Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 491

#1 is the winner!

Any chance of the AVM-30 being in the ARC chain. I just bought mine and I would definitely spend the $800.00 for room correction. I hook my HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players directly to the tv. I like the option of not having to turn on the AVM-30 and PVA-5 every time I want to watch a movie and I am not really interested in video processing at this time but the ARC would be great. My living room where my set up is, is kind of funky with a bay window, stairway in the back, entrance into kitchen and I am sure the ARC would make my AVM-30 sound even better than it does...

Part 1 is done.

I am not sure that I would draw that conclusion - the D2 and the AVM50 have always been pretty close in terms of ability with the D2 being a "statement" product (no pun intended). Even after an AVM50 ARC upgrade, the D2 still is differentiated by:
- 24/192 upsampling on all inputs
- DTS 24/96
- lip sync 0-170 ms (0-85 on AVM)

I doubt many new purchasers for whom ARC is critical would opt for the AVM-50 and an $800-$1,000 upgrade that requires sending your new unit to the factory over buying the D2 with ARC included. Just my $.02.

In Setup / Source Setup for that D2 input, confirm that Auto Dig = OFF. This simplifies the process by which the D2 syncs up to the digital audio input.

Also, temporarily try a different digital audio input on the D2.

The problem could be as simple as a faulty cable between the D2 and the switcher. If you are using optical digital cable, for example, you may have fingerprint oil on the optical tip at either end of the cable or some dust in the optical socket at either end of the cable. Try a different cable. Also, get a can of clean compressed air (of the type sold in camera stores for blowing dust off lenses for example) and try a brief squire in the optical socket at each end. Optical cable can also be damaged if it has been stepped on or bent too sharply around a corner. Coax digital audio cable can have a break inside the insulation. Again, try a different cable.

If none of those suggestions does the trick, you will need to contact Anthem tech support.
--Bob

My guess is you'll be fine, but I'm not certain.
--Bob

I don't know why the AVM-30 would not be included (since the D1 supports ARC and the AVM30 to the AVM50 is the same as the D1 to the D2). But mention of the original AVM-30 (i.e., a unit that has not yet been upgraded to an AVM-50) has been CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT in everything I've seen so far regarding this upcoming ARC for AVM offering.

We'll just have to wait for the official word to come out.
--Bob

That's great! By the way, did you ever find a fix for your sub that makes it respond as would normally be expected when turning down its internal volume?

Or does the new ARC simply let you send a deeper volume trim cut to the D2 (i.e., -19.5 dB was I believe what you needed to send)?
--Bob

Except that you will soon be able to order a new AVM-50 with ARC pre-bundled at the factory. No need to send it back.

And for current AVM-50 owners, the word is that the upgrade to ARC is field (dealer) installable.

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In addition to the other items you mentioned, the D2 also has a better power supply.

There have been a number of posts here over the past 2 years reporting that the audio from the D2 is superior to the audio from the AVM-50. With ARC on both units I would expect that to still be true.

The inability, in the past, to get ARC for the AVM-50 was, indeed, a significant factor pushing people towards the D2. So in that regard the gap has been narrowed. But the D2 is still a better sounding unit.
--Bob

Interesting. It would then come down, then, to whether you thought the D2 sounded enough better than the AVM50 to justify the $1k or so (which is probably what it comes down to with many people in any case). In the high-end audio world it seems to me this cost/benefit analysis goes on all the time, with increasingly big dollars buying increasingly small benefits.

In my case, I bought the D2 after having a DOA AVM50 and the dealer having only a single D2 in stock as a replacement (and willing to give me a great deal on the D2). An AVM 50 with ARC would be a good deal relative to the D2, but no better to me than the AVM 50 v. D2 deal when I bought the D2 - and my original AVM50 (I did not know anything about ARC at that time, but it did help me to rationalize the extra $$ for the D2 after the fact).

Now I am beginning to worry whether Anthem has packed the correct mic with my disc when they shipped the packaged over to me! I would be blithely listening to a less than accurate correction.
-Ben

The microphone serial # is currently included as a sticky label on the small, protective box in which the microphone is shipped.

Compare that serial # to the one that is included as part of the file name of your 2 licensing and calibration files (from the ARC install CD). The other part of the filename for those 2 files will be the serial # of your D2.

If the mic serial # portion of the file names matches the sticky label on the protective microphone box, and if you haven't received more than 1 ARC mic (where you might have mixed them up yourself), then you are good to go.

Worrying that Anthem might have mixed up the naming of the calibration files at their end, or put the wrong mic in your sticky labeled box, or the wrong label on the box, is at the same order of probability as that they screwed up the measurement process by which those calibration files are produced. I.e., it could happen, of course, but don't lose sleep over it.

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This is primarily a problem for INSTALLERS who are handling different ARC mics for multiple customers.
--Bob

I would think so but this would need to be confirmed.

The DAC and audio improvement (better power supply, better analogue stage) alone are wothed the extract cost.

When we spend ?000$ for small benefits the last thing you want to do is cost benefits analysis.

Do the DACs do upsampling on the pcm from BD players?
John

The D2 accepts up to 96KHz LPCM input. It then upsamples that to 192KHz. The rest of its processing is done at 192KHz. The DACs convert from that 192KHz digital signal to analog audio for output.

The AVM-50 accepts up to 96KHz and upsamples anything less than that to 96KHz. Its DACs convert from 96KHz to analog audio for output.
--Bob

I have read the literature on upsampling in the D2. I have a big room, with very good speakers and an A2, A5 amp combo. I am a stickler for sound so I will ask the $64,000 question or maybe $3-4k for upgrade question, how easy is it to tell the difference b/t DAC in the AVM50 vs. the D2. This could be the deal breaker
John

Only you can answer that. Get your dealer to loan you a D2 and try it.

The AVM-50 is no slouch in the audio department, but every post I can recall in this thread where there was a comparison, even the folks who decided to go with the AVM-50 said they thought the D2 sounded better.

However it is always hard to know how much of that is just "listener expectations".
--Bob

I just upgraded to the D2 from a AVM50 so I could get the ARC. Do I believe there is a difference in sound quality...Absolutely.

What I don't know or can't say for sure is, did the improvement come from the addition of ARC, the D2 or the combination of the D2+ARC. Unfortunately I didn't do any listening with just the D2 I was way to impatient to get at the ARC.

I believe adding the ARC to the AVM50 will make selecting the D2 vs the AVM50 a lot harder for some purchasers, thats approx. 4k$ that could go toward other equipment, better speakers or even a 2nd AVM50. But then I may feel this way simply because I originally purchased an AVM50.

Bob,
I will try to listen to some familiar music at my dealer. He has the same speakers as I have at home but he uses the p2 and p5 amps. Don't think they will make a diff over my A2 and A5. Will take some movies as well. I know it is diff to articulate some of the differences so you're probably right to sample at the dealer. Don't think he has run ARC yet
John

It won't cost me to audition it at my dealer and could be alot of fun. I know that impatience thing too

John

ps. I removed my second question while you and Bob were responding. Thought it might be irritating for some.

I wondered if I had been ARC'd into another dimension there for a moment....

walt here: question! i have 4 way towers, with a pair of 8" woofers in each.

do i want to use the factory settings for the speakers to be set at (small ) or (large) prior to running arc.
today, at last i am ready.
thx
walt

Good one Noticed your speaker setup, same fronts and sub, slightly diff centre. How do things sound on your system since it is identical for stereo, which I prefer for music.
John

Is it not possible to simply toggle the ARC EQ off/on as you're listening so that you can easily see the before/after difference?

I'm new to room EQ in receivers/pre-pro's but I would have figured they all had a quick/simple way to toggle it on/off as that's the sort of thing that the sales guys can show off in the showroom to "prove" to people (true or not) that they "need" EQ.

Kal

Well, it is pretty easy if you go to the Source SetUp while playing the input. There you can toggle ARC on/off and/or toggle Music/MovieEQ and A/B as you want to.

The other Kal.

You can easily A/B whether the ROOM CORRECTION part of the processing is engaged but you can not easily A/B the changes ARC made in cross overs and speaker levels as part of its setup, nor the fact that using ARC disengages other parts of the D2's audio processing that you might have used in a manual setup -- such as the Room Resonance Filter.

As has been noted here, ARC tends to overlap cross overs, which presumably makes it easier for them to implement room correction in the range of the cross over frequencies as cuts in volume -- which are easier on the system than trying to boost dips. I.e., the overlap produces hotter audio in the vicinity of the cross over so more of the things that need to be corrected are peaks instead of dips.

And THAT means that if you simply turn Room EQ = OFF you will be getting results that are biased by the overlapped cross over settings and the particular speaker levels that ARC used -- i.e., without the benefit of the compensating cuts the room correction processing would have applied. This may very well make the audio sound worse than it could with Room EQ = OFF and a properly detailed manual setup.

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You could do the following:

1) Do a manual audio calibration to get the best you can get by other means as regards speaker levels, speaker cross overs, Room Resonance Filter, Center EQ, speaker distances and subwoofer Polarity and Phase and whether or not it is THX Ultra2 with Boundary Gain Compensation needed. You will need the speaker distances and subwoofer Polarity and Phase for use with ARC anyway so that part is not additional work. WRITE DOWN YOUR SETTINGS.

2) Run ARC and tell it you want your Movie and Music configuration to be the same. Upload those ARC results.

3) Set up a Source to use the Movie configuration and to have Room EQ = ON. That will make it use the cross overs, levels, and room correction parameters ARC calculates, plus the speaker distances and subwoofer Polarity and Phase that you set up manually. The Room Resonance Filter, Center EQ, and subwoofer THX Ultra 2 and Boundary Gain Compensation settings will be ignored.

4) Go into Setup / Speaker Configuration and change the Music Configuration to be different from the Movie Configuration, but using all the same speakers. Manually enter the cross over values that you wrote down from step 1 into your Music Configuration. [LEAVE THE MOVIE CONFIGURATION UNCHANGED!] Also enter your Room Resonance Filter, Center EQ, and subwoofer Polarity/Phase/THXUltra2/BoundaryGainCompensation settings as necessary, i.e., if they are not already in your Music Configuration. Your speaker distance settings are shared with the Movie Configuration so there's no change needed there.

5) Set up another Source to use the Music configuration and to have Room EQ = OFF. That will disengage the ARC room correction processing and will re-engage the Room Resonance Filter, Center EQ, and subwoofer THX Ultra 2 and Boundary Gain Compensation. In addition, the cross overs will be the ones you just set manually.

6) Now go into Setup / Speaker Calibration. The levels in there are the ones set by the Upload of ARC results. There is no mechanism to provide distinct levels for Movie and Music configurations. Compare the levels that ARC set to the ones you wrote down from your manual setup in step (1) above. If they are different, measure the levels ARC set up with your SPL meter to see how well they will work with your Music configuration. If they appear out of whack, your only choice for a true comparison will be to change them manually when doing the A/B. You MIGHT be able to avoid this by using the "temporary" speaker level adjustments (via the remote control) which are remembered separately for each Source, but this may not produce precisely the same results as changing the settings in Setup / Speaker Calibration.

7) Make sure both of these Sources are set to use the same audio processing mode for the test content you will be playing (i.e., PLIIx or THX or whatever). Now you can A/B by switching between the Source you have set up to use Movie configuration with Room EQ = ON and the Source you have set up to use Music configuration with Room EQ = OFF. (And as stated in step (6), you may also need to adjust speaker levels between them.)

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There is, of course, a much easier approach presuming you are willing to forego instant gratification:

A) Do *NOT* run ARC yet. Set up your D2 to produce the best audio you can by whatever means you have available other than ARC.

B) Listen to your system for, oh several months. Constantly refining your audio setup as necessary to get the best you can out of the system. Be serious here. Try to set it up right.

C) After you are well familiar with how that sounds, *NOW* run ARC. If your first 15 minutes of listening after running ARC doesn't convince you ARC is the cat's pajamas then there is something wrong in the way you did your ARC measurements or upload, or you forgot to turn Room EQ = ON for your Sources.

I mean really. For the folks here who haven't had problems getting ARC to run correctly -- which is by far the majority of the posters here -- the wildly positive comments are far and away the norm.
--Bob

Just received my arc today. I'll have to say is wow, I am really impressed with this device it really has made a big difference in my system. Although, I must admit I don't think I had my D2 properly set up in the first place, but this takes all the guess work out of it. This is by far the best DOLLAR for DOLLAR upgrade I have ever made in my system!

We're going to have to start another assembly line for these:



--Bob