Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 504

Well just ordered the ARC-1 for my AVM-50 today. Dealer advised it would take 10-14 days to come in. Now, back to reading all those ARC-1 posts I've ignored for the past few months. It's like Christmas in July!!!

So it appears that the benefit of ARC V1.2.5 can indeed be had simply by re-Calculating and re-Uploading V1.2.4 Measurements. That's useful to know.
--Bob

The first question is what version of AVM-50 software you are running? Press Select once on the remote control and it will come up in the first line of status info on the front panel.

The most recent version is V1.33, and there were fixes in various of the V1.2x and V1.3x versions that might help fix your problem. You can download V1.33 from Anthem's public download page for the AVM-50:

http://www.anthemav.com/NewSitev2.0/...Downloads.html

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If you are already on V1.33, then you should give Anthem tech support a call.
--Bob

I have the sound you describe only when I turn on my Oppo. Used to have it when I would turn on my Toshiba XA2 and Panny 10A. Ugraded to latest software and it went away for awhile, but recently it started back up again, but only with my Oppo. It doesn't happen nearly as much now. Never had it occur with the OSD.

I believe I have read posts by Massimo N and JayJay stating they were having a similar problem and Anthem was looking into it.

I'm running v1.21. I do an update to the latest version and see if that fixes it. It's weird though that the problem would just appear....I've been running v1.21 for a long time now.

I thought the ARC-1 was only for the D2? We can utilize the ARC-1 with the AVM-50?

YES!! As long as you upgrade your AVM with another DSP, which is dealer installable!

That's the nature of the problem. Here's hoping V1.33 fixes it for you.
--Bob

It's so new that I believe the first retail installation is actually happening this evening.

You need a hardware change in the AVM30-HD, AVM-40, or AVM-50 which is dealer installable (switching the single DSP to a dual DSP), and you also need the ARC-1 kit as used by D1 and D2 owners. The combo costs $800, plus possibly a bit more for the dealer installation labor.

Or you can now order a new AVM-40 or AVM-50 factory bundled with the dual DSP and ARC kit for $500 over the previous price.
--Bob

Turning off the AVM-50 and turning it back on fixed the problem this time. Other family members reported hearing this noise before, so yeah...I'll definitely upgrade.

Re: ARC-1 for AVM 50: I'm going to have to look into this. Glad I checked in.

As usual....thanks for the info/help Bob!

Further update...
Upon listening to the reloaded 1.2.4 measurements they still sound rather "thumpy", certainly not as bad as previous but still not as good as previous ARC 1.2.2.
For the time being I have reloaded my 1.2.2 measurements with 1.2.5 and it sounds fine again. I will attempt a full remeasurement with 1.2.5 in the next day.
/\\/\\

Thanks for the update. This is (likely) evidence that to get the full benefit of ARC V1.2.5's fix of this peculiar V1.2.4 bug you need to do a re-Measurement. However if you have a good set of V1.2.2 Measurements, then doing a V1.2.5 re-Calculation and re-Upload on those may suffice.
--Bob

So, will the second DSP be active in daily usage of an AVMxx?
Wasn't that DSP one of the main attributes of the D2? Just wondering if it'll sound better even if ARC was turned off with the second DSP?

And KCWolf... you sounded just like I was thinking last week when I checked this thread again after a couple months away.

As far as I know, the second DSP will be idle unless you have ARC active.

Keep in mind that the D1 and D2 still do their internal audio processing at 192KHz whereas the AVM series does it at 96KHz. This is likely just as true in the dual DSP AVM configuration since its DACs are still 96KHz DACs.
--Bob

Took a while but it is done. ARC for the AVM50. Nick did the DSP upgrade and I had his ear for over an hour discussing anything that came into my head. To summarize the process, the DSP took five minutes to do. Most users could probably do it. Once done he reinstalled 1.33 so the AMM 50 would now see the new DSP and display AVM50/ARC at startup. Took it home with 1.2.5 software. Kit came with an extension serial cable. Made it very handy to get it to my position. Software loaded and started ARC. Used 5 positions and then it did it's magic Upload took very little time and all settings were verified. EQ was set to ON for all sources and these settings were saved in the user and installer memories.
Now, for the $64,000 question, Did it Work. OH baby it did Detail is amazing, voices are crystal clear and the sub seems a little softer than I remembered on HD DVDs but right on for Blu-ray. Not sure why that is. But on Ratatouille, the sewer scene LFE and surround were amazing. This was definitely worth the wait. Unfortunately it is late and I am exhausted however tomorrow I will do some more testing and report anything new I may discover. One thing about the sub. It is now so tight and not a wobble insight. Will try some music tomorrow to see if the resonances I had before have been eliminated.
1.2.5 worked beautifully and no LFE bug. Forgot to mention. In the display on the AVM50, when select is pressed it now shows output as 24/192. I suspect this is a glitch because the AVM 50 doesn't do this as Bob mentioned above.

For those with AVM50 and the hissing issue when changing inputs, Nick said they figure it is a software issue and they will try to address it but they are busy with other things, ARC being one of them. He also said that people should email him with problems. He really doesn't mind, in fact the wants you to tell him so they can fix the problem. If we don't tell him how will they know. He is a very personal guy and he enjoys reading the posts in this thread.
John

Graphs are posted. the first results include the LF and RF which are at the top of ARC Results1.jpg Got cut off when I copied them.

Jayray,
This, to the best of my knowledge, is our first retail installation report of ARC for the AVM-50.

Apparently it was an anticlimax for you, but perhaps these will cheer you up!




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ETA: Do I understand you correctly that even if you have AVM-50 V1.33 already installed, you need to install it AGAIN after putting in the dual-DSP hardware so that this hardware is properly recognized?

ETA 2: I trust dealers reading this thread will take note of the ease of installation of the AVM/ARC Dual DSP hardware upgrade and rethink charging any serious amount of money for "installation labor".
--Bob

If a good soul around here wants to help then just PM me and I'll provide an address to send the files.

Thanks

Nick advised v1.2.2 measurements can also be uploaded after re-calculation with v1.2.5.
-Ben

Bob,
Nick mentioned it was probably the first installation given others have to wait for delivery. He'll be happy to hear it went well.

Yes, 1.33 has to be reinstalled for it to recognize the new DSP. The new board has two chips on it. I thought it was an additional DSP, not a replacement.
If a dealer charges a lot for this, they are taking advantage. When Nick first came to the dealer he said it would take 5 minutes and it would have had I not asked all my questions.

Bob, could you take a look at my graphs and let me know what you think? Oh and thanks for the mascots. If you could have seen my face after demoing a few discs, anticlimax woudn't have described it
thanks,
John

Jayray,

Congratulations on getting ARC-1 for your AVM-50! It's so good to hear that ARC-1 provided such an improvement in your system. I'll have to let my wife read your post, as I really had to convince her this was a worthy investment. Hope to get mine in about two weeks.

Also, will e mail Nick with my hissing/popping issues.

Congrats Jayray,

I didn't have quite as smooth of a day yesterday. The Keyspan came...yay. Not sure why but yesterday I decided to upgrade my laptop to sp3 version of windows xp. Downloaded the latest Keyspan driver. When I installed the driver it gave some error about the hardware may not work properly. I rebooted and the keyspan utility says all is well. Try to upload the 1.33 on my D2 which has 1.31. It gets to "verify video flash uc" or something like that and a quick "blue screen of death" on the laptop and it reboots. Keeps doing that. Aaaarghhhhh!

Reinstall the keyspan drivers and the utility again says everything is alright. Same problem at the same spot. I loaded the drivers that came on my disc...a previous version. Instead of crashing at that point in the update it just seems to freeze there with nothing happening for 15 minutes so I shut it down. I couldn't reload my old firmware in the D2. Getting nervous now. Many hours wasted. Brought down my computer from upstairs (pita) with a real serial port - success the first time! My D2 isn't a brick.

Either a) win xp sp3 caused the problem.
b) I used to have the Rat shack usb to serial. I booted up in safe mode to see if there were drivers I should remove to prevent a conflict but nothing showed up.

I wonder if that was the problem (rat shack old drivers) because I remember another poster had problems with the Keyspan after using a rat shack one. I'll reformat the laptop and probably leave it on sp2! I want a reliable transfer when doing the ARC thing. Guess that will be on hold for now. What a waste of a day, sigh.

Thanks Ajeruns,

Tell your wife I was a little skeptical of anything producing this much difference without spending thousands. However I am now a believer. You won't regret it
John

Bogg,
Make sure you have no powered HDMI connections to your D2 (sources or display) when doing the firmware install. Many HDMI devices leave their HDMI sockets powered even when the device appears to be off. I recommend you remove power from everything except for the D2 and the computer to be sure. Failure at the point of the video uC part of the install often is a result of an HDMI connection still being powered. On the other hand, that certainly should not have crashed your laptop.

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Even though there are no device conflicts reported by Windows, you may need to uninstall the drivers for the older adapter to get the drivers for the new adapter to be happy. The Keyspan driver install should happen without error messages or something is screwed up, even if Device Manager isn't reporting a problem.
--Bob

Thanks Bogg,

Been there. I had used a Rat shack one for two firmware upgrades, one of which gave me the Blue screen of death. Just did it again and it worked. I now use the Keyspan. Deleted drivers for rat shack and now Keyspan works perfectly. I'm using Vista on my laptop. So far so good.

John

Jayray,
Your ARC curves look pretty good for the first try. They only notable item really is the drop off in high frequencies for your 4 surrounds.

I suspect that's because you are using dipole surrounds.

You've got a really serious room mode around 100Hz, but it looks like ARC took care of it just fine!
--Bob

Bob,
I guess you're suggesting I do more measurements. How does this help ARC if conditions in the room haven't changed and the results look good?
John

The only reason to remeasure is if you feel there's a better layout for your mic positions or if you reposition some of the speakers.

If you DON'T have dipole surrounds then you should consider repointing your surrounds because you are losing a lot of high frequency stuff. Dipoles would naturally lose that since they don't fire in the direction of the seating position.

But again, except for the high freqs on the surrounds I see nothing to suggest you need to do more work.

Some bass treatment on the walls might help reduce your room mode around 100 Hz, which could free up some ARC resources to smooth things a little more near there, but the result right now doesn't have any serious deviations left uncorrected.
--Bob

I do have dipoles for back and surround. I guess I can take measurments without uploading just to see if there are any differences.

John

So isn't there anybody here to help me?
I am stuck with 1.2.4 and my system sounds terrible.
Can somebody send the 1.2.2 version to me via PM or to rapidshare?

Thanks

What about 1.2.5? Maybe it will work and is downloadable from the tech site,
John