"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 105

Originally Posted by Was_There_Then

I wondered whether I should dial down the db's 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 75db's. 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 75db's as I'm 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 audyssey's recommendations to me earlier in the thread).

Originally Posted by David Aiken

If you've adjusted all of the speaker levels by the same number of dB when you "tuned them all to 75 dB", then the only thing you've really changed is the master volume control setting you're going to listen at because the balances will be unchanged. There's really no need to do anything if you're going to change every channel's setting by the same amountadjusting the master volume control by the same amount will achieve exactly the same result.

If you changed some speaker levels by different amounts in order to match things to 75 dB, then you're depending on your meter's accuracy, especially at low frequency levels, and the Radio Shack meter isn't particularly reliable there, nor is is necessarily accurate as far as absolute level goes within its optimum frequency range. Don't get me wrong here, the RS meter is a good product for the price and it's quite good for matching levels from speakers but the 75 dB reading that you're setting up is unlikely to really be 75 dB. It will be 75 dB give or take a bit. If you want to get anal about setting things to exactly 75 dB at a particular master volume level, then you really need a more accurate meter and if you want the reading you're getting to represent the actual level over a 20 Hz to 20 kHz range, you also need a better meter which is more accurate over a wider range than the Radio Shack meter. The EQ settings that Audyssey applies may affect the comparability of readings from different channels if you're measuring them with an RS meter with Audyssey engaged. If you're going to use Audyssey then I'd rely on the settings that Audyssey comes up with if I were you because it is actually matching levels at different frequencies rather than simply trying to match the overall level from the speaker because changes to speaker response, especially at bass frequencies, will have an impact on overall sound level and matching overall sound levels may lead to unbalanced sound if the EQ applied to different speakers is significantly different because of their location and room characteristics.

Finally, to answer your question about the level of the surrounds due to proximity, don't turn them down. Proximity is already taken into account when the speaker levels are matched during setup, whether that be manual setup with a meter or auto setup by the receiver/Audyssey. That setup matches the level you hear from each speaker for an equal input level to each speaker. Input levels for surrounds are rarely equal to those for the front speakers, especially the centre speaker. They're usually lower which is why you rarely notice the surrounds as strong sound sources apart from when they're used to locate a voice or sound to the rear. When you're listening to a movie soundtrack, each speaker is usually receiving a different level signal and the difference in levels helps in the localisation of where sounds are coming from. If you turn the surrounds down so they don't produce an equal level at the listening position for an equal level input, then you'll interfere with that.

Originally Posted by David Aiken

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".

Originally Posted by jsmiddleton4

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.....

Originally Posted by mtsag

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

Originally Posted by jsmiddleton4

"the inverse of the measured response after the multiple measurements are combined"

So the Audyssey graph is basically the flip or mirror image of the frequency response of the room? Its the fixes Audyssey applies to what it measures?

Originally Posted by kjgarrison

I appreciate that thoughtful and quite generous response. Thank you.

I am a fanboy of science, and your approach makes total sense. I was just being lazy and hoping there might be somebody that reads these posts that has actually already "been there; done that".

Also, I can't really try all these speakers out. Many aren't in stores and many can't be purchased with a trial period. Perhaps I should simply eliminate those. But when they get good reviews by the pros I question whether my opinion of how they sound should be given any weight, given lack of "treatments", perhaps lack of time to break them in, and my total inexperience with Audyssey. Not to mention that they have to go in cabinets and will require even more "treatments" there. Oh, and I should mention my audiogram ...

Once again; thank you very much.

Originally Posted by audyssey

Yes, it's worth trying that. I don't think 3 dB will make a difference, but can't hurt. Do you hear any funny noise from the sub when the chirps are playing? A damaged or scraping driver could produce noise that throws off the measurement. Grasping at straws here as there seems to be no plausible explanation for this.

Chris

Originally Posted by johnr56

Hi All, I just set up my new Onkyo TX-NR905 with the new F/W. I need some Questions Answered, That I can not find on the Audyssey web site or in the 905's Manual.

After I run Audyssey MultEQ XT it here's all speakers as FULL Band but the surounds are only capable of going down to 49Hz and the center only capable of going down to 45Hz . I want to Base manage my system.
So my first question is after I run Audyssey MultEQ XT and save the setup if I then manually Change the surounds to a crossover frequencie of 50Hz and the center to 40Hz does that throw off the Audyssey setup and screw the hole setup up ? I should probably mention that my speakers are matched Klipsch Reference Series.

Seconded question is it sets the sub dis, to 30Ft but it is realy about 10Ft. In the 905 Manual it states that THX recommends setting the sub level and distance Manually. But on the Audyssey web site it said to leave it alone, that the setting it right. who Is right ? I'm so

Originally Posted by johnr56

Hi All, I just set up my new Onkyo TX-NR905 with the new F/W. I need some Questions Answered, That I can not find on the Audyssey web site or in the 905's Manual.

After I run Audyssey MultEQ XT it here's all speakers as FULL Band but the surounds are only capable of going down to 49Hz and the center only capable of going down to 45Hz . I want to Base manage my system.
So my first question is after I run Audyssey MultEQ XT and save the setup if I then manually Change the surounds to a crossover frequencie of 50Hz and the center to 40Hz does that throw off the Audyssey setup and screw the hole setup up ? I should probably mention that my speakers are matched Klipsch Reference Series.

Seconded question is it sets the sub dis, to 30Ft but it is realy about 10Ft. In the 905 Manual it states that THX recommends setting the sub level and distance Manually. But on the Audyssey web site it said to leave it alone, that the setting it right. who Is right ? I'm so

Originally Posted by jsmiddleton4

john,

The other thing to remember is Audyssey is not measuring your speaker output specs. Its measuring real world room audio/frequency. Yes you need a speaker to reproduce the sound, etc. But what is being measured is more than just your speakers. So while it is a good thing to know what your speakers can and can't do, with all the room interactions, etc., you may have frequencies present that are quite different in both range and intensity than the "specs" of your speakers.

Originally Posted by audyssey

Yes, it's worth trying that. I don't think 3 dB will make a difference, but can't hurt. Do you hear any funny noise from the sub when the chirps are playing? A damaged or scraping driver could produce noise that throws off the measurement. Grasping at straws here as there seems to be no plausible explanation for this.

Chris

Originally Posted by mtsag

Chris,

I've run Audyssey about 15 times today... and it consistently underestimates the sub's distance. I played with the sub's volume and I positioned the mic in different places in the room and at different heights and the results were always the same.

I noticed that when setting the bass extension switch on the sub to position A (-6db at 23Hz) I got the largest measurement discrepancy (1.14m) and when setting the switch to position C (-6 db at 36Hz) I got the lowest discrepancy (65cm). Could this mean that there is some room issue at play, or is it possible that my sub is damaged?

With regard to your quesion about funny noises, the chirps from the sub seem like a low frequency version of what I hear from the other speakers, but its not like I've had an Audyssey equipped system before, so I have no real basis for comparison.

Cheers,
Michael

Originally Posted by jsmiddleton4

"the inverse of the measured response after the multiple measurements are combined"

So the Audyssey graph is basically the flip or mirror image of the frequency response of the room? Its the fixes Audyssey applies to what it measures?

Originally Posted by Mupi

I was just wondering if the MultiEQ implementation in different models
of Denon be the same quality.

The cheaper model 688 has the MultiEQ and so does the expensive
model 2308CI. I dont want the extra power or the extra audio/video features of the 2308. I just want a basic AVR which has MultiEQ. So would I get the same benefits of the MultiEQ with the 688 as I would get with 2308CI

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by audyssey

Michael,

It would seem from your observations that the bass extension EQ filters that B&W is applying are somehow interfering with the distance estimation. There are phase issues involved any time a filter is applied and this could be the cause. It is perhaps made worse because of the particular position of the mic and sub. One thing to try, since you are in an experimental mood, is to run MultEQ with just one measurement (for simplicity), but by placing the mic about 1 m away from the sub. This will, of course, not work for creating good EQ filters but it will give us an indication if the distance issue is room-related or not.

Let me know...
Chris

Originally Posted by mtsag

Chris,

I did do that actually. I placed the mic about 80cm away (down at the sub's level) and Audyssey measured the distance at 3cm! I placed the left speaker next to the sub for comparison's sake and Audyssey measured the distance accurately. Then, at the same position I raised the tripod to ear level and measured again and there was still a discrepancy, albeit smaller (about 30cm).

I'm at my wit's end here... what does all of this mean?

Thanks again for your time,
Cheers,
Michael

Originally Posted by audyssey

Ahh.. Now I have a clue. You have the Denon 3808CI, right? I have heard from 3-4 other 3808 users with the same problem, but did not make the connection until your last post. Try this: when the mic is connected, scratch the top surface. Do you hear a noise from the subwoofer? The others did and it was traced to a corrupted firmware update that they had recently performed. Although there have been no Audyssey firmware changes, Denon has released a few since the product was shipped. What we found is that some who updated via a wireless connection had a corruption caused by bad packet handling of their internet service provider. In one case this happened for a wired connection as well.

If this is the case, then the only solution is to exchange your receiver as it can't be repaired by a new firmware load. That has to be handled through your Denon dealer.

Chris

Originally Posted by audyssey

New rules: Anyone who adds an "i" in MultEQ will be charged an additional fee for answers

I read a very funny sentence describing MultEQ in a british magazine: "Audyssey MultEQ is a fiendishly cunning, but annoyingly spelled system that corrects the acoustical problems in your room".

To answer your question, it's best to look at our website:

http://www.audyssey.com/products/consumer_ready.html

The 688 (or 1708) and the 2308 (or 888) both have MultEQ. That is the lower resolution of the technology that requires less DSP horsepower and can run on these models. The higher resolution version is MultEQ XT. The differences are outlined here:

http://www.audyssey.com/technology/multEQ_products.html

Chris

Originally Posted by Mupi

Chris
I wasnt asking about the difference between MultEQ and MultEQ XT

What I wanted to know was if the implementation of MultEQ in 2 models
like for example 688 and 2308 be of the same quality, even though the
2 receivers vary so much in the price.

In other words will I get the same quality EQ i.e same flatness with
the MultEQ on 688 and 2308 or will the 2308 do a better job.
I am only interested in 2ch music but will be using a sub as I have
bookshelf speakers.

Similarly will the MultEQ XT implementation in Onkyo 705 be same
as that in Denon 2808CI. If I can get the same quality EQ from both then
I may not spend the extra $$$ on 2808 as the 705 is more than
adequate for my needs.

Originally Posted by audyssey

The MultEQ algorithm is the same in all models that have it. There are some differences in the way each manufacturer created the interface for the user, but the EQ filter algorithms and the setup (distance, level, crossover) algorithms are identical across all MultEQ systems. Similarly, they are identical across all MultEQ XT systems.

Chris