"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1855

so let's start with a littlevocabulary The setting for sub and other speakers is typically referred to as somthing like calibration level or just "level." It is not EQ. EQ is changing specific frequencies while not changing others. Like turning up only 80 Hz (a bass frequency) but NOT turning up the whole sub.

Second, I don't recall what your system is but if it's a Denon and you are at -12, your sub is probably too loud. Plus or minus 12 is the max on Denons and if you're at the max you don't know how far below max you might be supposed to be if the equipment had the adjustment range. There is no standard or rule among powered subs that says something like half a volt will yield 96 decibels at one meter without room reinforcement. Nor is there a rule that says that the sub should have any specific output with its volume controls set at any particular place. That means that the recommendation to start at about half is just a recommendation, reasonably likely to work much of the time, but may not work in a particular situation dependin on the sub and the room and where the sub is placed in the room. So likelihood may be that you need to turn down the sub and re-calibrate.

Now how much you may need to turn down depends on how the sub's gain structure works and things as simple as what kind of potentiometer is under that knob. Some use linear potentiometers. At their halfway points, these devices are allowing half of the power presented to them to pass through. Half is three decibels. On the other hand logarithmic potentiometers would allow one tenth of the power presented to them to pass if set at the halfway point. That's 10 decibels. bottom line for us in the real world is that the position of an analog volume control has no known or predictable meaning. We have to figure it out experimentally. Admittedly less straightforward than changing the volume in your car but fundamentally the same thing.

We can't blame Audyssey, Denon, Onkyo or anybody else for the ultimately minor difficulties that come from the fact that every sub is different, which I think is what you are doing. For maybe half a million dollars we could get a company to design,obtain all neessary governmental approvals for, devise a manufacturing line for and build one receiver that would perfectly mesh with whatever other equipment we currently have in whatever sized room we currently use for whatever listening levels we prefer (I listen a lot quieter than a lot of people here).

Or EQ'g could be a range of frequency, depending on the acuity of the board one is doing the EQ'g on.


The sub is not causing any trouble. I have no complaint with the sub. I'm not blaming the subs for anything but doing what they were bought to do. The subs are well behaved. The subs are happy, happy, hap-pi subs. Now on the other hand, regarding bass management, getting Marantz and Audyssey to play and get along well with each other is another story. The root of the problem is, nobody believes me so it must be me and not the interaction between Marantz and Audyssey. I get it.

Please, I'm happy with the answers. Everybody has tried their best. It's all good. I'm good. Thank-you for your thoughtful effort.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 3:10pm

The warning was not for asking a question. Assume we don't know your breadth and depth of knowledge, deduce from the answers youve received so far what we all think you know and don't know, and ask agaIn in a manner that takes that into account. If you receive an answer that presumes you know less or more than you do, tell us and ask again.

Jeff

Please don't do that as the warning was the direct conversational result of responding to a request to ask an esoteric question.


The conversation has become circular. Based on everything I've read on the part of Audyssey and Marantz, in my case, the two are fighting each other. At this point, you and others don't believe me so the conversation becomes circular as my personal experiences are deemed non-consequential. I'm okay with my above and I'll find a workaround or I'll fail to find a workaround, it's all good. Thank-you for your thoughtful efforts to respond to my question.

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Audyssey. Having seen the -12dB, intuitively knowing what I was being informed of, automatically turned the sub gain down a step and as posted earlier, when finished repositioning the rear surrounds, I'll further turn the subs gain down and at that time, effect another calibration effort. It's a bit of a pain to run Audyssey as I have to cover the parrot, unplug the freezer in the kitchen, turn the A/C unit off, make sure environmental noises outside are under control, close any ventilation windows, chase the wife and cell phone out of the house, tell the 24yr old to keep the SPL of his gaming efforts down, all the while, listening for extraneously introduced environmental noises while running Audyssey and when finished with the calibration effort, ramp the household back up again.

Audyssey is also turning the center channel down -11.5dB and setting the crossover to 40dB while the center channel is set to small. In order to keep my old man ears happy, the center channel setting needs to be turned back up 8db. I'm actually on top of this stuff as best as one can. Part of the problem that I see, some here think I haven't been doing my homework. As I posted earlier, behind the scenes, I've been working on this conflict question for several weeks and only asked because I was invited to ask a question. If I hadn't been invited to ask a question, I wouldn't have asked as from my efforts, I realized the question was esoteric in nature and an answer would be hard in coming.

Thanks for the insight efforts regarding the sub's gain setting.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/5/12 at 4:16pm

Those of you with brighter sounding Klipsch speakers, (RF3, RC3 in my case), do you prefer the audessey reference (movie) curve or the flat(music) curve for movie viewing ? I find that my sound system is a little bit more dull in the high frequency area than what i prefered with the pioneer advanced mcacc setup. This goes for music listening as well.

Is the movie curve similar to pioneer's x-curve where it's a -3 or -6db rolloff on the high end ? I wonder if turning on the music curve would offer better high end ?

Please see the FAQ, here, for more info on this:

 

a)7.   What are the Audyssey 'Movie' and 'Music' curves?

It's all good markus767. Please reread my last post to you. Thank-you for your thoughtful efforts.

 

Excellent. Glad it is all good and you are happy with the setup. Enjoy your listening!  "Our work here is done...."

Uh-oh... I feel expense coming on :)  I must resist, I must resist, I must.....

 

I've measured for the HP and it won't fit. Well, one will but two won't. I can accommodate two F2s though - the extra height isn't an issue for me. I assume that if the 240V version is ready for the HP, it will also be ready for the F2 as they use the same amp?

^^^

What I might add to your above thought, folks should check levels after calibration for if people don't check the levels settings, they won't know to make manual changes to the gain on their sub/subs.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/6/12 at 6:12am

Any level changes after calibration should be done with the receiver/processor trim controls as opposed to the gain controls on the sub (or sub amp). However Markus' point is that if the trim control is maxed after calibration, it is possible/likely that the level is wrong because it needed to be greater than +/-12dB (+/-15 in some cases I think) and couldn't. Dialing in the sub's gain settings is the whole point of the level match screen in XT 32 that is done before the calibration. Pre-XT 32, it was recommended that a one-point calibration be done to see where the sub trim would be and adjust the sub's gain accordingly.

Jeff

If doing it the way you suggest, the consumer won't know which way to go as on screen, Audyssey asks the user to set the sub's gain at 50% and provides a graphic showing a twelve O'clock position for the gain indicator for the initial calibration run. One has to run Audyssey first, check the reported levels that were set and then adjust according to what Audyssey reports back in: Audyssey > Parameter Check > Levels. It's quid pro quo. Then rerun the calibration program.

Overall, apparently, our living room runs hot as all the speaker levels are leveled down to almost max settings. The sub being leveled down the maximum possible. One won't know this until first running the Audyssey calibration routine. The sub is the only speaker a user can change the gain on.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/6/12 at 6:49am

Gear with MultEQ XT 32 has a level match screen at the beginning of the calibration that can be used to get the sub's gain within range. For gear without XT 32, simply do a one position calibration (to cut down on the time), make any sub volume changes (on the sub) to get the receiver/processor sub trim within range, and then do a full calibration.

Use these instructions and not the manufacturer's generic instructions. 50% is a rough starting point. These instructions will help you dial it in correctly.

\Jeff

f)3.   How do I set the controls on my subwoofer before running MultEQ?

f)4.   If I want to run my subs a little 'hot' where should I make the changes?

 

e)6.   What do I do if my trim levels are at the limits of their adjustment ('maxed out')?

An excellent suggestion in your above but advice has to mirror user experience level and the total neophyte won't have a clue as to your above. This is a short fall regarding the initial Audyssey user instruction set. Maybe Audyssey will include your above suggestion in their on screen user instruction set by including a pre-calibration, sub, level test so the user can set their sub to a calibrated level, before the calibration session begins.

In the short, there's nothing telling a neophyte to make additional checks on the sub's gain or the reported sub level by Audyssey.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/6/12 at 7:35am

It is the manufacturer and not Audyssey that supplies the "initial instruction set" and they are not great. Some are worse than others. XT 32 does have a pre-test sub level calibration screen. Lesser "flavors" than XT 32 do not, so that's where the above suggestion comes in.

This thread was initially supported by Audyssey because the gear makers' instructions were so bad. However none of this will ever make it into the manufacturers' instructions. Sad but true.

Jeff

Sounds like somebody needs to smack somebody, to get somebody to get off their tails.

In the meantime, the average Joe consumer is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to getting the most out of their system. Most consumers today expect life to be no more complicated than plug-n-play.

Me? I'm a typical nerd. I don't mind spending four or five weeks to learn which switch needs to be flipped. This is a good thing to tell the wife, after getting married.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/6/12 at 7:51am

 

This is what a) this thread, b) the Setup Guide and c) the FAQ are for. Almost every question that you, and others, have asked is answered in one, or all, of those. No manufacturer will ever provide a set of instructions as detailed and comprehensive as the Setup Guide and FAQ, which have evolved over a long time based on actual user experience and feedback. Not to mention, of course, all the help on the Official Ask Audyssey site.

 

No need to spend 5 weeks - you can read through the entire FAQ in a couple of hours - 99% of everything you need to know to set up Audyssey is in there. For the other 1%, we have this thread.

 

Audyssey FAQ Linked Here. Revealed: Answers To The 57 Questions People Ask Most About Audyssey!

Going backwards, FWIW, my initial question was never answered. It's all good and we're now moving forward. As I posted, I'll find a workaround to my question. Again, it's all good.

Neophytes don't have a clue, nor do they intuitively know to come here or Audyssey's web site for further instruction clarification. My introduction to AVS was trying to find an answer to the sound quality of a Marantz receiver. Never did get a cogent response but that too is history best not revisited. Folks here post from assumptions (and it's okay to assume) based on levels of experience and based on comments I've read, have forgotten how experienced they are and how inexperienced the neophyte is. You asked me to ask a question, which I did, after having spent three weeks looking over the manufacture's provided manual and Audyssey's web site. After asking two questions on AVS, I've found that asking questions is not as benign of a proposition as some are want to make others believe.

Moving forward is a good idea, going backwards is a bad idea, don't you agree?

The switch I write of, is a generic, universal switch. I keep posting that it's all good and it is. If it weren't, I'd say so. Believe me when I post, it's all good.