"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1708

I also turn the fridge breaker off when calibrating.

For those Canucks here, Canada (it's CRTC dept.) has also passed a regulation forcing broadcasters to that effect. They have until 09/2012.

Saints, forgive this OT post. I used to be a serious fish keeper and breeder in another life. Besides the potentially damaging effect on your sound quality, it really isn't a good idea to have a fish tank in the room where your HT is. Fish are especially sensitive to vibrations through water and the bass in your room will likely be causing the fish some considerable stress. This can manifest itself in a higher propensity to disease, problems with fins and scales and a shorter lifespan. Have you noticed any behavioural changes in the fish when your system is playing? Are they continuing to shoal (if a shoaling variety), or are they trying to hide, for example? Or any other signs? I also assume you turn off the tank lights during a movie and this can disorientate the fish if it is done in a fairly random way. It would be much better, both for your SQ and your fish, if you could relocate them.

Hope you don't mind me pointing this out.

I have the Onkyo TX-NR3009 receiver with Goldenear Triton two towers, Supersat 50c center, and Supersat 50 rears. With Audyssey 32 engaged I was hearing noise in all of my speakers even when no dialog was coming out of them. I reset the receiver and did manual corrections and the noise is gone and sounds much better. Very clear and dynamic. I was suprised, but I know some people hate room correction software. I have the latest firmware on my 3009 as well.

Hi Saints, I slipped through a crack in the time-space continuum and entered real life for a while, so I have come to this late, but have a few observations....


You do know that 2EQ doesn't touch the bass at all? So any comparisons between that and XT or XT32 aren't all that useful. Chances are, with your former, un-EQd bass, there was a room mode causing a peak (or peaks) and you had either gotten used to them or you actually liked them. Now you have gone to much flatter bass, you may 'miss' those unnatural peak boosts and believe your bass is 'lacking' somewhere. Give it a week or two to listen to the flatter, EQd bass before coming to any definite conclusions. What you may find is that you come to prefer the flatter bass - it should sound tighter, more accurate, more musical, more rhythmic and so on. If, after a week or two of listening, you feel you need a little more 'slam' from your bottom end, then turn up the trim a little.


This is, as others have said, quite possibly to do with Audyssey's 'normalisation' where it can apply a boost to your sub that overdrives it at a certain frequency. Have you tried moving your sub to a different place in the room (even temporarily) to see if the problem goes away? Even moving it a foot can make a difference. You can always move it back again if necessary but it may prove the point. The better the room and speaker placement is before you run Audyssey the better Audyssey can do the calibration.

I noticed in another post that you were using Tron as your test disc. Try something else - Tron has massive amounts of ludicrously low bass and, from what I have read in the Monster Bassheads Thread, it also has a lot of LF distortion in places. It may not be the best disc to use for evaluation. See if you can get a good result when you try something like Master & Commander or Real Steel or Iron Man and then go back to Tron later.


Again, the 609 with 2EQ isn't a reliable comparison with the 4311 with XT32. That 'punch' you mention might just be a room mode that happens to coincide with your preference. If you had OmniMic or REW, you would be able to see it, but I see from other posts that you don't so that won't get us any further.


Theresa is very knowledgeable wrt to speakers (she builds them) and I think her point about port chuffing is a good one. Re-run Audyssey again as you suggest and then report back. Even if it isn't a solution, it may help point us to a solution.


This is just about the worst place you can sit for good bass. I know, because I have to sit close to the back wall too. It took me a long time, plus the addition of another sub, to get good bass in my room because of that. It may also explain why you were hearing that 'punch' before - you were sitting in a big bass peak caused by the room and now XT32 has flattened it down and you feel something is lacking.


12 inches should be enough. A blanket is worth trying - it won't do any harm.
Is there any possibility you can move the couch forward, even if only by 6 inches?


The 4311 shouldn't sound bright in comparison with the 609. This could point to a measuring issue. I am sure you have read the Setup Guide and followed it closely, but have another read to be sure. Make sure you mic is pointing directly up to the ceiling and that it is at tweeter height (which should be the same as ear height, but if it isn't, try the mic at tweeter height and see what difference it makes). It may be that, if the mic is off axis, Audyssey is boosting the highs to compensate.


If you get a second sub, it ideally should be identical to the first sub. Audyssey will EQ to the capabilities of the *less capable* sub so if the two subs are quite different, you could be 'wasting' some of the capability of the better sub. I proved this to myself very dramatically when I introduced a smaller second sub to my system in an attempt to smooth the bass over a bigger area. It achieved that but with a very noticeable loss of grunt from my much bigger SVS sub.

Don't lose heart - you will get a great sound eventually I am sure - most people's experience with Audyssey is that it can sometimes take a lot of experimentation and tweaking before the best possible outcome is achieved. You have a great resource in this thread with some very knowledgeable and helpful guys.

The problem is that you can't manually create correction filters for your speakers/room. The better approach would have been to try to find out why this noise was present and how to eliminate it while still gaining the substantial benefits of XT32. XT32 does not normally induce 'noise' in the speakers so there was some problem or fault somewhere.

How would you eliminate the noise with xt32 engaged? I ran it the correct way. I use dynamic volume for tv material and no dynamic volume for blu-ray. Dynamic eq was on. I feel it's a defect in the software and needs a firmware upgrade.

I had an Integra DHC-80.2 and experienced the same thing with Audyssey.

I have no noise with Audyssey. If your tweeters are not working properly it might be possible that Audyssey is boosting the highs, thereby noise, to compensate.

Ive also had a Marantz AV7005 which only has xt and didn't have the noise issue

im replacing my energy take classic fronts with pioneer towers. after i rerun audyssey should the towers be set to large or small? also should the crossover be at 80?

Yes - set your towers to small (assuming that you also have a subwoofer in your system) and if Audyssey sets your crossover at <80 raise the crossover to 80. If Audyssey sets the crossover >80, leave it at that setting.

Do you have noise with mute on? Do you have noise with all sources in clouding those with no input attached. I suggest xt32 has upped your high freq response to give proper balance and you have some noise in on or more of your inputs.

Engage reeq and use a thx movie codec and see sounds.

Blanket over tank will help

It can't be a defect in the software or we would all be experiencing it.

I don't know how to eliminate it because we'd need more information, but I do know it is not behaving as it should. Audyssey does not induce noise into all the speakers! Switching XT32 off isn't solving the problem - it's avoiding it. And you lose one of the best, if not THE best, features of the unit.

Audyssey measures the in-room frequency response of the speakers and reports its findings to the AVR/AVP which then sets a crossover based upon the manufacturer's design decisions.

The XO thus reported will be what Audyssey 'hears' in the actual room at the time of measurement and may differ greatly from the speaker manufacturer's specification, which are usually quoted from testing in an anechoic chamber (ie with the room effect removed) or are just wildly optimistic for marketing purposes.

There are various good reasons to use a XO of 80Hz or thereabouts:

1. By doing so, you will relieve the strain on the main speakers from trying to reproduce very low frequencies. This can help the speakers perform better in the mid and higher frequencies.

2. By doing so you also relieve the considerable strain on the amplifier that it experiences when trying to produce very high SPLs at very low frequencies, such as often found in movie content. It takes simply huge amounts of amplifier power to generate 105 dB at 20Hz or even lower - the amp in the subwoofer has been designed in conjunction with the subwoofer itself to drive the speaker to those levels at those frequencies. By handing off these frequencies to the sub, it greatly eases the strain on your AVR or external amplifier and this will have a beneficial effect on the way it drives the other speakers in the system.

3. By using a dedicated sub (or subs) to produce the low bass, you are also able to place the sub/s in the optimum room position wrt to room modes. Front speakers have to be positioned for imaging and the best place for a bass speaker is not usually the best place for imaging. By crossing over to a sub at 80Hz, you can place the main speakers in the best place and also the sub in the best place too.

4. If you have Audyssey XT or MUltEQ, the filter resolution for the bass frequencies is much higher than it is for the satellites, so handing more of the frequencies off to the sub lets you benefit from that greater filter resolution over a wider range of frequencies. With XT32, the filter resolution for the sub is the same as for the satellites, so that consideration doesn't apply to anyone fortunate enough to have XT32.

You may also want to have a look at what Audyssey say about setting speaker crossovers in this article by Chris Kyriakakis, Audyssey's CTO, where he discusses whether to set speakers to 'small or large':

http://www.audyssey.com/blog/2009/05/small-vs-large/

It's also worth mentioning that if you decide to change any of the XOs determined by Audyssey, that it is always OK to RAISE the XOs from those suggested but never to LOWER them. This is because Audyssey corrects down to the -3dB point of the speaker's frequencies response, so if you lower the XO from Audyssey's suggested setting you will create an uncorrected 'hole' in the frequency response. It's fine to raise them and doing so does not harm the Audyssey calibration in any way at all.

Finally, it may be worthwhile to compare any crossovers allowed under the above rules to see which might be preferred, particularly in the case of XT32. Just remember not to lower them from Audyssey's setting!

Guys -

I'm running into some isssues with Audyssey and need a little guidance. I recently switched out two components in my system.

1) Put in new Emotiva XPA-5 Amp.
2) Have new Front L&R Speakers. (Vienna Beethoven).

My issue is this. After removing my buttkicker amp from the chain, and running Audyssey with both my A7s-450 subs to my SMS-1 Velodyne, My Audyssey results have my Sub's trim at -15DB.

First thing I tried was turning down the volume/gain on the SMS-1 without much effect.

What do I need to do to get my two subs blending properly with my new speakers? Right now, it sounds "off". I shouldn't have to re-calibrate my my subwoofers all over again independtly of Audyssey, right? Hoping not.

Could a bad audyssey mic cause sound issues? I called Onkyo about the noise I was hearing in my speakers with audyssey on. They said I may have a bad mic.

What kind of noise, exactly?

A static/whisper type noise.

Almost like a wind blowing sound

You mean static as in steady, not as in the sound of static clicks, right? Do you mean hiss?

You also said:
Have you tried it with DEQ turned off?

You said the noise is present with no signal. But is it the same from all sources? Try a digital source in Pause, as opposed to an analog source. Same?

jslaw, let's call it hiss. Is the hiss still there if you disconnect all source cables and set the Master Volume to 0 dB?

It's only there when something is playing. Otherwise the speakers are silent. It is a hiss sound. With audyssey off and something is playing it sounds clean/clear.

Maybe the calibration would yield better results, but the results are irrelevant to what goes on in the room acoustically when the blanket is removed. Remember, the OP has a hard flat surface at the point of first reflection on one side and may have a hard and nearly flat surface (blinds, unspecified) on the other side.

This exsessive hissing may also be a problem in your AVR apart from Audyssey. If nothing helps you may have to contact your local service center, but before that you still have a good chance to do a "microprosessor reset" and rerun Audyssey. Report back please!

I think it's an audyssey issue.. I'll rerun it again and see what happens. If it happens again I know it's audyssey software.

Lookin' forward to your results, but please make sure you do a 'microprocessor reset" before running Audyssey again!

I did that last night. And it sounds great without so I'm hesitant to rerun audyssey but I will.

Hey guys,

Been playing with the placement of my main speakers and wanted some opinions. I have a 92" projection screen with the mains currently positioned directly on either side of the screen and toed in towards MLP. My seating is one row of three seats centered on the screen about 9ft away. I have room to spare on either side of the screen to space the mains out further so the soundstage isn't so narrow.

Does anyone know if there is a recommended distance/equation to determine distance the mains should be in relation to the sides of the screen for movies? Is it better to have a wide or narrow soundstage for movies?

Just trying to get a feel if the speakers should be as close as possible to the sides of the screen to match up perfectly with what's happening in the movie......or if having a wider soundstage (moving speakers further to the sides) is more suggested for better envelopment during movies?

Thanks for your input/thoughts.