Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 513

Bob:

There was a firmware upgrade made available by Oppo in July 2008 to address the issue of SACDs with 5.0 or less channels. On the Oppo thread, people verify it works, although I don't know if it has been tested specifically with the D2. I will be able to report back on this issue next week when my oppo arrives.

dave

Does anyone know what happens to the sub target response if you change the value for room gain? My room gain setting is just under 4. I'm just wondering if adjusting this value will adjust the amount of bass, and if so how (i.e. does making the number smaller mean more bass or vice versa)?

The new issue of Home Theater magazine has a very positive review of the D2 w/ARC (calling it the best pre/pro out there in every important measure).

I found out that I can reproduce it pretty easily with only the TWC 8300HDC box. All I have to do is pause and hit play or go from recorded to live on the same show. I think the "mute" on the D2 when changing sources is just not quite long enough for the sluggish operation of the 8300. I have not tried to change the mute setting on the D2 - that might take care of the issue.

On the other hand, I think the issue is with the 8300 and its normally sluggish operation with the TWC Navigator software not the D2.

Mike

I agree with this 100%. When you are setting the target frequency you are setting it accross all speakers and therefore the room and speaker limitations for all speakers.

I think you need to be very careful doing this and not potentially overdrive your speakers (including the surrounds which may be designed to fall off at higher frequencies) and making the sound more "edgy". If the difference at the higher frequencies between the target curve and response curve is "significant" I would be carefull trying to use ARC to fill it in. You may get more involvement of the surrounds, but a more tiring overall sound. This may also be true for the fronts and centers, but I have found that they follow the targets closer to a higher frequency anyway so the correction is less.

Bottom line I don't think there is a one set of parameters fits all, each person needs to carefully listen to those "improvements" by increasing the targets and make sure that they are not listening to the curves and what they think should sound better, rather than the real sound improvement that ARC can offer.

I am using the Oppo 983 with the D2 and it works just fine. In fact, I used it to determine the channel problem with the Pioneer DV-58 was in the Pioneer.

Kal,

Does the 983 offer 480i over HDMI to the D2? If not, what are you setting the output at for SD-DVD?

Cannot recall offhand as I am not much of a videophile. I can check this weekend but the 983 manual is downloadable from the the Oppo US website.

I don't know how the rest of you feel and maybe I am trying to be too analytical, but I am interested in the results I see in posters measured room responses and I think it would be interesting to know a little more info about the room in use (fully enclosed or open on side or rear, main dimensions and ceiling height the type of speakers being used,etc.) Center speaker response always seems to be really bumpy in the mid range and I wonder if it is more due to the speaker, or its placement in the room, i.e. up against front wall, on top of a low cabinet under a flat screen, etc. I can't resist the urge to try and use the reported raw data to make any possible improvements to speaker placement and sub placement to squeeze out every last bit of performance possible in a given setup.

Or, maybe ARC is so good at doing what it needs to do that we don't have to worry about this kind of stuff any more. When you get right down to it, you are pretty much stuck with what you have from a room layout standpoint, and any small changes that you may be able to make, might not make much of a difference.

I think I can safely assume that since we all have these wonderful Anthem processors, the rest of our systems are most likely using speaker systems of simlar quality but I, at least, would be interested in knowing a little more detail.

Thoughts?

I also concur. I have tried the 12 kHz and then tried other freq. ie. 8,10,20 and the 12 graphs looked the best and compared to 5 kHz, sounds the best. Still listening and if I find something I will post it.
John

John,
You can check my results on this page or the previoius one. My room dimensions are as follows:
14 ft.W x 25.5L x7.3 ft H. Room is completely closed off. Walls and ceiling have sound insulation and drywall is hooked to channels on walls. Flexes a little. Three lazyboys(not named after me) and one sofa behind and elelvated 6.5 in. Floor is Drycore with underpad and carpet. Hope this helps.
John

Room Gain is the "natural", non-flat response of a room which listeners perceive as "being in a listening room". Visually, you will see it on the charts as the slight hump in the Target curve in the vicinity of the crossovers.

The research that went into the design of ARC indicated that it was important not to eliminate the inherent, natural Room Gain of the room in the course of removing undesirable peaks and nulls caused by frequency dependent "room modes".

So ARC tries to distinguish the natural Room Gain of the room from those room modes, and acts to preserve the Room Gain while eliminating the room modes.

The Targets window reports the Room Gain that ARC has detected for your specific listening room. It is possible to make ARC do a Calculation which will "force" a different Room Gain on the room -- i.e., partially remove, enhance, or reposition the hump that ARC has detected as the "natural" response of the room. To do that you have to change the numeric value of the Room Gain Target (a smaller number means a smaller hump) and also leave the "force" check box checked.

Room Gain values between 3.5 and 4 are most commonly reported here. I'm not sure what the units are for that -- possibly dB of "hump" but maybe not.

To the best of my knowledge, the only reports we've had here of people seeing some advantage in fiddling with the Room Gain have been with the very earliest versions of ARC that still had some bugs in them regarding how ARC set up bass for certain, more demanding, room and speaker setups.

With the current versions of ARC (V1.2.2 and above), I don't believe we've had a single report of people getting better results after fiddling with that value.

Personally, I think Anthem left that value adjustable in the Targets window so that reviewers could force Room Gain to zero to see how bad things would sound if ARC incorrectly eliminated Room Gain -- throwing the baby out with the bath water -- as might be done by simpler room EQ solutions. I.e., it's not really something a normal ARC user would want to fiddle with.

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Room Gain doesn't go down into the deep bass, but it starts low enough in frequency that the subwoofer's response near the crossover is, indeed, modified by it. Essentially you end up with a little more bass (a few dB) near the crossover.

Contrast with a typical, manual setup where the user might, incorrectly, try to force things to "completely flat" all the way up to and through the crossover.
--Bob

And which the mastering studio assumed was in the listening room.


At first, I resisted room gain (non-flat response) on principle but, after fiddling with it over a few months, I have come to accept it as essential. However, the optimum amount is, I believe, somewhat negotiable. When I compared the recommended room gain with lesser amounts, I definitely preferred less for music. Of course, completely eliminating it was going too far. So, I kept a small amount on the Music setup and the recommended amount on the Movie setup.

What were your before and after Room Gain values for Movie and Music?

By the way, I've noticed that ARC assigns a slightly lower value for my Music configuration. I've been assuming that was just a variation in the calculation due to eliminating the Center speaker from the mix for Music.
--Bob

Will have to look that up later when I get home. It is all on the laptop.

The ARC V1.2.6 "test" version has apparently been withdrawn.

The version of ARC in the "test" folder on the password protect download page has been backed up to V1.2.5 today.

However the updated manuals (with dates of 8/8) are still in there and the change notes still mention V1.2.6.

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For any newbies, you should be using firmware version V1.33, and if you are an ARC customer you should be using ARC V1.2.5, both of which are available from the public download pages for the D2 and for the AVM40 and AVM50. Of course the ARC stuff also requires the 2 licensing and calibration files that came with your original ARC install CD.
--Bob

Nick once told me that the room gain range was 0 to 6 db.
By the way, one way to evaluate the effect of room gains is to make a measurement and use the same configuration for both cinema and music. Once the file is saved, you can then get the target window on the same file and modify the music room gain only for example (while making sure the force box is checked) and do the calculation, upload to the D2 again. It is then just a matter of switching between music and cinema (D2 setup menu) to ear whatever differences you get.

If you have an unused source within your setup menu you can set them up exactly alike except use the movie setup for one and the music setup for the other one. Or you could use DVD-1 and DVD-2, etc. You can then avoid having to go back into the setup menu each time to make changes, you can just toggle the inputs on the remote and compare.

I do not have my ARC kit yet, but I use a similar process for three "different" CD inputs. I have the CD source setup as analog direct and I use the VCR source setup as analogdsp (my CD player has two analog outputs), and I use the 2CH selection as CD digital. One source unit, three ways of listening and processing...

Mike

Thanks Bob and Kal.
I did separate measurements for movies and music (using only the front speakers) and the room gain number was slightly lower with music.
I'm quite impressed with the ARC, it has improved movies immensely. As far as music goes, It's good but I'm still playing around and think I'll try a lower setting such as 1k. ARC does make corrections between 2 and 5k but I think it sounds a bit better without the correction in this frequency range.

Please do report on your results of reducing the Max EQ Frequency Target below 5KHz. I don't think we've had any reports yet of folks fiddling with it in that direction.

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Nick tells me that ARC doesn't do anything different under the hood for Movie vs. Music. Not during Measurement, not during Calculation, and not during processing when you are playing stuff. I.e., the only changes that are supposed to be there between Movie and Music are the ones you make happen yourself -- such as by changing the speakers in the mix, or differences (perhaps subtle) in mic placement during Measurement.
--Bob

Agreed here as well - tried the 12hz but find it to be a bit too "bright" and the bass feels a bit anemic.
Going to experiment with something inbetween.
/\\/\\

I wondered if there's a good recap (I can't find it, but with the data loss who knows) of the "Earthquake Bass" problem with ARC.

I'm experiencing that earthquake problem with my D2, but there are a few odd factors I would point out in my situation (some temporary). Maybe we can find some commonality to better articulate the issue for Anthem.

1. I have a pretty small subwoofer for the size of the (very open) room
2. I live on the 18th floor in an urban high-rise, and there's always a fair mount of low-frequency noise coming from the street -- even with the windows closed -- not to mention fire trucks, screeching brakes, etc. This makes measurement problematic on a good day, though I'm going to try doing this at midnight to see if it works better.
3. There is construction on the windows going out to my deck (and they're at about a 45-degree angle just behind the viewer's left side) which exacerbates my inherent noise problem. First, the windows and doors there are temporarily replaced with plywood and styrofoam now, which no doubt affects acoustics. Second, and more significant I think, this lets in even MORE street noise then I'd have with the double-pane windows that will eventually be back there.
4. I get lots of noise messages when measuring the subwoofer, typically needing to try 4-5 times to get a clean reading for each mic position.
5. I don't have access to my charts right now, but they look remarkably like another set I saw where the sub didn't even look like a subwoofer (rapidly falling off below 30Hz).
6. I have the same problem with 1.2.5 and 1.2.6. It's impossible to listen without turning the subwoofer's volume way down below where it was when I measured.

I haven't sent my settings file to Nick yet because I think the 60db or so of ambient noise when the system is off is a likely culprit, and it will improve dramatically in a month or so when the new windows are in. If that doesn't work, I could also opt for a beefier subwoofer.

But are there others still having the earthquake problem? Any commonalities with my situation?

The "earthquake" problem was a bug that is fixed in V1.2.5.

You should not be using V1.2.6, that "test" version has problems.

I think it is quite likely that your high degree of ambient noise in the low bass (street noise) is what's messing things up for you here. (And trying V1.2.6 probably just made things worse.)

Have you tried setting the Setup / Speaker Calibration / Noise Level and also the volume knob on your subwoofer properly? You may need to target a higher SPL for those for the moment to help get cleaner Measurements -- perhaps 80dB instead of 75dB.

Again the process for this is:

* Use your Radio Shack SPL meter, set to "slow" response, and "C" weighting, pointing straight up at the central mic position you will be using for ARC mic position #1.

* Go to Setup / Speaker Calibration -- the test mode will be OFF at this point -- and set the volume trim values for the left front speaker and for the subwoofer to 0dB.

* Go to the first line of that menu and set the test mode to Manual.

* Scroll down one line to the Noise Level line and adjust its value until you get an SPL reading around whatever you want to target -- normally 75dB but in your case perhaps higher (80dB?). ARC will use this Noise Level value to set the volume of its Measurement sweep tones. NOTE: Due to an apparent bug, you must set the Left Front line to 0dB before adjusting the Noise Level line.

* Now scroll down to the subwoofer line which you also set to 0dB above.

* Using *ONLY* the volume knob in your subwoofer, adjust the subwoofer until you also get roughly the same SPL reading you targeted above for Noise Level. You do not need to be precise in these SPL settings -- a ballpark close result is fine.

* You are now ready to try ARC Measurements again. You don't need to do anything else in the Speaker Calibration menu. ARC will ignore the speaker volume values in there now (except for Noise Level) and replace them with the ones it calculates.

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After you do your new ARC Measurements, Calculation, and Upload, double check that the values ARC has Uploaded into Setup / Speaker Configuration (the crossovers), and Setup / Speaker Calibration all make sense. If something is screwy here you may have a bad serial connection and thus your Upload isn't working right.

You can double check the Speaker Calibration settings ARC Uploads by setting the test mode to Manual and scrolling down to each speaker line in turn. They should all produce the same SPL reading, and that reading should be pretty close to what you targetted when you set Noise Level above.

You can double check the crossover values by comparing them to what ARC displays in Advanced mode when you Open your ARC results file and then view the Targets window.

When you are happy your Setup menu stuff is correct after the Upload, be sure to do a Save User and/or Installer Settings to capture those values so that you don't accidentally mess them up later by doing a Reload.
--Bob

Thanks Bob, I'll try to re-measure tonight with 1.2.5 and 80db (I had done it at 75 before). Already used your handy guide to setup, but perhaps reverting to 1.2.5 and using 80db will help.

--dave

Well, since I use the same speaker configuration for movies and music, the measurements and ARC's recommendations for both were the same. Room gain was set at 3.95dB and I kept that for Movies but I am happier with 1 to 1.5dB for Music.

Got this from Nick today re: 1.2.6

"Thanks, working on a new system for that. It'll probably ask the user whether or not the sub is really close to the listening area, in which case it'll restrict the xover frequency range.

Nothing it can do about ported subs with too much chuffing noise, however."

Best Regards,
Nick

hmmm... Did Nick say what is considered really close? Also, I wonder why the user will be prompted with such a question since the listening position masurements have been entered. I would think the D2 would just use that.

This is what I got in the email. Don't know what close is. Mine is 15 ft. away, and I know that isn't close
John

I got my servo 15. woohoo.
Just about to set everything up again and do a reARC.

I really am having a concer with placment of this sub. Not much bigger then my old ps1200 but I'm just trying to find the best location in my odd open room.

Few questions to you good folks here.
1. Should I place the sub , behind my couch with the woofer firing into the back of the couch or into the back of the room. [note* it's another 10-15 feet to the back wall]
2. place it in the front of the room in the middle of my front left and center. note* this will literally be next to them, maybe 1/2 an inch or less from each one so FL- 1/2INCH - SUB-1/2INCH - CENTER.
3. place it in the middle of the room about 4-5 feet away from me on the right side and about 3 feet from the front. [*note this will also be very close to the front right speaker and just under/around my 1st reflection wall treatment.

[help please ]

And also if anyone has or knows of this sub, whats the best set up for the control +6db part , mostly watch movies and some SACD's in 5.1

As always thanks in advanced.

Once I figure all this out, I will reARC my system and see if I get better results then the ps1200....lol

EDIT: I know what close is..lol mine is 2-4ft away from me. so I wonder if I should try the 1.26??

I like your option #2 the best, but I would try both of your placement options #2 and #3, and see which one sounds the best to you. Or ideally you would run ARC twice, once with the sub in each location, and see which location measures and especially corrects the best, ie closest to the target curve. Your placement option #3 might be OK for movies, but I don't think you would like it for music.