"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 502

One caveat: This assumes that you are changing all channels from RCA (single-ended) to XLR (balanced). If you are changing only some channels, it will be necessary to recalibrate channel levels as XLR voltage output is usually higher than RCA.

This is an exceptionally long thread spanning several years. I spent about half an hour looking for a contemporary answer to the following question and did not have much luck, though it was in the first five posts:

- How do the Audyssey implementations compare/contrast with other solutions (Pioneer, Yamaha) in 2009?

Any feedback or link to a post I might have missed would be appreciated. Looking for anything simple and fact-based (e.g. comparative list of features of equalization methods), I have no desire to introduce a subjective debate.

I can provide the basic technical differences:

1) Audyssey uses multiple measurements to capture the required acoustical information around the listening area. Other solutions use a single measurement.

2) Audyssey analyzes these measurements in the time domain and this provides info about direct and reflected sound. Other solutions analyze in the frequency domain.

3) Audyssey uses FIR (time and frequency domain) filters for room correction. Depending on the version (2EQ, MultEQ, MultEQ XT) the filters have hundreds to thousands of control points that can be used to shape the response. Other methods use parametric EQ with IIR filters that provide 10-15 bands.

There are many other finer details that have to do with how measurements are combined, how perceptual information is included, how subwoofers are treated, etc.

Most of the other systems now support multiple measurements too, although sometimes only on the higher-end models (e.g. Yamaha from the RX-V1900 and up).

But for me an important difference people should be aware of is that Audyssey doesn't allow manual tweaking of the results, whereas the other systems do (and I'm ignoring MultEQ Pro which is not supposed to be an end-user tool). Sure the user can make a mess if you let him change the results, but having the choice would be a good thing.

(I'd like to see more control over Dynamic EQ too, with at least a user-specified gain factor to tone down the effect, in addition to the offset you've talked about).

Did you bother to read 2) and 3) of Chris's response? Do you understand what he is saying? If you do, you would realize the impracticality of what you are asking.

And Dynamic EQ DOES have user specified gain factors in several recently introduced AVRs and processors.

This would not be possible or practical for Audyssey since it uses "thousands" of points. Plus, you can't re-adjust the time domain corrections. FYI, I have set up some flagship receivers (their top of the line) from Sony, Pioneer, and Yamaha for friends and family and IMHO cannot match Audyssey - many of them getting rid of their new receiver for one incorporating Audyssey.

I agree completely. And, in fact, I don't ever see myself using the Audyssey results because of it. I'm an old-time audio guy, and nothing Audyssey has come up with has pleased me yet. It's always too high-end hyped. That must be a popular sound these days because it seems to be what salesmen do at all the stores, or it's just a way to sell cheap amps and speakers. I will eventually set the graphic EQ by ear. And I really wish there was a simple loudness contour that could be switched on and off, separate from the Audyssey setup. That plain old loudness curve always does the trick for me for low level listening. I wonder if the Trinnov Optimizer in the upcoming Outlaw 997 will allow user tweaking.

Anything is possible, and it might be enough give the normal user as much control as MultEQ Pro currently offers. I know that Audyssey's method is far more sophisticated than, for example, Yamaha's YPAO, but as long as it's all or nothing I'm not going to buy into it.

HELLO! Its the 21st century.

You don't like what Audyssey does because you have never heard CORRECT audio. I'd be willing to bet that you are one of those people who set their 5-band "graphic equalizer" in a "V" shape. Maybe you upgraded recently to a 13 band, allowing a "U" shape curve. Big improvement. An octave band equilizer is totally worthless and I doubt that there is anyone in the world who could set a 1/3 octave band equalizer by ear.

The fact that you long for the old Fletcher-Munson "loudness" control shows how far behind the technology you are. And it has nothing to do with selling "cheap amps and speakers."

I was implicitly agreeing with 2) and 3), and only disagreeing with 1).


I believe Chris said that an offset was recently added to Dynamic EQ, which is quite different from a multiplicative gain factor.

Yes, anything is possible given time, money, and digital processing power. MultEQ Pro runs on a separate PC. Do you realize what it would take to implement that kind of processing power in an AVR? Be prepared to pay through the nose.

Back off. It's my opinion, and I am allowed to air it without being insulted. I have earned a good living in recording studios for 20 years, and I'll tell you there is no such thing as "correct" audio. You can go to the top multi-million dollar studios in the world, and every single one of them sounds different. The audio industry is still trying to approach with digital processing and mass-market consumer electronics stamped out in China, the quality professionals and careful consumers enjoyed 30 years ago. I have 15 year-old power amps and 20 year-old speakers (recently re-coned) that blow away everything I audition today that sells for less than $10,000.

My comment about high-end hype is because most consumer systems I hear these days are much brighter than what we hear in the studio where the material is produced. I hear that bright sound when I engage the MultEQ, and I personally don't like it.

The human ear has not evolved significantly since Fletcher-Munson did their studies less than 100 years ago, and that is the physics, physiology, and psychoacoustics that all of these programs are trying to address. Fletcher-Munson illuminated the problem; these are all just different ways to correct for it, and I prefer the analog solutions to MultEQ. I have a McIntosh preamp with a variable loudness control that corrects for low-level playback in a very pleasing way. I occasionally adjust the knob depending on the music I'm listening to, so setting it once for the room and then being stuck with that setting, would be much less functional and enjoyable.

I would agree that Audyssey's default setting might be considered bright. Actually it has a rolloff at higher frequencies,unless you are using the Flat option. NAD also has a setting Paul Barton engineered called "NAD" mode. It is much preferable to the standard settings.
In addition if you use the "pro" software with Audyssey, there is a "design" section where you can change the rolloff to whatever you prefer. Using that combination I have been able to get a nice smooth rolloff. Starting at about 1000hz. I suspect this is similar to the studio sound you mention.
I would never make a final judgement on Audyssey until you have used the "pro"version.

The PC only calculates the filters, but the AVR still has to apply them. So all it would take is a little longer during setup. Processing power in the AVR is not the issue.

Thanks. I've been meaning to look into the Pro, but since I was not happy with Audyssey I haven't done it. I would love to use the MultEQ and dynamics features, but the all-or-nothing auto settings don't do it for me. Can you point me to a good post that gives the low-down on acquiring and using the Pro upgrade?

We are Audyssey Dealers, we took training and bought the the microphone kit at that time. Perhaps check where you bought the Audyssey device? They may have the kit.
FYI: There are receivers that only include standard Audyssey and cannot take advantage of the "Pro" kit and software.
To get the most out of Audyssey,it will cost a few more bucks. If you are picky,you won't be disappointed.

Of course you are. Perhaps your use of the word "hype" ruffled some feathers; there are lot of believers here.

If your studio experience is in the music recording industry, then your opinion is completely understandable. And it also highlights a major difference between the music recording industry and the film industry. The film industry is all about standards. If it can be measured and it affects what we hear, there is a spec for it to which the mixing studios adhere wrt their systems. As a lot of these standards comes out of the work of a co-founder of Audyssey, they seem to be in a perfect position to understand and extend those standards to home theaters. Clearly they have more work to do, but many of us are enjoying our theaters more than we ever have in the past. I have worked in the recording studio and live sound reinforcement and I have been a very picky audiophile since the mid 70's.

Some have struggled to get satisfactory results and some of them have ultimately done so after reading the setup guide and/or posting their system info here seeking suggestions. Sometimes there is some simple adjustment in the measurement procedure that solves the problem.

Go to the Audyssey website and contact them regarding obtaining a kit and they will route you to the appropriate person. Depending on their representation in your area, that might be a distributor or a pro installer who will sell and administer your kit.

The Pro Kit allows you to graphically tweak the EQ curve(s), store multiple curves and load them whenever you want to. I see this as a benefit for those with masking systems, retractable screens and/or those who like different curves for cinema and music.

I have a question for you guys. I ran Audyssey 3 different times in my room and made sure there was no noise in the room. All 3 times, all of the readings were in the negative range. None of them were at -12db which is the lowend for my receiver so I thought that was a plus. When I looked at the speaker distances, they appeared accurate as well. The crossover frequencies were off but I've read that is normal and to adjust them.

Did I do Audyssey wrong or with all of them being negative, is that normal?

Thanks

If the trim settings are not at the limits of your gear's adjustment range, then you are good to go. Wherever they are set, those are the settings Audyssey determined were needed to balance your system and calibrate it to reference level. A different AVR in your system with different input sensitivity - or your AVR with speakers with different sensitivity - would likely produce different trim levels.

How does it sound?

Thanks for the response pepar...

By "hyped" I mean boosted higher than it should be. It could also be that the mid is being attenuated too much (I cannot know since I'm not able to see what's being done), but either way the sound I get with Audyssey is a sound that has been referred to as "hyped" all of my audio life. Sorry if I offended anyone, but this is supposed to be a place to discuss/debate pros, cons, experiences, opinions, etc., not just to congratulate ourselves for our good product choices.


Actually my work has been in music recording, 90% of which for movies. As you may know, there is an endless battle between the music production team and the film re-recording mixers, who often come from dialogue/sound FX backgrounds, not music backgrounds. The music team labors for months of long hours, and the re-recording mixers sit there and change the sound dramatically in a second, as if they know what's "right." And for the rest of their lives, composers die a little bit every time they see the movie and hear what was done to their music.

It's true that much effort goes into standardizing the process, but the actual sound is subjective and determined by the personal opinions and tastes of many people along the way.


I read the instructions that came with my pre/pro, and skimmed this thread, but once I discovered that Audyssey (non-pro) is an all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it system, allowing for zero user adjustment, I didn't bother anymore. No group of engineers in a lab, university, etc., are going to be able to create a system that will sound good in my house for every movie and genre of music I listen to. It's just not possible. The only way for me to have a room requiring no tweaking would be to spend at least $100,000 on room construction, acoustic treatment, and professional signal processing, amplifiers, and speakers, so that my room would be up to the specs of a recording studio or film dubbing stage. Short of that, I'll just have to tweak my little preamp to give an enjoyable listening experience as I go.

And I will look into Audyssey pro, because if I could adjust the curves myself and save them, I would do it. But not if I have to spend hundreds of dollars. In that case I feel like the Audyssey included in my pro/pro was just a tease to sell me the real thing.

OK, without intending to go into whatever "issues" () you might have with the way the film industry is structured, I need to point out that it is all about the Artist. I use capitalization to distinguish the producer/director from all of the other artists - including you - that contribute to the project. The Artist is responsible for the overall product, so naturally it will follow their vision. Scenes end up on the cutting room floor, music is relegated to the background (or not there at all), etc, etc. Whatever the end result, it is *right* because it is what they wanted.

The context here is that the goal is to get our home theaters set up so that we hear essentially what the mixdown engineer heard. And, by calibrating our displays, see what the director saw. If we do that, then we are experiencing the film as intended. You can argue (in the scholarly sense ) that you don't like what a director - or the re-recording engineer with the guidance of the director - has done, but I don't see how anyone can argue that it is not right. To me that seems like arguing that the palette that Picasso used was not right.


I don't think I have the right temperament to discuss this further with you, but I will say that I believe that you have some misconceptions that have kept you from deriving the benefits from Audyssey's technologies that so many have derived and I will qualify my previous statement with "we are experiencing the film as close to intended given our budgets and other factors."

Thanks. It sounds pretty good but I was worried I had something set up wrong. I also found that I am not supposed to lower the crossover settings or I will lose the Audyssey benefit. If I raise them back then am I good or do I need to rerun them?

Thanks again

If you lowered crossovers, re-setting them to what they had been is all you need to do.

I get all that, and respect your obvious knowledge about audio. However, I have witnessed countless times where heavy-handed, bully re-recording mixers pushed their agenda on the artists, and the politics of the room doesn't always allow the artist's opinions to matter. I have also witnessed a happy artist leave the room, and then the guys left there change everything to get back to what they wanted to hear. Very frustrating.

I admit that I have not done much research about how to exploit Audyssey to its fullest, but for me, I don't think any untweakable auto setup will make me happy. And I personally do not like what the basic MultEQ does to my room, but I will research more and try again when I have time.

The technology of oil painting is such that Picasso didn't have re-painting engineers to contend with... ;-)

I have enough anarchist remaining in me from my 60's college protest days that it is probably best that I don't know any more about how this particular sausage is made.

My ignorance is bliss!

Very true! Working in the business makes it hard to be a fan/listener/viewer sometimes...

If you post some details about your room and your system when you have the time, we will try to assist you.

Wasn't it Van Gogh (or some other notable) who was horrified to find out that their pallet choice ("infamous blue period") was skewed due to cataracts filtering out all the blue from his vision. He was so horrified that,after having the cataracts removed, he actually went back and re-painted some of his earlier works .

... Just saying ...

Will do, thanks! I will spend some time later to get into it.