Anthem D2/D2v/AVM50/AVM50v/ARC1 tweaking guide - Page 518

OK, thanks for that. I wonder if the lower room gain has something to do with your listening position being so close to the back wall?

No, you do not need to re-Measure. Just open a copy of the file containing your current Measurements, change the Target and accept that change, re-Calculate and re-Upload.
--Bob

In essence you have designed your own subwoofer out of this combo of elements and you should let ARC hear it as a combo. Consider that you wouldn't expect ARC to deal separately with the different drivers making up a single, full-range speaker.

ARC, in its current form, is not really an analysis tool, so I'm not sure it will add anything to what you already have in the way of setting up the combo of subwoofer elements to work together -- i.e., I don't see how you could use it effectively to analyze one subwoofer element at a time. The results would probably be biased because each individual subwoofer element will couple to the room in its own way. Whereas it is the "blend" of them working together that is the most important thing as far as ARC is concerned.

But having gone through the effort prior to ARC to set up all that stuff, ARC should be able to do good things with how the combo -- as a combo -- couples to your room and matches with the main speakers.
--Bob

It looks to me like you've got a pretty nasty room null around 50Hz that is canceling out a big chunk of response from everything but your side surround speakers.

ARC is fighting that and the resulting curves reflect that struggle. [It is much more difficult for ARC to tame a cancellation null than a resonance peak in room response. I.e., it is easier to reduce peak volumes than to boost dip volumes.]

Do you have your sub and LF/RF speakers up against a wall or in a corner? You might want to try some repositioning.

A room null around 50Hz can also be caused by an alcove that's left open -- roughly 6'x10'x10' for example as in a walk in closet or powder room. Consider whether you can close off a space like that (during ARC Measurement and during normal listening).

What you have now with ARC should sound dramatically better than before, but if you can make physical adjustments to tame that room null I think ARC could do an even BETTER job for you with just the speakers you have now.
--Bob

J. Fricano,
Another question for you: Do you have the LF and RF speakers right up against a wall or even in a corner? Their lowest frequencies look like they are being boosted by "boundary gain". ARC has that well in hand, but still you might want to consider moving them out from the wall by a foot or two.

Or closing off a rear "bass port" in them if they are adjustable that way.
--Bob

Good question. I guess it's probably a combination of the room and the subs, as I have dual SVS PC+ 20-39 subs that seem to be working well. Either my room accentuates the 20-40 hz range, or there's a good reason my subs are named 20-39's!

I have previously done a lot of measuring with REQ and other test tones before, with very similar measurement results. In the past EQ'ing with a BFD smoothed things out pretty well, but I have to admit that ARC sounds a lot better.

In about a week I will be upgrading to dual MFW-15 subs and taking new ARC measurements, so we will see what that does. The MFW's are supposed to be geared more towards the upper end of the subwoofer frequencies, so we will see what that looks like. It should be interesting!

Bob,

I have played with placement a lot, but so far have not been able to tame that null very much. (My room is almost square at 18' x 19'.) My front mains are about 3' out from the front wall and equi-distant from the corners. My subs are also near the front wall/mains, but are by design not in corners, and not equi-distant from side or front walls. I played with placement and phase a lot on these subs as well, and probably as am good as I can get for now.

That is an interesting comment you made on the alcove. This may be a factor for me, as about one third of my room has a lower ceiling sloping towards full wall of windows, but I can't close this off. I do have three doors into the room, and usually leave one in the back open during playback and measurements, maybe the results would be better with that door closed too?Perhaps room treatment or bass traps would help this? At any rate, ARC does work wonderfully in my system. I have experience EQ'ing my subs with REQ and a BFD for the last few years, so I had decent results before, but I have to say that I sold the BFD right after I ran ARC the first time!

As I mentioned in another post, I am upgrading my subs when they arrive in roughly one week, and they are supposed be geared a little more to the mid and upper sub frequencies, so I will re-measure and see if they help my 50 -60 hz hole at all. It should be fun, and I can play around with placement and phase again too.

Thanks for the input,

Mike

Bob:

I did the Rat Shack meter measurements and just redid my ARC mic measurements. The curves still peg between 60 and 65 dB. Wonder why?

By the way, I tried the "box" configuration you mentioned. I will post my new curves shortly.

dave

new curves with "box" configuration for mike measurement layout:

 

Doc2.doc 159.5k . file

Remember that due to the apparent bug in the Setup / Speaker Calibration menu, you need to set the LF speaker's trim volume line to 0dB in that menu before you try to set the Noise Level. If you don't, the setting you come up with for Noise Level will be biased by what happens to be sitting in the LF line.

Other than that, I'm not sure we've discovered just how ARC goes about choosing the Target level. We know it does a wide frequency range analysis to pick the speaker levels (wider than the built-in test tones in the Speaker Calibration menu itself -- i.e., wider than you SPL meter gets to hear), and depending on the sizes of the peaks and dips in your Measured curves that could affect the level it ends up Targeting out in the mid range frequencies where things settle down.
--Bob

I don't see any significant differences. Do you hear any differences?

It looks to me like either mic position set works equally well capturing the characteristics of your room.
--Bob

If you haven't already done so, you might at some point try moving your fronts and sub CLOSER to a wall. This will change how they couple to the room. You may be able to trade that 50Hz null for a PEAK at some other frequency (something that may have scared you away from that layout in your REQ/BFD days). Again, it is easier for ARC to lop off peaks than to fill in nulls.

I'm not enough of an audio engineer to advise on room treatments.
--Bob

That's a good thought, as my left and right surrounds are closer to the side walls and according to ARC have strong output in the 30 - 70 hz frequency range (same family of speakers). That's just where my mains and subs are lacking. My mains could be moved closer to a wall, and one of my two subs could as well. When I get my new subs in I will give that a try.

Thanks again,

Mike

Bob: After mucho trial and error, i hope the attachment opens - this is my chart file.
If it opens, your review, please.
As always, thank you.
Walt

 

arc file to avs.zip 58.6591796875k . file

Your file unzips to a "docx" file. My copy of Word 2004 for Macintosh does not open that file format, so I can't view it.

If you paste your charts into the Windows Paint program, you can save them as JPEG (image) files. Upload those here just like you did this file and it should be easy to view them.
--Bob

drat! back to the drawing boards!

Hello Bob, I have NHT 2.9 Tower speakers as my fronts with inward side firing 10" woofers. The left speaker is 28" from the sidewall, to the tweeter's center, and 36" from the front wall to the front baffle. The right speaker is the same distance from a 1/2 wall to the side, and equal distance from the front wall. The REL sub has the ability to accept a LFE,(from the D2), as well as a high level input, derived from my amp,(Both inputs used simultaneously), to blend in with the low frequency cut off of the front speakers to give "Sub Bass" output down to 16Hz. The high level input is tuned to cut in at 26Hz which is the supposed -3db point of the towers. The fronts are nomally run full range while the sub kicks in below that. I hope I am explaining this clearly?? Thanks again for your interest, John.

First, a reply to Bob about the ARC setup prior to the ARC running....

That's more concise than the manual. I re-calibrated my speakers and did a new read. Thanks. I went through and turned off anything that looked like it shouldn't be on as well like the "TV size EQ"

Second,

These are my readings for the front. I noticed although the numbers are similar the scale is weird between right and left fronts. The left speakers is basically in a corner and the right is in front of the open hallway to the room. Does this graph look right for my room with a big hole (essentially) on the right?

Your Main L/R speakers response are quite good. Hope you could capture the sub and center response also.

I think the -3dB point is for an anechoic chamber response. with the room as a factor, you are getting much more Bass than needed. Why not remove the high level connection and just let the D2 send the regular LFE and LF signals to the REL?

You might try a Max EQ of 12khz., your HF response drops quite a bit from 5khz.

Your right speaker is not coupling to any side wall, this might explain why you have a hole at around 40 to 55hertz. Compared to the other speaker, you have a very good response from 27 hertz to 1khz for the Left speaker.

Just uploaded it. Thanks.

B&W 802 Series 3, Center B&W HTM and B&W 805 (matched matrix) for the surrounds. Sunfire True Sub Mk 2 for the sub...

You might also try sitting 3/5 of the lenght of the room. You might be sitting in a null area with respect to the frequency in question. You might also try to put the main speakers 1/10th(tweeter center) of the room's length and width as well as putting Bass traps.

From the graphs, you should be happy with what ARC did for your system. It also explains why B&W speakers sounds a bit mellow sounding with a slight attenuation in the midrange area.

Once again Bob, you are a genius. The sub is only rated to 35Hz.

I need to mess a bit with the center. It is biwired from the amp, and there may be a faulty cable.

But I do suspect all the street noise is the real culprit here.

I can't really change my seating distance, but I can change the main speaker locations, and may try bass traps sometime. Thanks for these suggestions as well.

Mike

Received the new ARC kit Friday and had limited time to make some runs. I made the runs on the standard, not advanced program.

I am confused regarding the target curve provided by the ARC program for my D2 in the music mode that I use.

For the music mode I am running only the front speakers - no subwoofer, no surrounds, no rears. Therefore, the front speakers are set as full range. I use a sub/sat combination on each of my front speakers.

The confusing thing is that the target curve for the front speakers that ARC uses is still a waterfall curve, even though the measurements show that my system is more than capable of providing a full range response (yes - I still have some balancing to do on the settings between the fronts and the subs and I am working on that...).

It is using the same waterfall curve as my movie setup, in which it is seting the front crossover way too high (115 Hz) for the response, which is also forcing the sub crossover high than it should be (120 Hz).

My curves for movies and music are attached - remember I am still finding a balance point between the front speaker combination - I need to lower the volume on the subs and increase their crossovers from 80Hz - 100 Hz and see what happens.

The first run results did show me that I had the left sub out of phase with the speaker it was running with - I was able to get that fixed...

Thank you,
Mike

 

MOVIE-08190102.doc 238k . file

 

MUSIC-08190102.doc 110k . file

CycloneMike,
ARC doesn't use the "large" and "small" settings you have in the Anthem's Setup menu. ARC figures out your speaker's response on its own and comes to its own decision.

For your Music configuration (and also for your Movie configuration) I think ARC is seeing the steep dip at 100Hz (particular in the LF speaker) as an indication of the natural cutoff for your speakers, and is thus ignoring what your satellite subs are adding below that. You have an unusual inherent response in your combo front speakers because of the hole between where the main speaker drops off and the satellite sub kicks in.

You may be able to address this most effectively by adjusting the internal crossovers for your satellite subs. And as you've already noted, you also need to adjust the volume for them.

The fact that ARC is treating this dip at 100Hz as part of the inherent response of your front speakers -- instead of a room mode -- may also be an indication that you don't have your mic positions spread out enough.

Alternatively, you can run ARC in Advanced mode and adjust the Target crossover ARC plans to use for the front speakers yourself in the Targets window. If you want to try this, there's no need to re-Measure. Just make the change in Targets, accept that, re-Calculate, and re-Upload.

ETA: If that dip at 100Hz really is a room mode, then ARC ought to be trying to eliminate it for you. The fact that it isn't suggests ARC is hearing it at all your ARC mic positions -- no variation between mic positions. Which tells ARC this is inherent response in the speakers themselves.

(edited to correct the ETA above -- it is mic positions, not speaker positions that are at issue here)
--Bob

I apologize if this question has been asked previously, this is my first posting in the forum, I joined earlier today.

My dealer has mentioned that the ARC system greatly benefits larger rooms but unfortunately does not do the same for smaller spaces. I live in a 900 Sq. Ft. Condo and the room dimension that my D2 is in is 10ft X20 Ft. Will the upgrade price be worth it in my case? Thanks in advance for your replies and knowledge.

Libsim.

P.s. The rest of my equipment is the Anthem A5 Amp and 2 Bowers and Wilkins Signature Diamond Speakers in the front and 2 XT4's in the back.
Thanks.

I cannot think of any reason for him to say that. In fact, I would suspect that it is probably more advantageous in smaller rooms.

J. Fricano,
I agree with the suggestion made here by ABC999. I think coupling in that high level sub input is giving you more bass than you need. There are also potential phase problems between the two separate inputs you are mixing in your sub.

Try using just the subwoofer output of the D2.
--Bob