hall of Fame DVD), Simon & Garfunkel, (Old Friends DVD), Eagles, (Hell Freezes Over DVD), and then, to experiance HD with excellent surround, the just released BD, Master and Commander. One can clearly hear the rub of the cloth from the closely packed sacs of grain swaying back and forth in the hold as the night watchman makes his rounds. The gun battle has my poor guest on the edge of his seat, ducking as the 22 pounders crash through the ship.

I know this forum is primarily the bits and bytes, tips and tricks that make our D2 deliver what was promised but for me, I still want the bike, it is just in it's proper position, after my D2 based system.

Cheers

Bob

Nice write-up Bob.
It mirrors my experiences as well.
While most want to watch a movie right off the bat, I "make" them listen to some hi-rez surround music first.
Technical aspects aside, it's the end result that makes it all worthwhile.

Does anyone here know what the Room Gain setting is for and any tips on how to set it?

Also, what's the reason for setting a Max EQ Frequency? Why is it set to a default of 5kHz? Shouldn't the EQ cover the whole of the system's frequency range?

I do wish Anthem could at least explain somewhere in their instructions the significance of various settings in order for users to easily set suitable targets appropriate to their individual environment requirements without time spent head scratching.

Ben

Leave the Max EQ Frequency at 5KHz. Attempting to EQ above that point is not going to produce good results because the sweep tones are too directional up there -- which means the sound recorded from each speaker will be altered by slight directional differences in the mic pointing and speaker pointing at the various mic listening positions rather than reflecting true room response. The fact that ARC works so well up as far as 5KHz is really quite a feat. Don't push it beyond that. Even though the "calculated" results curves might look better in the high frequencies when you raise this limit, such results are misleading because of the unknown directional biases built in when the sweep tones were picked up by the mic in the first place.

Room Gain should also be left at the default. It represents the target for how much the room SHOULD alter the response in the frequencies around and just above the cross over. You see it visually as the "hump" in the calculated results curves near those frequencies. Determining the "correct" Room Gain to build into the ARC audio is a major piece of what you are paying for with ARC. It represents a key result of the listener testing research done over the past few decades -- the research that underlies the ARC technology. It is adjustable, I suspect, for reviewers who want to see if they can hear the difference between ARC's choice of Room Gain and a "flat" response (i.e., using the filters to remove all room gain) or an overly strong Room Gain (i.e., beyond what ARC chooses). And as we've seen from curves posted here, ARC determines the "right" Room Gain based upon its analysis of the recorded sweeps for each setup. I.e., the Room Gain number used for one person's setup is likely irrelevant for another person's setup.

Again, both of these settings are best left at their defaults.

The only Targets settings that you might need to play with are the Target cross over settings. And even there, it is probably best not to fiddle with these until you get a feel for how ARC sounds using the cross overs it determines for you.
--Bob

Grateful thanks for the explanation, Bob. As usual, you couldn't be clearer. I shall not even touch these 2 settings with a barge pole.

By the way, I suppose if Room EQ in the Setup Menu is set to ON, the Room Resonance Filter is automatically bypassed, even if Apply Filter is set to YES - or do we have to set it to NO?

Ben

I agree! I just got one of these to check it out, and it is IDEAL for ARC use!

The ARC mic clip from Anthem's included stand screws onto the thread at the end of the boom. There is a locking ring to hold it at any angle (and the boom itself can be rotated around its axis to fine tune this as well.

The vertical part telescopes from 34" to 66" tall, and the boom arm is 30" long. The boom can slide forward and backward in its locking mount and the arm can be locked at any desired angle up or down. This means you can approach a typical upholstered seat even from the rear with the vertical shaft raised high and the boom arm angled down to clear the back of the seat. And the tripod legs, which have a small down angle when splayed out, are still flat enough to the ground that there should be no problem positioning them underneath any adjacent furniture to get the vertical shaft close to the furniture.

It is lightweight but plenty stable enough for this application, and should work just as well on carpet and hard floors. The base legs fold in when not in use and with the boom arm folded down against the vertical shaft it is even reasonably compact for storage (about 3 feet long by about 4" diameter.

Figure about $38 shipped (plus tax if you are in NY). By the way, for anyone who doesn't know, B&H is one of the premiere internet (and brick/mortar) shops serving the professional and amateur photographic and AV community. You can order from them with confidence.

ANTHEM: If you are reading this, check this mic stand out as a potential, future alternative stand to be bundled with ARC.
--Bob

The manual implies it is automatically bypassed for Room EQ = ON sources (which of course makes sense), but I haven't actually tested it myself.
--Bob

I find a 4dB boost of room gain to be appropriate for my room even if ARC says it should be at ZERO. I find it a little flat at low end if I use the default settings. My room is well treated as average RT60 is around 0.3 seconds across. I see most curves to have a bit of a hump but mine does not. What gives?

It is true. If room eq = on then room resonance is bypassed. I tested it and just to confirm what Nick told me. ;-)

ARC most commonly seems to be applying a room gain near 3 from the stuff that's been posted here.

If it is suggesting 0 in your measurements there may be something wrong with the way you are doing the measurements. In the posts here, we haven't quite figured out why some of the calculated curves are showing no hump.

The only mistake we've discovered so far that is guaranteed to give poor ARC results is to place the mic positions too close together. But I've no idea whether making this mistake might cause ARC to suggest 0 Room Gain.

[The various mic positions must be at least 12 inches apart, and probably 18 to 24 inches is better. The separation is necessary so that ARC can distinguish room response from inherent speaker performance (room response varies with mic location).]

I'm not sure whether simply upping the Room Gain target manually as you are doing is as good as figuring out what's going on that is causing ARC to suggest 0 in the first place. I.e., other aspects of the ARC calculation may also be getting biased, and your change to the Room Gain target may not address that as well.

Re-read the brief instructions delivered with ARC and see if you can spot anything else you might be doing which is counter to those instructions. Failing that, it might be necessary to contact Anthem and see if they know of anything that would cause ARC to suggest a target near 0.

As best I know, it is NOT supposed to be necessary for the user to fiddle with the Room Gain target.
--Bob

I will try another run and compare what is suggested by ARC. From the Arc's settings. My Fronts are crossed at 40, center- 75, surrounds-115 and rears at 75 and subs at 120. I find that with these settings, the sub can be localized. I override the crossover settings to 80hertz with all the speakers. The calculated response for all speakers is not that bad compared to the recommended settings by ARC. The surrounds are the one mostly affected because they are down by a dB or two from the target curve at 80 to 90 hertz. I believe this is no big deal as fronts get better calculated response with my crossover settings.

I hope Nick or anybody at Anthem could post the underlying reasons for such difference in response curves. The manual of the D2 is written so good that you can understand all the setting changes but in the case of the ARC, I cannot say the same.

I'd like to check with those of you who have connected a high quality CD player to your Anthem and the results you're getting.

My CD player is the Ayre C-5xe connected to the D2 via MIT Shotgun MA balanced interconnets. When connected via analog and set in the D2 as Analog Direct, the music is wonderful....clean, transparent, accurate with an amazing soundstage. The D2 in this instance is only working as a preamp to set gain and speaker levels, but previously my prepro was a Denon 3806 which basically sucked in comparison to the detailed sound produced by the D2.

However, when I set the 2-Channel source in the D2 to Analog DSP so I can use my sub and ARC settings for music, the sound is awful....really lacks depth and clarity, seems like a fair amount of digital *noise* is introduced into the signal. I've noticed this with many discs including SACD, DVD-A and red book CD.

So last night I disconnected the cables from the Ayre analog connections and hooked up the Ayre's balanced digital out into the AES/EBU input on the D2. First I tried to setup a new source as "CD" with Audio-In as Digital AES/EBU, but I couldn't get any sound. This baffled me since I know the D2 can accept multiple input settings for a single source. So then I changed the 2-channel source from Analog Direct Audio-In to Digital AES/EBU. This worked, but the sound was just as bad as using Analog DSP. With Room EQ = On the sound was a bit better, but overall using the DAC's in the D2 was very disappointing.

Using my Oppo 980 as a CD player via HDMI to the D2 just can't compete with the Ayre. The Ayre is still the better source even with the limitations in using it's digital out into the D2.

Shouldn't a high quality digital connection via an excellent transport produce superb sound via the D2 when compared to straight thru analog? I'm beginning to think the DAC's in the D2 are not all that great, unless there's somthing I'm missing in setup, but I've cycled through the setup menus many times looking for a way to improve digital source music.

uppacreek,
You really shouldn't be hearing that much difference. I suppose it's possible that you have a hardware problem in the DACs in your unit.

For analog (DSP) input, the issue might also be in the digitizing side. Try upping the sampling frequency (Setup / ADC and Audio Output/ 2-ch Anlg-DSP) or using just the left and right inputs of the 6-ch set which has a higher sampling frequency by default.

Also remember that the "temporary" settings such as Bass and Treble control are remembered per source AND per type of input audio. It is just possible that you have something set there which you've forgotten or which you think you previously cleared -- but didn't because the type of input audio had changed first.

To eliminate all of those temporary settings at once, Save User Settings, Reload Factory Defaults, and then Reload User Settings. The temporary settings will all be restored to factory defaults.
--Bob

For those who do not wish to take measurements over too wide an area, I have a 'discovery' to share. Say you have 3 positions staked out with position 1 in the center and 2 and 3 on either side 20" away. Okay, measure first 1, then proceed to 2, then 3. Position 4 would be between 1 and 2, and finally 5 between 1 and 3. This way, proceeding from one measurement from the next would involve moving the mic a minimum distance of 20". It works for me and ARC does not complain.

Ben

Peter,
Am using a Denon 5910 to feed CD into the D2. Best I've owned so far, including a Krell. Have tried both analog and digital connections and found it difficult to pin down any major difference. On the whole though, I prefer the digital connection and have the D2 do the decoding.

The Ayre is a superb unit and there shouldn't be any reason why it cannot mate well with the D2. You're welcomed to try it on my D2 and see if the problem is still there.

Ben

Aside from Position 1, why would ARC care about the order. If the positions are too close, the calculations may be affected but ARC won't report an error since it does not know where the mic is.

Correct. There is no error to be reported. If the positions are too close together, ARC apparently decides that what it is hearing is actual speaker performance instead of room response. This may cause it to decide your speakers are lesser performers than they really are.

I don't think it is a good idea to try to force ARC to accept close together mic positions by recording them in some different order.

If necessary do the outer two mic positions inwards from your normal listening position as shown in the diagram in the ARC write up.
--Bob

Had 6 audio/videophiles yesterday afternoon. All of them said that the ARC made a big improvement on my system. Even for 2 channel music using a CD player via SPDIF never sounded better! Too many superlatives flew around.

Do I smell an ARC vs. Audyssey with Kal's comment?