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"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1931

post #57901 of 62201
12/5/12 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbarnes701 View Post

The most likely reason is poor setup technique. Audyssey can be 'fussy' to get the best out of it.

I suggest reading the FAQ, or the 101 or the Setup Guide linked in my sig and then coming back for more help if you can tell us you followed all the correct procedures very carefully.

The 'highness" of the "end" of the speakers isn't an issue - Audyssey could care less what speakers you use. 

What do you mean by "overcompensating in the upper range"?  Too much or too little treble?

I will definitely read/follow the links in your signature and report back.

Overcompensating means too much treble. Speakers start sounding almost harsh.
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post #57902 of 62201
12/5/12 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BVLDARI View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by kbarnes701 View Post

The most likely reason is poor setup technique. Audyssey can be 'fussy' to get the best out of it.

I suggest reading the FAQ, or the 101 or the Setup Guide linked in my sig and then coming back for more help if you can tell us you followed all the correct procedures very carefully.

The 'highness" of the "end" of the speakers isn't an issue - Audyssey could care less what speakers you use. 

What do you mean by "overcompensating in the upper range"?  Too much or too little treble?

I will definitely read/follow the links in your signature and report back.

Overcompensating means too much treble. Speakers start sounding almost harsh.

 

OK.  Have a read and then come back if you need more help - Audyssey should definitely not make your speakers sound "harsh" or too "bright".

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post #57903 of 62201
12/5/12 at 3:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbarnes701 View Post

OK.  Have a read and then come back if you need more help - Audyssey should definitely not make your speakers sound "harsh" or too "bright".

... nevermind, I think the word docs have most of the info I need.... thanks.
Edited by BVLDARI - 12/5/12 at 3:25pm
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post #57904 of 62201
12/6/12 at 5:43am
This might be a dumb question but I'm curious to know. How come at a movie theater the sub sounds different than at home? For example people mention their sub shakes and rattles the room. Well at a theater there is no such thing as shaking and rattles so won't a smooth bass sound like at a theater sound much better than at home. I realize the theaters are set up different and the room is treated but isn't the idea for home use to sound close to a theater?
Edited by asere - 12/6/12 at 6:42am
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post #57905 of 62201
12/6/12 at 5:50am
That's actually a good point. That's the whole idea behind standards. The reason I would assume for the bass response in a theater, would be room treatment & design.
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post #57906 of 62201
12/6/12 at 5:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by asere View Post

This might be a dumb question but I'm curious to know. How come at a movie theater the sub sounds different than at home? For example people mention their sub shakes and rattles the room. Well at a theater there is no such thing as shaking and rattles so won't a smooth bass sound like at a theater be sound much better than at home. I realize the theaters are set up different and the room is treated but isn't the idea for home use to sound close to a theater?

Not for me. I haven't heard a theater that sounds as good as my home theater. I don't listen at reference levels though. Many theater's bass doesn't go much below 40Hz.
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post #57907 of 62201
12/6/12 at 6:19am
I suspect a lot of the difference is simple room size. In a theater, the wavelengths of bass are shorter than the dimensions of the room and propagate differently. a 40 Hz wave is over 28 feet long.
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post #57908 of 62201
12/6/12 at 6:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BVLDARI View Post

Hey guys, I hope this wasn’t discussed already but with 58,000 posts I did not have the patience to read everything.
A few months ago I purchased an Onkyo PR-SC5508 and was using it with a pair of N.E.A.R Mast speakers along with a Monitor Audio Silver Center. When I ran Audyssey there was a clear and marked improvement by using Audyssey vs. say Pure Audio mode. This overall cleaned things up and left me feeling good.
I recently purchased a pair of B&W 802D2 speakers. Using Audyssey now not only does not “improve” things but in most cases I feel it’s degrading the sound. Doing a direct comparison between say “stereo” which incorporates Audyssey and Pure Audio mode, I can definitely say that 90% of the tim I prefer the non processed sound vs. the processed sound. Mostly I feel that Audyssey is way overcompensating in the upper range.
Has anyone else noticed this with high end speakers? Is it possible that my pre amp is messed up? Or is my hearing completely jaded and I can’t tell a good thing?
Thanks a lot for your opinions.

After you put the B&W speakers into your system did you re-run Audyssey calibration setup? You didn't make that clear in your post.
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post #57909 of 62201
12/6/12 at 7:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Murphy View Post

After you put the B&W speakers into your system did you re-run Audyssey calibration setup? You didn't make that clear in your post.

I apologize I did not make that clar. I did run the correction twice with the new speakers. I briefly talked to a friend of mine who has 803D2 run by an Integra receiver who told me that he gets the same issues sometimes and it has something to do with his subwoofer settings. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to talk much. However, I definitely messed with my subwoofer after I got the new speakers.

Maybe I will rerun the calibration w/o the sub to see if it’s any better. Of course, after I read all of the Audyssey documents…
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post #57910 of 62201
12/6/12 at 7:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by asere View Post

...their sub shakes and rattles the room...
I would say the room is not structurally sound. I would be annoyed if the house/room shakes and produces all the distortions. There are people who have spent lots of money fixing vibrations from the rattling doors, windows, ceiling, etc.
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post #57911 of 62201
12/6/12 at 10:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skylinestar View Post

I would say the room is not structurally sound. I would be annoyed if the house/room shakes and produces all the distortions. There are people who have spent lots of money fixing vibrations from the rattling doors, windows, ceiling, etc.

I hear you! Smooth tight bass without the rattles is what it is all about!
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post #57912 of 62201
12/6/12 at 10:27am
TBH, I think people who boast about the bass "shaking and rattling the room" are simply uneducated about what proper bass should sound like. I don't think anyone knowledgeable is advocating this as a reference standard. To the typical home user who buys some beefy new sub, it's probably pretty exciting to hear stuff in the room shake and rattle when there is a big explosion in "Transformers" or whatever -- that doesn't mean it's the goal nor proper "reference".
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post #57913 of 62201
12/6/12 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by asere View Post

This might be a dumb question but I'm curious to know. How come at a movie theater the sub sounds different than at home? For example people mention their sub shakes and rattles the room. Well at a theater there is no such thing as shaking and rattles so won't a smooth bass sound like at a theater sound much better than at home. I realize the theaters are set up different and the room is treated but isn't the idea for home use to sound close to a theater?

 

Many people run their subs quite hot - sometimes as much as 10dB hot, preferring this over a calibrated system. Also, some have subs that are very capable, with prodigious output well down into single figure Hz and even when calibrated to reference, really loud bass that low can shake things. In a cinema there is usually very little or no output below 20/30Hz and, of course, in a cinema everything is bolted down and there are no shelves with things on, coffee tables and so on ;)

 

Most of us do NOT want our systems to sound like a cinema simply because our systems sound better than most cinemas!  There is no commercial cinema near me that can outperform my HT sonically and even if I drive the 40 miles or so to the nearest IMAX theatre, it still doesn't sound as good as I can now get at home.

 

Many people strive to make their HTs sound more like the mixing suite where the movie was made rather than their local multiplex.

 

My advice to anyone would be to calibrate their system to reference using Audyssey and then listen to it for a week or two to get used to the sound of flat (or as flat as possible in the particular room) bass and only then to raise the dB level to their preference, if they feel they need more.

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post #57914 of 62201
12/6/12 at 10:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by batpig View Post

TBH, I think people who boast about the bass "shaking and rattling the room" are simply uneducated about what proper bass should sound like. I don't think anyone knowledgeable is advocating this as a reference standard. To the typical home user who buys some beefy new sub, it's probably pretty exciting to hear stuff in the room shake and rattle when there is a big explosion in "Transformers" or whatever -- that doesn't mean it's the goal nor proper "reference".

 

Absolutely +1.

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post #57915 of 62201
12/6/12 at 10:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by batpig View Post

TBH, I think people who boast about the bass "shaking and rattling the room" are simply uneducated about what proper bass should sound like. I don't think anyone knowledgeable is advocating this as a reference standard. To the typical home user who buys some beefy new sub, it's probably pretty exciting to hear stuff in the room shake and rattle when there is a big explosion in "Transformers" or whatever -- that doesn't mean it's the goal nor proper "reference".

yup... the objective is to get reference level "bass" without everything rattling... rattles are distractions...

many people could perceptually improve their bass a whole bunch by eliminating those distractions... 10 minutes playing a bass heavy track while walking around blu-tack'ing everything that rattles would be time well spent... smile.gif
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post #57916 of 62201
12/6/12 at 1:15pm
That's why they have a low frequency "buzz and rattle" test track on many test disks!
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post #57917 of 62201
12/6/12 at 1:27pm
^^^

i don't know anybody around here who might do a little, ummm, "testing" with those type of tracks... tongue.gif
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post #57918 of 62201
12/6/12 at 3:17pm
Held a local HT meet recently where people were mentioning the lack of rattles during a bass track demo run, I admit I spent some time with it and even went as far as making sure none of the glasses/cups were touching eachother in the cabinets.

Sounds silly but it does make a difference. wink.gif

Jason
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post #57919 of 62201
12/6/12 at 9:22pm
My 2.1 system is connected via the sub's speaker level inputs and using the crossover in the sub. I realized that Audyssey will not work for this setup (will not recognize the speakers). It prefers the more common way of connecting via the receiver's speaker outputs and its crossover and bass management. Is there a way to make it work for my setup? Even if I do get it to work, the crossover set by Audyssey
I think will not be implemented since the sub will be doing it. So why bother?
rolleyes.gif
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post #57920 of 62201
12/6/12 at 9:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jc46 View Post

My 2.1 system is connected via the sub's speaker level inputs and using the crossover in the sub. I realized that Audyssey will not work for this setup (will not recognize the speakers). It prefers the more common way of connecting via the receiver's speaker outputs and its crossover and bass management. Is there a way to make it work for my setup? Even if I do get it to work, the crossover set by Audyssey
I think will not be implemented since the sub will be doing it. So why bother?
rolleyes.gif
If I read that correctly, you are connecting the L&R speaker connections to the sub's speaker-in inputs, then the sub's speaker-out outputs to the sub's speaker-out outputs? It's not necessary with Audyssey because the calibration will measure the individual delays and F3 of the speakers and set them appropriately so everything is in sync at the MLP.

If you're dead set on running them that way though, you can just run Audyssey and set the configuration as NO Sub. It will EQ the speakers as full range (since the sub reproduces the low end).



Max
Edited by djbluemax1 - 12/6/12 at 9:44pm
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post #57921 of 62201
12/6/12 at 9:59pm
Yeah, you are confused on several levels.

1) Audyssey WILL work for this setup, it just won't "know" there is a subwoofer so it will just EQ the two speakers full range
2) Audyssey has nothing to do with bass management / crossovers

Also, Audyssey doesn't "prefer" it the normal way, rather the reason this way is suggested is because (1) you can use the digital bass management in the receiver but mor importantly (2) the sub channel has much higher resolution correction filters (unless you have XT32)
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post #57922 of 62201
12/7/12 at 4:59am
Has anyone tried Audyssey DSX mode when watching The Avengers blu ray? I find that the sound effect is less dynamic than Neo:X at the same vol level f 60 ("-25" from Reference).
Could it be due to the soundtrack is DTS-HD MA 7.1 & Neo:X is able to decode it better than Audyssey DSX, since Neo:X is also by DTS?
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post #57923 of 62201
12/7/12 at 5:08am
^^^

it can't be the second part, as the matrixing routine (dsx) would have no knowledge of the original codec... the very first thing an avr does to a codec is unpack it to pcm... after that happens, it all looks the same...

what you are "hearing" is the difference between the two matrixing routines... this isn't surprising... different matrixing routines can (and will) produce different results...
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post #57924 of 62201
12/7/12 at 5:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jc46 View Post

My 2.1 system is connected via the sub's speaker level inputs and using the crossover in the sub.

If you have a way to rationalize this into a more traditional 2.1 configuration using the AVR's bass management, the benefits should be significant.
Quote:
I realized that Audyssey will not work for this setup (will not recognize the speakers).

Wrong. The sub makes the mains appear to have greater bass extension. If Audyssey works with 2.0 systems then it will work with yours, no matter how suboptimal it is compared to what it could be as a proper 2.1 system.
Quote:
It prefers the more common way of connecting via the receiver's speaker outputs and its crossover and bass management.

I know of no reason to believe that.
Quote:
Is there a way to make it work for my setup?

It is working, subject to the fact that the system is very suboptimal from a bass management viewpoint.
Quote:
Even if I do get it to work, the crossover set by Audyssey

What crossover? I presume that your front speakers are set large and the AVR is not told about the sub. That would be the proper way to do what you are doing, if there is any way to call it proper.
Quote:
I think will not be implemented since the sub will be doing it. So why bother?
rolleyes.gif

What you need to do is rationalize what you're doing with the Sub. I did this about 6 months ago when I upgraded from a 2 channel receiver to a 5.1 AVR. The improvement was pretty impressive.
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post #57925 of 62201
12/7/12 at 5:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by batpig View Post

Yeah, you are confused on several levels.
1) Audyssey WILL work for this setup, it just won't "know" there is a subwoofer so it will just EQ the two speakers full range
2) Audyssey has nothing to do with bass management / crossovers
Also, Audyssey doesn't "prefer" it the normal way, rather the reason this way is suggested is because (1) you can use the digital bass management in the receiver but mor importantly (2) the sub channel has much higher resolution correction filters (unless you have XT32)

+1.
A receiver cannot see, taste or feel what you have connected to the various outputs. "Sub" is whatever is connected to the subwofer output. You could attach a powered minimonitor to the sub output and the system would treat it as a sub, both for setup purposes and in terms of where it sends the content. The fact that the left and right outputs go into a sub first then to the main speakers means the sub "is" part of the left and right speakers as far as the receiver and Audyssey can tell.

OP, with respect to using bass management in the receiver versus in the sub, since the receiver's crossover filters are implemented digitally, they will always be correct. An analog corssover at least potentially can suffer from drift of the capacitors over time, causing it to perform differently (not to mention whatever variations derive from the fact that the individual parts are not exactly the specified values, but within a range like fove or ten percent of the specified value.
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post #57926 of 62201
12/7/12 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccotenj View Post

^^^

i don't know anybody around here who might do a little, ummm, "testing" with those type of tracks... tongue.gif

 

There must be someone surely? ;)

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post #57927 of 62201
12/7/12 at 10:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Ong View Post

Has anyone tried Audyssey DSX mode when watching The Avengers blu ray? I find that the sound effect is less dynamic than Neo:X at the same vol level f 60 ("-25" from Reference).
Could it be due to the soundtrack is DTS-HD MA 7.1 & Neo:X is able to decode it better than Audyssey DSX, since Neo:X is also by DTS?

They are just different matrixing methods so they will likely sound different. I have found that on some 7.1 tracks that Neo:X Height (I don't have wides)  really overemphasises the surround channels for some reason. A good demo of this is the third Transformers movie - you can clearly hear it even on the intro to the movie when the stars sweep all around the room. If you have the disc it's worth trying and hearing the difference. A good scene to demo it is when they are at Chernobyl and that gigantic corkscrew thing comes out of the ground (Shockwave). I was comparing PLIIz and Neo:X but it may well sound odd comparing the latter and DSX too. I believe it's just the different ways of extracting the info for the Height channels that does it. As Chris says, it won't be anything to do with the fact it's a DTS-HD track because by the time Neo:X gets hold of it it's already been decoded.

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post #57928 of 62201
12/7/12 at 11:35am
quick question before doing an audyssey calibration on a denon 1612 with polk 5.1 system.

I have read the FAQ few times but something still not clear to me.

When starting off, bass phase should be 0 degrees, volume about half way, and low pass (I assume is crossover) is set to max, which is 150 on my unit. (goes from 80 to 150)
I am then supposed to do the first position, then hit calculate. if need be, adjust volume and repeat to be within +-3db.

At no point does the faq talk about changing the low pass setting again. can anyone clarify if i should be doing something with that at any point please. The only thing i read is that you can raise it if i like, but not to lower it. Sounds like i am missing something in the middle.

Thanks.
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post #57929 of 62201
12/7/12 at 11:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aliaskary77 View Post

quick question before doing an audyssey calibration on a denon 1612 with polk 5.1 system.
I have read the FAQ few times but something still not clear to me.
When starting off, bass phase should be 0 degrees, volume about half way, and low pass (I assume is crossover) is set to max, which is 150 on my unit. (goes from 80 to 150)
I am then supposed to do the first position, then hit calculate. if need be, adjust volume and repeat to be within +-3db.
At no point does the faq talk about changing the low pass setting again. can anyone clarify if i should be doing something with that at any point please. The only thing i read is that you can raise it if i like, but not to lower it. Sounds like i am missing something in the middle.
Thanks.

That's right if you don't have a defeat switch on your sub set the low pass to the highest setting and always leave it there after calibration. That also applies to Audysssey once it is calibrated do not lower but you can raise. Of course in the end it is preference vs reference and how it sounds to you.
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post #57930 of 62201
12/7/12 at 11:55am
Quote:
At no point does the faq talk about changing the low pass setting again. can anyone clarify if i should be doing something with that at any point please. The only thing i read is that you can raise it if i like, but not to lower it. Sounds like i am missing something in the middle.

the FAQ doesn't talk about changing the low pass because you SHOULDN'T. Leave it max'd out -- the point is to get it out of the way because bass management is handled digitally in the processor (receiver).

The thing about raising but not lowering refers to the crossovers in the RECEIVER. That's the part you are missing wink.gif
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