"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1854

another thing that causes "distortion" is a live room where there are lots of reflective surfaces and barely anything absorbtive or diffusive in the room.

when that happens, the reflected sounds are stronger than the direct sound and the whole thing turns to mush and is very irritating to the ears.

then, one finds it impossible to listen to a movie at Reference Level.

 

i may be wrong, but i think that most movies' audio tracks already incorporate all the necessary acoustic ambiance for an excellent reproduction, and does not need more contribution or reinforcement from

room surfaces. some reflections are very well acceptable, but the main source of sound should, whenever possible, be direct sound, with a weaker part of reflected sound, and that, mainly coming from the rear

of the room.

 

I think there may be some misunderstanding of either terminology or of how Audyssey is working. Audyssey doesn't change any AVR settings except when it has done a calibration. During the cal, Audyssey ignores the AVR settings, so it doesn’t matter if your speakers are set to large, your crossovers set to 100Hz, your trims set to +9 and so on - Audyssey ignores all that, measures and then it sets the appropriate parameters based on its findings. Obviously it then HAS TO change the AVR settings to put the calibrated settings in.

 

It doesn't "keep changing" the settings - it does it the one time, after the cal.

 

In your example, it doesn't really matter what they are set to - you have them at 'small' but Audyssey measures the in-room response and then the AVR sets the crossovers, not Audyssey. This is an important distinction because the actual crossover setting is nothing at all to do with Audyssey. Audyssey simple reports back to the AVR the F3 (-3dB point) of the measured speaker and the AVR then sets the crossover according to its manufacturer's design. One problem is that some manufacturers decided that a F3 of 40Hz means that the speakers are "full range" (clearly ridiculous) and so it sets the mains as 'Large'. Recommendation is, of course, to use the sub to handle the bass and thus to manually set the XOs to, say, 80Hz.

 

Same with your centre channel. Audyssey won't "keep setting it to 40Hz" - it will only do that during the cal - the one time. In your case it has detected the actual in-room F3 at 40Hz. This happens to me too and, like you, I manually raise it afterwards.

 

But my point is, you only have to do this once (unless you re-run Audyssey). If your AVR is constantly changing your XOs, then it is faulty. But I don't think that's what you meant.

 

If you haven’t seen it already, the FAQ has some useful additional info on this:

 

c)1.   Why are my Crossovers set differently to my speaker manufacturer's specification?

c)2.   Why do I often see advice to raise the Crossovers to 80Hz?
 

c)3.   I have big tower speakers at the front. Shouldn't I set these to Large'?
 

c)4.   Is it OK to change the Crossovers from Audyssey's recommendation?
 

c)6.   Why is Audyssey setting different crossovers for my identical speakers?

True - but do you perceive 105dB in a cinema as different to 105dB at home?

Unintentionally, I'm sure, now you're into the esoterics of home theater palaces as opposed to a standard lvrm/fmrm environment. To me, that's the beauty of Audyssy which puts the sonic Humpty Dumpty back together again.

What I'm trying to indicate is, no matter how many times I set the AVR and calibrate with Audyssey, Audyssey keeps, admittedly, overriding the manually inputted AVR settings. I'm trying to tell Audyssey to listen up and Audyssey keeps ignoring the purposefully entered AVR settings. How can Audyssey call it bass management when Audyssey intentionally ignores user based, bass management instruction set?

The center channel is spec'd to 59Hz and Audyssey, after manual input, keeps overriding the setting and changing the center channel to 40Hz. Dang you Audyssey, the center channel only goes down to 59Hz, what are you doing with the extra, lost is space, 19Hz you directed to go to the center channel? And like a good boy, I try to bass manage the mains at 120Hz and Audyssey changes the speaker to "full range." Well poo, how can I bass manage the mains if Audyssey keeps making the mains "full range?"



http://www.avsforum.com/t/795421/official-audyssey-thread-faq-in-post-1/51750#user_c1

"The Crossover 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."


According to the above, I have to accept that the speakers are 19Hz/31% better then the reported manufacture specs?


In this case, Audyseey comes across as rogue instead of complimentary; bad Audyssey.



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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 7:11am

Being facetious here, we both know the wife is not going let that happen.



LOL!

(sorry, couldn't keep it in)

 

Absolutely. In my room, the bass is just unlistenable to if I switch Audyssey out. As for HT palaces, well, my HT must be one of the smallest dedicated HT rooms in the world I reckon - but it sounds superb though (mainly thanks to Audyssey XT32 and Pro) and, I guess, a good choice of speakers etc on my part.

You REALLY need to read the Setup Guide/FAQ and understand it before making these kind of statements.

SB

 

 

 

It's meant to work that way. It overrides the manually entered settings and enters the Audyssey settings. How could it work any other way? It can't 'remember' how you adjusted the settings after the last cal. EDIT: You seem to be conflating manual bass management and Audyssey bass management. You can have either one of the other but not both. Audyssey is managing your bass for you if you use Audyssey to calibrate and then have Audyssey turned on. Yes, you can override the Audyssey settings manually if you wish, eg by raising the XO's (see the FAQ for more info on that) but it should come as no surprise that if you run Audyssey again it sets its own settings and ignores your manual adjustments. Like I say, it's supposed to work that way.

 

 

Speaker specs mean very little. They are usually taken in an anechoic chamber. Audyssey is listening to the actual response in your room. In your room, with room gain, boundary reinforcement etc, the measured response is 40Hz.   If you change it to 60Hz, then run the cal again, Audyssey will still hear it giving 40Hz at -3dB - why wouldn’t it?

 

Audyssey didn't "direct" 19Hz to the centre channel - the centre channel is digging down to 40Hz because of the effects of the room on the speaker. If you measured the speaker outdoors, I can guarantee Audyssey will set it to something more like 60Hz.  I already explained what is happening wrt to the bass management.

 

The entire point of measuring is to find out what the speaker is doing in your room. If Audyssey just set the speaker to the manufacturer's spec (impossible anyway, but if it could...) what would be the point of measuring?

 

 

Yes, of course. No speaker is going to perform in a room the same way it performs in an anechoic space - the point of an anechoic space is that there is no room in effect. The manufacturer can’t spec the speaker for an actual room because he has no way of knowing what the end-user's room is going to be like, nor where the speakers are placed in the room. All you are seeing is the effect of the room on the speaker. Move the speaker so it is 5 feet from any wall and measure again and you will likely get closer to the manufacturer's spec of 59Hz. Take it outside and measure it and you almost certainly will. The beauty of Audyssey is that it measure the actual in-room response, in your room, with your speaker placement.

 

 

 

Not at all. It is working exactly the way the designers intended.

 

Look at the FAQ, especially this section:

 

C. Crossover Settings

Edited by kbarnes701 - 8/5/12 at 7:55am

Fair enough.

Absolutely I do as the ear and brain quite easily differentiate the differences of the venue's acoustics.

If Klipsch says my speaker is spec'd to a bottom of 59Hz, I'd sound silly telling people my center channel is tested down to <40Hz.


Which I have. As you suggest, it's no biggie as I bring up Marant'z menu, make speaker and audio changes in bass management and voila, done. And what I read is, any internal settings in the AVR are not messed with by Audyssey, yet every time I calibrate, Audyssey messes with any previous manual AVR input. My rub might be that I don't want to cancel the EQ affects of Audyssey but I'm under the impression that once I start changing settings by going into Manual Audyssey, Audyssey's EQ magically disappears as just the act of changing cross overs seems to change the sound quality Audyssy's set as opposed to simply managing the bass. There there's the setting that Audyssey shows and what shows in the AVR as these settings show to be different.

I'm looking at the Marantz setting list vs the Audyssey list; Audion and Speaker.


Then maybe one shouldn't reply if it's too basic as my question is asked after pouring over supplied literature by both Marantz and Audyssey and I've been weeks all over the Audyssey's web site trying to find an answer to my question as to the why of what's happening. I was invited by another to ask a question which I did. It's not nice to comment as you did in your above when I was invited by another to ask a question. This is why I hesitate to ask questions; lack of patience on the part of those supplying answers.

The gentlemanly arts says, if one doesn't have an answer, then politely say; "My apologies, I don't have an answer to your question." Or say nothing at all.


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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 12:55pm

The answers that have been given have been offered in the spirit of helping straighten out what we are all perceiving as misconceptions on your part as to what is happening. It has been correctly pointed out that speakers perform differently in rooms than manufacturer's specs might predict. I have THX certified speakers designed to be crossed at 80Hz, yet I regularly am offered crossovers below that frequency. No big deal, I simply raise the crossover.

Jeff

These types of responses are not constructive for if I was a sound engineer, I'd have the equipment and knowledge in how to do this. Realistically speaking, consumers have to take manufacture's specs as fact or we're pretty much in a sonic swamp on matters of this kind. I'm not a sound or speaker engineer and I don't have the equipment to test the room characteristics and apply the readings to the sonic characteristics of the speaker.

I have the ability to walk a room in hard shoes and listen for echos. I have eyes and a brain that will tell me how a room is going to react to how speakers are placed in a room; visualize the flow of sound. I don't have measurement gear to get sound readings on a room nor the software to create a custom EQ curve for room, speakers used and each individual listener's hearing deficiencies. Even as a 3-D thinker, the variables are too great for a layperson to deal with and be expected to win.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 1:31pm

knock it off and move on

Thank-you for your above. Even if invited, I think it better not to ask questions.

Oh, I get it now! Thanks to all who replied. So this is is another thing I will look in to. I reckoned 30 cm was going to be more than adequate, but it's going to be tight... I need 12 cm for thermal insulation alone (passive house standard) so only 18 cm left for "suspension" (3 cm minimum, ideally 5 cm) of the concrete floor. Need 2 cm for subfloor, to poor the concrete on. Concrete needs to be 10 cm especially with floor heating in it.

I do like the idea of this "resonating floor"!

I'm thinking that you're not understanding the Marantz manual. Nobody else does either, so don't feel bad. As I remember there's a manual EQ section, and that will blow out Audyssey, but you can make all the setup changes you want (crossover and such) without bothering Audyssey. ask about it in a Marantz thread in the AMP section here.

I'm going to guess that you have your center somewhere other than free air positioned, like back in a cabinet, or against a wall or something - common for centers and can cause the low extension you're seeing. This can lead to problems with subs, where the room gain puts measured low frequency output below port tuning and you cause distress to the sub since Audyssey will try to EQ it down to some unrealistic level.

Main thing is, you're problems are more AVR related than Audyssey, so you need some more familiarity with the Marantz, and how your specific AVR incorporates Audyssey - all AVRs have their own way of doing it, so best to seek out AVR specific info.

Forgot about the F2. BTW, Mark in the Seaton Submersive thread on avs indicates that the HPi (HP International 240V version) is ready, I think.


Max

Thanks for the thought. The center channel (Klipsch RC-64 II) is on top of the entertainment credenza, out in the open, away from the wall, speaker cover over the edge of the credenza. TV is on top of the heavy wood, center channel cabinet, cloth underneath the speaker cabinet.


Hence the need on my part to carefully manage the bass so the room, speakers and the subs are all in harmony with each other as Audyssey EQ's the sub down -12dB and this with the sub gain set to 4 as opposed to the requested 5 or halfway. When I finish relocating the rear surrounds, the next time the room is calibrated, I'll set each subs gain on 3.


I've been all over the AVR manual on this matter to the point of being ready to do presentations on the need for bass management.

Thanks for your above thoughtful thoughts.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 2:03pm

You're really not reading what people are telling you, are you?

 

He did have an answer - you're not reading what we are telling you. I suggest reading the FAQ from top to bottom, and then browsing the web site Markus posted the link to. We're just going round in circles now.

@BeeMan458
You should not only read but try to understand, what's been said.
Although you stated, that you have read through a lot of what's been said, your responses and statements seem to show, that you haven't (fully) understood, whats been provided in terms of information.

Audyssey tries to establish a reference by measuring the system, speaker and room situation in the users specific environment and, after collecting a set of data, providing specific information about the given situation. Neither does Audyssey know, what speakers are connected, what the in room settings of your specific system are, how the placement and seating situations are and what your personal preferences are. As a measurement and diagnostic system Audyssey doesn't need this input, because it tries to diagnose the complete system by collection information through specifc measurement methods and then provides by complex calculations and algorithms a set of data and parameters (filter coefficients) to correct - to a certain extent depending on the behavior of the given environment - at least some of the problems found to the device its runnig on.
In doing its job it ignores everything set personally by the user on purpose to always start from the same basic set of parameters.
The devices firmware then decides, how to interpret and use the data provided by Audyssey.
The user then may adjust the setup and paramters provided to adjust the system afterwards to its personal and subjective liking.

The manufacturers of your components try to supply comparable data, which have been measured in a certain and very specific testing environment, which should allow the user to compare and chose a system in comparison to the same set of data measured under the same circumstances from a different manufacturer. Because this is marketing material too, those data provided are usually additionally "tuned" to be favorable to the manufacturers products. They do not represent - most of the time - the set of data obtainable in your specific room, speaker and seating placement, because they are not know to the manufacturer or the testing institute. This is where Aydussey comes into play, which tries to compensate for any deficiencies found in your personal listening environment.



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Edited by gurkey - 8/6/12 at 12:11am

My last attempt at this: the manufacturer's specs are taken in an anechoic chamber. The specs are different when the speaker is used in a room.

 

1. The manufacturer's specs are, if reliable, usually done in an anechoic environment or at some arbitrary "domestic listening room."  Since all real rooms differ from both, the quoted specs are not to be relied on.  If the measurements are done in an anechoic chamber, they are useful for comparison purposes only and are not directly predictive of performance in anyone's particular room.  (This assumes the specs are honest and competent but many are not.)

 

2. That is what Audyssey and similar products are designed to do.  Measure actual performance and make the necessary and possible corrections.

I get this part for this is a concept I understood twenty years ago. Thank-you for your efforts. FWIW, because of the results of the encouraged question, I've been given a warning. I'm very uncomfortable continuing with the question's dialogue.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 2:46pm