"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 104

Thanks guys. I don't already have the speakers. What I want to know is if it is an advantage to purchase speakers with these switches, or if Audyssey can handle the boundary effect issues of in-cabinet placement on its own.

I realize the switch reduces a specific driver's output by a fixed amount (-3dB in the case of the boundary compensation switch). That would be a fixed effect all frequencies of the woofer (but not the tweeter). But maybe -3dB isn't ideal for that particular driver and all frequencies it produces. Maybe some frequencies need no cut, others need less than -3dB, and maybe others need more than -3dB. I don't know how narrow or how broad the frequency ranges Audyssey measures and adjusts. I think I read that most of it's capability is in the sw frequencies. I also don't know how big of an adjustment Audyssey can make or how small of steps it can take getting to whatever it's max adjustment capability is ... can it do more than -3dB, for example?

Reran the calibration today, with the same results.

He, he aren't you promoting your business which makes sense since you are a a Pro Audyssey calibrator. Have read a little about the Pro version does this come with your A/R or a seperate package?

Here's your answer:


And here:

data which you type in like a chimp.....

Hey, some of my best friends are typing chimps!

Zapper....

Radioshack SPL vs Audyssey?

Since I've done both and have just recently the first thing is you don't have to do Audyssey. I mean if you are satisfied with the results using some source reference sound, SPL meter to set volume, maybe even have source sound playback that sets frequency output as a fixed playback source and can use the SPL to tweak your eq, that's great. I have a Stereophile test disk for just that purpose with my Radio Shack SPL. So it is certainly a valid option and there is no reason NOT to do so. The end result is the issue, you having sound playback the way you like. Which is not the same as having some pinpoint reference playback. We want the sound to be what we like, not just some predetermined spec. So if that works for you great.

Having said that, and we have to be careful about exactly what makes something "better" and not at the same time imply its superior. My experience is that what Audyssey does collect to collect the same data points it does by using a playback source for referenced sounds/known variables, measuring them, adjusting them by hand is probably impossible. Necessary? Again, not able to say as what you need to have your system sound the way you want, no, Audyssey is not necessary.

Will I even have a graph like what Audyssey records mapping the real world real room frequency response by hand? Not likely. Not with the basic equipment we are talking about here. Possible? I guess. I guess you could get all the stuff, test, measure, plot, etc, and create similiar information. Could that be done in the short time Audyssey needs? Again, unlikely.

So for ease of use, Audyssey to me is a clear winner. However IF it was easier to use but produced crappy results, ease of use would hardly be a plus. It is the case that to get very good results Audyssey takes some attention to detail. Something that is easily noted in the many posts in this thread. But once you pay attention to just a few details, there aren't THAT many, do the results from Audyssey at least match those I've been able to do by hand? Yes. No doubt about it.

Is Audyssey clearly superior to the manual results? Now that is difficult for me to say. And it may not be an answerable question. And here's why. Bell curve. We are on the side of the bell curve with this stuff were it takes a great deal of investment to detect a significant change. We aren't at the beginning of the bell curve cycle that allows a small investment to garnish big changes. Its now big investment to see small changes. So just how much different is Audyssey going to be? If even in the best of circumstances since where we are in this whole arena, Audyssey is going to make minor improvements as compared to manual improvments, we aren't going to see night and day differences from which we can say, "Wow, that Audyssey is WAY better than manual!" It isn't going to happen and that has nothing to do with Audyssey being a great product worth using. It isn't going to happen because of the nature of the beast in general.

I don't know if that makes sense.

For me Audyssey has value. It at least does as good a job as manual. Provides lots of information and does so much easier than trying to do it by hand. It does give users a level of control in how it is to be utilized. It is easy to re-run. And it sounds great once a few details are paid attention to.

Throw away your RS SPL meter and test disk? No, of course not. Audyssey not worth using because one can use manual stuff to accomplish similiar results? No, not so either.

Just because you can do a good job manual does not therefore mean Audyssey isn't doing a good job or does not have value.

Its a "both and" thing, not a "either or" thing. Folks that do reviews, critics, etc., they usually operate from that "either or" mindset.

So back to decaf....

Slide rule vs Calculator?

The room isn't that big. It's L shaped, which doesn't help either. To do 8 measurements they'd have to be about 6" to a foot apart. Is that really a good idea?

So you feel that using the quotes in had in my reply and that I used to ask for further clarification is my "answer"?

The closest to answering what I am asking is this: At the risk of sounding too fanatical, MultEQ goes quite a ways toward what you really want, which is to correct the frequency and impulse response of your particular speaker arrangement, room, and seating location.
Ths still doesn't answer my main question of whether these switches are worth having. For example, if Audyssey only can correct to a point, perhaps the switch could extend the starting point of Audyssey's correction.

But thanks anyway.

Slide rule vs Deep Blue

Good one!

My personal guess is that more measurements are better, even if they're close together. Small differences in location can produce considerable variation in bass response and I've been in one room where moving 12" was the difference between hearing a very strong low bass note at around 25 Hz and not hearing it at all. Even in a relatively tight area there will be some variation in the room's response over that area.

In my view the L-shaped room strengthens the case for more measurements. Pressure variations are reasonably predictable in location in a symmetrical room, not that Audyssey tries to do that. They become much more unpredictable in an asymmetric room and my guess is that the odds that there will be some variation in your tight area for measurements will increase in an asymmetrical room compared to a symmetrical room.

More measurements, more data, better response over the measurement area overall.

Anything that will make the system's response better prior to doing the Audyssey setup will help. That certainly includes acoustic room treatments.

I find it hard to give a firm answer on your speakers and their switches. In theory it should help but the problem with theory is that good theory need not come with good implementation. Depending on room size, proximity to walls, crossover details, it's possible that the result of using those switches in your room will not be positive overall. It may help at some frequencies and make things worse at others, it may be uniformly worse, it may be uniformly better. If it's uniformly better it will help Audyssey and if it's uniformly worse it will hinder Audyssey. If it's good in places and bad in places it's hard to predict.

My advice is to buy speakers on how well they sound without the assistance of Audyssey. Get speakers that work well without EQ and EQ should make them better, and the better they are the better the final results are. Try the speakers in your home before buying if you can and see if the switches help in your room when you use them without having Audyssey engaged. If they don't give better results, then your choices are:

- buy them and try Audyssey with them, comparing results with and without the switches in action and run with the option that sounds best to you;

- try other speakers and see if you can find something that sounds better in your room than those speakers when the switch is in the position that you prefer the most. If you can find a different speaker that you prefer more, go with it, otherwise go with the choice above.

If you can't try them at home without buying them, then you're going to have to make a purchase decision on how they sound to you in the showroom. Try to demo them in a similar sized room to yours in locations similar to what you'll be using. Compare them to other speakers in the same location and buy the ones that sound best to you.

So, to answer your second question, yes, perhaps the switch could extend the starting point of Audyssey's correction and perhaps it could also make the correction Audyssey provides better than it would be if you didn't have the switch, but perhaps it may not. The answer will depend on how well that speaker works in your room and with the speaker placement you choose and that's not predictable by me, or probably by anyone else here, so no-one will be able to give you a definite yes/no answer. All you can probably get is a maybe such as the one I've just given. This is the kind of question where, in my experience, the best and most reliable answer is "try it and see".

Michael,

I am currently in the UK at the AES conference in Cambridge doing some demonstrations. What's funny is that the system that we were provided with is the exact B&W system you have! I just ran the calibration on that same sub and speakers and did not see the distance issue...Granted, I am running it on the Sound Equalizer, but the distance estimation method is the same. So the fact that you are seeing a shorter distance must be due to some form of noise that gets to the mic before the subwoofer signal.

I have seen this happen due to handling noise (from holding the mic instead of tripod-mounting it), projector fan noise, or other noise. Anything like that happening?

If the LPF filter is defeated and you are certain there is no noise, then I would recommend manually setting the distance to what you measure from the head of the listener in the main seat to the center of the woofer cabinet.

Chris

Isn't it way past tea time in the UK?

I'm happy to find others having the same problem. I live a block away from an elevated mass-transit which makes a huge and deep noise each time a train passes. Ergo, the only time I can do Audyssey is late at night.

I wondered whether I should dial down the dbs on my rear speakers as I sit right next to them?

I went through the Audyssey auto set up a few times and it has pretty much correctly identified the distances of the speakers. It had the channel levels dialled too high, so using the SPL metre I have tuned them all to 75dbs. However, my couch is positioned right between the two rears so they are about 3 feet from either side of the couch. With this in mind, will they be too loud at 75dbs as Im right next to them (and being further away from the fronts), or will the Audyssey distance calculations realise this & come into play?

I have attached a drawing showing where I placed the microphone whilst doing the set-up (and was surprised that the channel levels were initially set so high). Please note that the rear speakers do not actually point at the couch. I now have them on their back pointing upwards (per audysseys recommendations to me earlier in the thread).

 

speaker & mic placement2.pdf 89.986328125k . file

I am debating whether to go with the 2308 or 2808.

My question is whether MultiEQ XT is worth the extra $350.

My main issue is the bass (sub) for 2ch music. I badly need to
EQ the bass in my lousy living room. I see that MultiEQ can also
do sub EQ but it us mid-level resolution where as MultiEQ XT is higher
resolution. I dont know if MultiEQ XT would make a big difference.
I have attempted to use BFD but I was not successful. I prefer
Audyssey as it does all the work instead of me having to use
a PC and make measurements etc.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. If I can save the $350 I can
put that on a good CD player.

Also if I can stick to MultiEQ I have more options in the sub $1000
range like Onkyo 705, Marantz 7002 etc.

Thanks

My room is only 12 X 20. I did the first 6 measurements in pairs from each side of my 3 recliner seats so they were only 12 to 15" apart. The other two I did at ear level from 2 positions a foot in front of the seats, again at ear level. I used a cheapo tripod from Sears with a pan/tilt head so I could sit the assembly on the seat cushion and lean it back where one's seated head would be. The pan/tilt head allows you to either point the mic straight up or use the "grazing position". It's not complicated, you just have to surrender yourself to the process ...

John

Here's the tripod, all of $8.88:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...keyword=tripod

Well, one of two ways. In my case the ability to run Pro is built-into my pre/pro (Integra DTC 9.8). But if you have a setup where you run cables between your preamp and amp, you can add an Audyssey box to it.

While I see where you are coming from feeling that I am promoting business, I try to keep everything here strictly personal experience. I would have very little or nothing to gain for trying to "sell" on here. Besides, I'm not a salesman. And I too was not "sold" on Audyssey when I first got my 9.8. I thought YPAO and other setups were jokes also. This is the first auto setup that has teeth.

My point was it felt like you were bashing this product (with no knowledge of it) in a thread where people are seeking help with it. We are here to help each other with our experiences. I'm just not sure why you felt your post was helpful in this thread. And people that had problems with distances or levels being incorrect probably didn't run Audyssey correctly. I too didn't run it correctly the first few times I used it (before I was a pro installer), but with the help I found here it taught me to use it correctly. I enjoyed the results so much I looked into being a pro installer for them.

-K

Chris,

That's quite a coincidence!

With regard to my setup, I use a tripod and there's no obvious noise source that I can eliminate. One thing (that may or may not have any relevance) is that due to space limitations the sub is positioned off-axis with respect to the mic. In other words, while all the other speakers are facing the main mic position, the sub is at an angle (about 45 degrees).

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers,
Michael

Ant thought while the guru is in UK?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post13595074

Enzo,

I think that the tighter pattern is better in terms of creating the right EQ filters. The problem you have with the surround channels that are too prominent, can't be solved with EQ. It can only be solved by using dipole speakers that are intended to provide a diffuse sound. A traditional speaker pointing at you will always sound like a point source. That's what it is designed to do! This is why you got some improvement by pointing the speakers to the ceiling. If the majority of your content is movies, then dipole surrounds are the only way to solve this.

Chris

Michael,

I don't think the sub orientation is the problem. The sub is basically omnidirectional and the wavelengths at low frequencies are so large that there is no "pointing". The sub has several switches on the back for built-in EQ. Are they all set to the default (or off) position? I can't think of any other reason that this would be happening.

Chris

Thanks Chris,
but I can not purchase new speakers, particularly because I just purchased the Kilpsch surrounds. The back surrounds are 15 years old so I may think about, but I had a certain lack of funds in the last months.....
Ciao
enzo

I apologize but I need to ask this question again. Just what are the graphs in the Audyssey parameter review showing? Measured room fequency response OR Audyseey correction/eq? I did as Chris suggested and copied the Audyssey eq/freq information to the manual eq settings for the 3808. When I look at those manual eq settings IF the graphs in the review parameter area are the Audyssey eq/freq adjustments, then the copied curves make no sense.

When I look at the Audyssey graphs and the copied curves what makes sense is that those parameter review graphs are the measured room frequency response to which the Audyssey eq makes adjustments.

As an example if the graphs showed 1000khz to be -2db below the 0 line for front right, when I look at the copied eq manual curve for front right, it is +2db. The measured response being low, -2db. The adjustment correlating to that below 0 line -2db, is +2db.

What are the graphs in the parameter review section actually plotting? Measured room frequency response or the adjusments Audyssey is making and are very fancy plots of its equalizer equalizing are are sorta the mirror image of the measured room frequency response?

Two very different things.

Interesting, jsmiddleton - that's not what I'd have expected. From what I've seen, the curves shown on the AVR GUI are roughly the inverse of the "before" graphs generated by the MultEQ Pro software, suggesting that they are the corrections being made by the Audyssey.

That's not consistent with what you're observing.

Ouch! Dipoles, I hope?

kmo

Yes I am confused! What I see in the manually copied curves makes perfect sense IF the graph models are the measured room frequency response. Where the graph is negative, the manually copied curve is positive. Where the graph is positive, the manually copied curve is negative.

Chris noted the copied manual eq will not be exactly the same as the Audyssey stuff. Cramming multiple points of data into a handful so somewhere along the way something is going to get lost. I understand that. However you would think that in general the two pieces of information would be consistent.

Someone else should try it. Not like I'm an expert.....

Chris,

The EQ and bass extension options on the sub cant be defeated, but I do have them on the defaults. Perhaps I should turn the volume on the sub up to the 12 o'clock position before running Audyssey. The reason I say this is that with the volume at 9 o'clock the sub volume is quite low during calibration and when Audyssey finished it always sets the volume at about +3db.

Cheers,
Michael