"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1629

I take issue with that pejorative characterization. Are you suggesting there is NOT science and research behind their choice of speaker locations and processing methods?

You may disagree with the conclusions they draw but it's not a canard.

Rather than reading just 256x or 512x would like you to believe it does.

Would you like to elaborate?

I only know what I have read. I don't know how it compares with XT32 or even if it does - but I would enjoy those additional features such as the virtual speaker placement options if they were built into XT32. That's where I'd like to see XT32 going if it's true that they can't refine the filters any further - then let's have loads of these useful additional features!

Hi there, care to expand on what you'd like to tell here?

Sure, but based on a naive understanding of acoustics rather than of corporate strategy

My point is that frequency response and even what MultEQ does in the time domain, whatever it is, are not the only relevant properties of audio. There's spectral balance (at different volumes), there's spatial balance (at different volumes), there's reflections (in and of themselves and when compared to direct sound), there's speaker location and orientation, and much, much more of lesser apparent importance.

EDIT: I wonder if the Schroeder frequency should have been included in the above list; does anyone know if and how we perceive a lower vs a higher Schroeder frequency? markus767?

Biased to A., eh? No wonder!

Really? Because I have been objecting to your pejorative characterizations, but had the thought that pointing things like that out were out of line in a friendly discussion like this. Lighten up. No one is trying to offend your, apparently, delicate sensibilities.

Jeff

say what?

do you think Roger's characterization was NOT pejorative towards DSX or Audyssey?

trust me, my sensibilities are unoffended

I think his assessment was accurate. I would have said ... and did a page or so ago say ... it differently. Less involved customers might not notice or care, but most of us on this thread have had revelatory experiences with their room correction technology. To have lived and breathed "reference" (and striving for reference) for as long as many of us have, DSX comes as a surprise. Why would serious home theater lovers who have gotten as close to what the mixer heard as we ever will - short of being in the mixing stage - now want our theaters to sound like one of the great performance halls of the world?

I understand that Audyssey needed to pivot, but fixing a problem that didn't exist seems like an odd way to go. DEQ was a very "sound" addition to their reference product.

Jeff

Nope, and nor do other room correction systems like Dirac and ARCOS.

Bonjour Keith,


The next time I go into Louvres, you can be sure I'll stop by la Joconde and I'll put by brown tinted glasses on - as and I'm sorry -, I prefer this color for sun glasses... and I'll post a report here as to how people looked at me...

Bon WE Ã* Toi,

Hugo

Then Audyssey is best buy! On another note, IMHO even if there was no MultEQ, DynEQ alone would be worth a million by itself! I know, I know what you'd like to say, I'm just theoretical!

On a third note, I always wonder how such highly reputed makers like Yami and Pio with their less capable Room Correction systems are able to survive on the market? No need to reply!

Well, on a last note for today, ever since I got engaged with Audyssey, my amazement has always been focused on DeQ! IMHO, while EQing by MultEQ is a rather simple and obvious approach, the things DynEQ does to our listening environment is a kinda magic, especially when it does it in real-time, i.e. putting program materials on the proper loudness curve at a given Master Volume setting in regards of being loud or soft. Kudos to Audyssey!

My comments were in no way intended as pejorative. That they may cast a negative light on DSX or Audyssey is the consequence of hyperbolic advertising. That was their deliberate choice.


Not in the least. I only take issue in their claims that it enhances accuracy, which is patently absurd once one simply listens to it.


If it walks like a duck...

It may not in that case. I would submit that most home theaters have multiple seats. Furthermore, it is also the case that even the sound quality in the lone MLP can be significantly improved with the proper coordination of multiple subs.

Right. And you seem to be about about your preferences in your MLP. Hence the confusion.

Sorry. If you are making a point, it is lost on me.

Doesn't it makes you wonder why no other room correction system has such a feature?

sigh... not to belabor this, but since you asked:


and this is the part about "superimposing your own value judgement" on what they are doing. What you think DSX is supposed to do doesn't fit into what you feel "serious home theater lovers" should want and/or enjoy, so you don't understand why they would even do it. There is clearly an implied value judgement there. Thus, the "irony" that you perceive exists only within that context of your projected values/desires.

to me (or Rene or presumably the many many folks who love their DSX setups), it doesn't seem ironic at all. It's just another step in Audyssey's stable of offerings to give kick-ass sound to their customers, any of which you can choose to use or not. There are probably plenty of "purists" who think the same thing about Dynamic EQ.



see, that's where the disagreement is, and I don't think Roger (not to put words into his mouth) agrees. But using Roger's words to describe the "problem":


he just doesn't happen to think Audyssey's solution does a good job or is the right approach.

so the "problem" does indeed exist, it just may not FOR YOU... which is totally cool BTW It doesn't bother me at all that you don't want to use DSX in your system.

the problem, as Audyssey's marketing copy on the DSX page states it, is how to make the home theater experience "more immersive and lifelike" and to increase the "perceived sense of envelopment".

You may have the (rare) luxury of a fabulous setup in a great room with perfectly positioned speakers, so may not feel this is a problem FOR YOU, but there are many rooms and setups where this is a problem, where it feels like you aren't fully immersed and you get distracted by "gaps" between the fronts and surrounds, where the speakers are too localized and get "distracting" when effects pan around the room. DSX and the "surround envelopment processing" in my experience really does a great job of mitigating this, and the many happy users would agree as well. What Keith perceives as a "negative impact on the surrounds" for many people makes the surrounds disappear and become less distracting, allowing them to be more "immersed" or "enveloped" by the movie.

Some (you, Keith, Roger) don't like it, and that's fine too. And certainly an alternate solution is to work on room acoustics and optimizing your "standard" 7.1 layout, which probably can also achieve the same goal when well executed.

But it just strikes me from your "irony" comment and other jabs at DSX that your feelings go beyond "I don't like it" to "I don't think they should have even done it in the first place because it's antithetical to what *I* feel the company is supposed to be about". And that distinction is what I think rubbed Rene the wrong way to begin this "brouhaha".

You're right. I'm wrong.

Jeff

well jeez, now who's the one getting offended and not wanting to have a friendly discussion?

necesitas otra cerveza, amigo!

What?

My apologies, its 75dB not minus.
Yea i read on the manual that after setting up the auto-cal not to touch the settings on the sub.


I have a THT subwoofer, its a huge 36x36x24 subwoofer. They are like the Danley DTS-10 subs, the THT is considered a monster in the world of Folded horned loaded Subwoofers. The sub does not have an inbuilt amp, but is powered by an external amp the Dayton SA1000.

Now when i turn on the Audyssey auto-calibration, during the very first step at Subwoofer Level Matching, I start the SW Test after which the subwoofer roars for few seconds and then i get a message saying
"Please adjust the level of your active subwoofer unit so that the level indicates approx. 75dB
In this case do i have to turn down the gain knob on my external amp? And when i do turn it down to bring down the value to 75dB (which is initially 98d marked in a red box), when i bring down the gain knob on the amp the numbers slowly start falling, and by the time it shows 75dB, the gain knob on the amp is almost 1 on a scale of 10. Thus making the sound from speakers and subwoofer like a hand held radio after tha auto-calibration.

I used to have an Onkyo SR-TX604 amp earlier, which also used audyssey calibration, but with that.. the speakers/subs sounded better than the imax theater.


Again, as i said, i cannot set the gain on the sub, as there is no knob or control of the amp on the sub. My subwoofer has an external Rack mountable amp the Dayton SA1000.



And here's the picture of the subwoofer.



I am not sure, is it cos the sound coming from the subwoofer is so massive the audyssey reads it as above reference level??

I do get a feeling I am doing something wrong, audyssey has tuned many a THT subs, i am not sure where i am messing up.

XT32 on my 4311 sets the gain on my Submersive HP to a few clicks from off as well, and I have seen alot of similar posts questioning whether this is typical, so that's not so shocking. I am curious whether Audyssey set the crossovers and speaker levels like it did in the pictures you posted, or did you manually adjust afterwords? After I run Audyssey on my system, its sets all my speakers to large and crosses them all over at 40Hz, then I need to manually adjust them to small and then cross them over at like 80 or 90 hz after the set up is complete. If you have capable full range tower speakers I would wonder why its crossing them over so high and crossing over the main L/R channel the highest.

No, i have not made any manual adjustments after the auto-calibration, infact after the auto-calibration, i am sitting on the internet looking all round for tips completely dejected with the audyssey output.

Yes the speakes are full tower, and extremely capable, they are Definitive Technology Mythos ST. After auto-cal they were automatically set to small. I did not do anything.
What is the point of high end sub eq calibration when Audyssey turns down the entire sub bass. its as good as hearing audio on a hand held radio.

I am not an Audyssey expert but I think there is something funny going on. Maybe someone else can chime in, but I think its weird where it has your crossovers set. If they are full range speakers, IIRC, it should be setting them to large and then crossing them at 40 Hz, and then you manually reset them to small and cross them over higher. IMO, this merits some investigation.

I have an MCACC system and I've switched it out for Audyssey XT, and I can't tell a difference. Both setups sound equal to me. Both sound better than no processing. Part of this could be that I am rather lucky to have a good sounding room as far as bass goes. The room design more or less has it's own bass traps as a side effect of the strange architecture. Maybe Audyssey would do better with a more troublesome room, but in my setup, it doesn't sound any different from my Pioneer setup.

I didn't see any new preamp/processors with XT32 announced at CES. Did I miss an announcement?

Steven

I was summing up what I read in your post.

I had explained my position on DSX, and even allowed that others may like it. Your post, tome that it was, not only explained why you were right, but why I was wrong.

That is not the way to discuss or have a friendly discussion.


Creo que no, senor.

Jeff

well I'm sorry you feel that way but that's a total mischaracterization of my post. No need to be petulant. As you say -- I "even allowed" that you can still NOT like it if all you got out of it is that you feel I think you are "wrong" for not liking DSX, then you aren't even trying to read what I'm saying.

obviously when you accused ME of being the one who has delicate sensibilities you were accidentally looking in the mirror