"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 11

I am curious if this situation still pertains to the "08" models of Denon AVR's?

Question about Audessy....

The auto setup finds all my speakers as large. I thought you could over ride this. If I go into the manual settings, I can indeed change them to small. But the Audessy settings still show them as large.

SO when Audessy is turned on, which settings are active? In other words does the manual speaker size/distance/level overide audessy, or does audessy overide your manual settings when it is engaged?

I got my Onkyo 605 today. I'm not that impressed with the Audyssey 2EQ in it. It got quite a lot of things wrong which I then had to go back and manually fix. Pioneer's MCACC is far superior IMO. I had it on my previous AVR, the Pioneer VSX-D912. Everything else on the 605 is a step up though, so I'm happy.

What brand and model of AVR do you have? If it's either a Denon AVR 4806 or AVR 3806, this should be the case. If it's a newer model we need to wait for an answer to my above post.

It is a 2808CI...so the answer is still not known with the model?

I am not sure about the Denon 2808CI. On Page 7, post 188, of this Thread is where I tried to divine the answer you are looking for insofar as my Denon AVR 4806 is concerned. Fwiw, I am thinking it's the same but I am not sure. If this doesn't help I would contact Denon directly.

I have a Denon AVR 988 and so far I am not too impressed with the Audyssey results so far. I have Polk Monitor 50's, CS1 and 30's (previously had Denon HTIB speakers) and find the EQ settings Audyssey applies do not sound as good as using Direct or Pure Direct modes. The EQ settings sound flat but switching to a Direct mode there is more clarity, detail, bass and depth to the sound. I ran the test twice with my Polk's using 8 positions and the results are the same. Is Audyssey geared towards systems with subwoofers? Having run the tests with 2 different sets of speakers multiple times I'm not sure if there is a problem or if I just dont like the EQ'ed sound.

The links in the first post of this thread answer all of those questions.

I understood that, however that was written a year ago, before the newer "08" Denons were released. I wasn't sure if something had changed. If you can independently confirm that nothing has, or if the manual has the same explanation (or different) it may help clear up an issues some new owners seem to be having.

Fwiw, after careful consideration, my experience with the Denon AVR 4806 is on Page 7 of this thread and may be beneficial to Denon AVR Owners. {Edit: Only the first link works and the other 2 seem to be obsolete}

The Denon 2808 and 2807 behave the same way. Audyssey doesn't handle the bass management, they only report back to Denon that the speaker can handle lower frequencies. The Denon decides to set the speaker to Large. This is easily correctable. After running the Auto Setup, go back and change your speakers to small and set the crossovers accordingly.

Well, there are several issues.

First, some people just do not like flat, more accurate reproduction and have become accustomed to colorations, modes and imbalances.

Second, Audyssey cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear but it tries. If you have a really poor acoustic situation in your room, Audyssey can patch but not fix it.

Third, Audyssey is far from perfect and I have often had to rerun it a number of times to get a good result. I assess this in a few ways: the distance/level numbers for all speakers (except the subwoofer) are exactly confirmed by external measurements, the FR and decay times are improved compared with bypass as confirmed by external measurements and, lastly, my ears.

I think running a receiver in Direct mode should give a flat, uncoloured sound since it bypasses all video and audio processing, shouldnt it? I am not applying any sort of processing to the sound, not PLIIx or DSP's, just listening to straight 2-channel stereo in Direct mode.

Thanks Gary J, those links were helpful. I believe I my expectations of Audyssey were incorrect and I apologise for commiting the cardinal sin of not reading a thread from the first post

That only accounts for your receiver. What about your room? What about your speakers?


Yes but filtered through your speakers and room. That's exactly what the Audyssey is supposed to correct. Have you ever had the opportunity to measure your room's acoustical properties? Untreated rooms are scary (yet listener's adapt and think them fine).

I agree with Kal. It took me a while to get used to and appreciate what the Audyssey system was doing for me. Months. A lot of the improvement is subtle but easy to appreciate once you've listened to a favorite track a few times and are hearing subtleties you weren't aware of before or that are clearer now. And, there is the fact that a large bubble of bass from room gain or such may be flattened by Audyssey and sound like missing bass (turn up the bass tone control if you like bass, it should blend the bass boost well and even compensate for the ear's weaker response to bass at less than reference listening levels).

Kal is right about the accuracy from my perspective. Some people like tube amps and MOSFET amps because of their "warmer" sound. If you look at the specs of tube and MOSFET amps and compare them with good bipolar amps, you see significant differences in THD and other distortion measurements (the bipolar amps having much lower numbers). Again, accuracy isn't for everyone. For instance, your listening room may add "concert hall" components that you enjoy and would miss.

So, I don't think you are wrong to turn off the Audyssey features, but you may also want to give them some time and use your tone controls which now have more effectiveness because they are starting with a flatter response or from a high-end roll-off that is smoother.

Harrison (Hclarkx)

This is what I was hoping for. I prefer to leave my speakers set to small.

Also, are most of you crossing your LFE over at 120?

Death,

What settings did Audyssey set incorrectly? Knowing that might provide some useful information on your room acoustics and a way to make Audyssey useful to you.

Hclarkx

LFE extends to 120hz and those signals are independent from other channels.
I don't know how Denon handles this but Onkyo handles the LFE crossover independently from the main bass manager. Meaning when you set your speakers to "small" and say to "80hz" the low pass filter [for the sub] will only affect the redirecred bass signals, and leaves the LFE to extend to what ever your setting is. 120hz is recommended in this case.

See above.

FWIW, David Rich has a thorough review of the Audyssey Pro stand alone unit in the current issue of Sensible Sound-interesting reading.

Oops. I misread the question and was referring to the BM crossover. I have deleted my spurious post.

Crossover, distance, and levels were off for almost all the speakers. The MCACC in my Pioneer 912 was much more thorough with its tests and I had to tweak very little afterward (it does far more than just the quick sweeps on each speaker). It doesn't bug me too much though that the Audyssey was off as I don't mind manually tweaking the settings (I have a RatShack SPL meter).

Then you need to do it again. I do not have confidence in the EQ results if the distances and levels are not spot-on. Crossover almost always needs to be set manually.

I agree with Kal. I'd take a shot at making the all-important first measurement closer to your mains, maybe half way between your prime center seat and the mains and preferably equidistant from the mains. That should give you a stronger direct wave. If that reads distance to the mains correctly, you may have too much reflected energy reaching center of your listening bubble where you have previously taken the first measurement. You only need to do a single measurement to make this assessment.

[Edit] Another thought ... those sweeps provide more information than one might guess. The Audyssey system is a bit finicky because it does need a lot more information than other systems in order to do all the tricky stuff like psychoacoustic corrections, timing adjustments across the 512 bands, allotting the 512 bands, etc. ((yes, I now they aren't "bands" in the normal sense)).

Thanks for the input. I have everything set correct manually so it's all good. I might try the Audyssey again though for giggles to see if it can come closer.

And to see if room EQ appeals to you.

I've often wondered about this. I understand that the LFE channel is separate and only contains special "bass specific" information that may not exist in the other channels. Given this, I also understand that by setting the low pass for the LFE channel to less than 120Hz, I may end up losing unique information that is not being sent to any of the other channels (even though I've read that there is typically very little information, if any, between 80Hz and 120Hz in the LFE channel). My problem is that it still comes back to the fact that if I set the LP for the LFE channel above 80Hz, I'm sending information to my sub that will help localize it's position. If I'm concerned about this localization effect in all the other channels (with respect to their HP settings and what ends up being sent to my subwoofer), why shouldn't I also be concerned about this situation with respect to the LFE channel?

By the way, I'm using an Onkyo 805.

This was my thinking as well. Though one reason it may not be a problem is that there is so little information between 80-120.

My Avr has the option to set the xover for each speaker, or just one system wide xover. If I were to use the simple one set at 80, would that still pose the same problem in terms of any signal above 80 on the LFE channel not being routed to other speakers and thus potentially lost?

Another problem I have been having is that Audessy sets my center really hot. Level wise, it is showing about 2db below my L & R, but dialog is WAY louder than everything else. I know I can dial it back, but I would like to know what is happening. I have re-run the setup, using between 6 and 8 points. Each time I have tried variations in positioning. All but one time, it found the center as large (the last time it found it as small) It is a polk cs400i, with dual 6" drivers. Also the high end is really hot. There was so much treble during the second run through setup that I immediately re-ran it. ...WAY to much sibilance....almost uncomfortable

The only thing I can think of is that the center is lower than the TV on the shelf of my TV stand. There is also a coffee table in front of the couch, but even so, there is clear line of sight from ear level to the speaker. Could this be the reason?

Sub levels also seem really low, but I have read this is a common issue. I think I will re-run Audessy with my sub at midpoint volume and then use the gain control on the sub to dial it up if need be.

One other question: should measurements only be taken from the listening area and nearby? does it make sense to do some measurements in other areas of the room? And does points mean a better result than 6 even if your listening area is small...basically one 3 seat couch wide for me.

Thanks for your help

"Though one reason it may not be a problem is that there is so little information between 80-120."

This is something that I still don't quite a have a handle on - so it is possible to lose info between LFE LP freq and satellite HP freq?

Seems like an oversight in system design, and those freq should be sent to L/R and/or C.

Exactly! That's what I would think. It makes no sense to discard LFE info when you can send it to other channels.....I guess the problem is what channels, since LFE is its own channel, how do you decide where it goes? Even if you spread it out to LCR speakers, that doesn't make sense in terms of those signals not belonging there.

SO I guess I can either use the simple crossover and at set everything at 80 (though that still might overlook 80-120 on LFE) or set LFE to 120 in the individual crossover menu.