"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 1933

 

There is no difference at all between the signal at the preouts and the signal at the speaker terminal, other than level. If you are connecting the speaker terminals to your soundcard I am amazed (and impressed) that you haven't fried it. Soundcards are not designed to accept these high level inputs. If I were you I would follow AustinJerry's advice and start using the preouts - there's no difference at all and you won’t be out buying a new soundcard next week!

 

You are right that the speakers are powered by the speaker outs, but the signal the speaker outs receives is identical to the signal the preouts put out, except at a much higher level. If you want to measure the result of MultEQ filtration in the room (at the MLP), then again you need to follow Jerry's advice and use the mic in the room to measure the acoustic output of the speakers in the room.

 

You seem to be conflating two different things. Measuring at the preouts will show you the MultEQ filter that Audyssey is creating in order to correct whatever problems Audyssey has detected with the room. To measure the effect of that filter (or filters) you need to measure the actual acoustic output in the room itself, with the mic at the listening position.

 

To determine if the mic is faulty or not, you will ideally need a known good mic to use as a reference. Connect the mic and, with Audyssey turned OFF, measure a sweep from it, using the preout terminals. Then put the suspect mic in the exact same position and, with Audyssey turned off, measure a sweep from it, using the preouts. Then compare the results. If the suspect mic graph differs significantly from the graph of the reference mic, then there is likely a problem with the suspect mic. The graph will reveal that problem. For example, if the suspect mic graph shows a substantial roll-off at the upper end of the FR (compared with the known good mic), then Audyssey will try to correct for that and it will boost the treble and cause the system to sound overly bright or harsh. You can do this without a reference mic and if there is a really obvious problem (like a massive HDF roll-off) you can probably come to a reasonable conclusion that the mic is faulty, but if you have access to a known good mic, your result will be much more certain.

Edited by kbarnes701 - 12/9/12 at 3:28am

I surely know about level difference and taking care of that

No, I am not. The point is that, as I said, I do not have calibrated mic with known response currently, so I measure what I can at the moment. And as I said I am pretty sure that Audyssey are correcting "problems" at high frequencies that does not exists in the room/speakers. The curve just confirms what I hear. Surely my ears are not measuring device, but so high overamplification is quite easily spotted by the ears as totally wrong. I have newer heard of any problems with RX6 lacking high frequencies, but there are quite many complaining Audyssey is too bright.

Will do the measurement of acoustic output as soon as I get the mic.

Certainly consider the Omnimic. I know its more expensive than a bare measurement mic but in my experience is also far easier to use.

 

If you are reducing the speaker out level then you might as well use the preouts.

 

It is possible your Audyssey mic is broken. The method of testing I suggested will tell you if it is.

I know ody has every speaker calibrated ay 75dbs but if u disable ody will the speakers still be calibrated at 75dbs or will u lose that. Is there a way u can have all the speaker to 75dbs with and with using ody. I'm using an onkyo 818 as a pre-amp and coming from a classe ssp30 mark2 preamp this ody xt32 is new to me. thanks in advance.

why do you want to disable audyssey?

Once the levels (trims) have been set, they will stay set regardless of whether Audyssey is turned off or on, as will the delays (distances), What you will lose if you turn Audyssey off is the room correction because the filters created during calibration will no longer be applied to the frequency response.

 

As Chris says above, why would you want to turn off XT32, arguably the best of the consumer-grade electronic EQ systems available?

 

Here's an example of the difference Audyssey makes to the bass frequencies:

 

 

 

My room is extensively treated - the difference in an untreated room will be even greater.

Edited by kbarnes701 - 12/10/12 at 10:31am

My room is treated too, do you use ody movie or ody music mode, according to ody music mode on the onkyo 818 is the flat mode which is used for treated rooms. What's your opinion of dynamic EQ?

^^^

- my preference is for the plain "audyssey curve", and was even when i had my room more treated than it is now... then again, i'm male and going to be 50 next year, so a goodly portion of the high end might as well not exist at all for me...

- dynamic eq is a great feature... without going into tons of detail in this thread, google "fletcher munson curve" and "equal loudness contours"... once you have a grasp of that, you'll understand why many of us swear by dynamic eq...

tossing out a recommendation i make every now and then... virtually all posters can benefit greatly from spending 25 bucks at the big river on "the master handbook of acoustics"... if you have a solid foundation in the fundamentals of sound reproduction, it makes everything a LOT easier to understand... and imo, that book is the easiest for the layman to understand (my copy is well worn), it's written in very clear and understandable language...

Amen to that!!

+1.

I also prefer the plain "Audyssey curve" compared to the "Audyssey Flat", although my ears that were 50 years old 5 years ago can not really make a difference between these two settings.

Another +1. And when that grasp comes it'll be easy to understand why the delicate feature of real-time compensation of DynEQ is important when it comes to deal with soft and loud parts of a passage while the MV (Master Volume) is set below 0 dB ref. level and remains unchanged. It works so smoothly some say it'll only become apparent when taken away! A feature not found on any other loudness compensation solutions, ...well..., at least to my knowledge so far.
Edited by mogorf - 12/10/12 at 1:34pm

 

Like the guys I quote below, I have reached the age where the difference between the two curves is difficult to hear. I love DEQ and think it is very important.

 

 

Hey Feri!  Welcome back to this thread!!!!!

ONLY 50? That was hundreds of years ago for me. And I too like DEQ for movies ( not music!)

^^^

geez... i'm struggling enough with the thought of turning 50... in my minds eye, i still see myself as a 21 year old punk...

@keith... yes, the brain is a wonderful thing...

As long as I don't look at myself in the mirror, I think i'm 30 (other than lousy vision and less than perfect hearing). The good news about less than perfect hearing is the difference between the really, really good electronics and the mega expensive stuff is negligible!

^^^

yea, it's that "looking in the mirror thing" that always gets me...

You as a punk...ha, that's rich!

Turning 50 is at least one thing I beat you in....by a month or so anyway. As long as I work out four times a week, do a personal trainer, and have minimal visible grey hairs I can fool myself I'm north of 45, if not 40.

Of course, being at the midpoint between 35 and 65 doesn't help.... But shiny new toys ease the transition a bit.

^^^

lol... it's safe to say i've evolved considerably over the past 30 years... i'm still "young" until june...

"work out"? what's that? to keep this semi-on topic, the most exercise i get is walking in and out of the room to move the audyssey mic...

unfortunately, well over half of the remaining hair i have (which ain't much) is grey... it's one of the reasons i shave my head every week...

Look at this way: by the time we get near retirement age, you'll _really_ be experienced in Audyssey. Maybe they'll even fix the dual sub Pro bug by then..

What bug is that?

@stuart...

yea, good point there... i'll settle for them clearing up the glacial serial transfer on the 4520 at this point...

@audioguy... when reloading existing measurements in pro to play around with, the sub delays do not transfer correctly over to the avr...

Other way 'round for me: to my knowledge, there aren't any loudness compensation technologies that aren't dynamic. They all change compensation curves as you turn the master volume down from reference. Dolby Volume does it, THX Loudness Plus does it. Heck, the pre-pro I owned a quarter century ago had dynamic loudness compensation.

Yes, but in case of Audyssey's DynEQ is also changes the curves when you do not even change the Master Volume. All this is done in real-time depending on loud or soft parts of the content played. Now, this is what I would call the dynamic part of DynEQ.

@sdurani
What you describe is actually a static loudness compensation curve, because it stays constant at the same level independent from the contents of the signal.
Dynamic means, it varies with the signal contents.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be without mine :)

I've always been able to easily hear the diff between the Flat and Std Audyssey curves over the past several years despite many changes in gear and the room. I've done a seriesof Denon AVR/ Audyssey upgrades (MultEQ->MultEQXT->XT32->XT32/Pro), a series of speaker upgrades from MSRP $1K/pr Polk to $16K/pr Dali, and informally treated my formerly way-too-lively room.

To my ear, Flat can sound a bit too boosted in the high end me, at times lending a slightly harsh quality. I have just hit the sixty mark fellows and unfortunately I have some documented hearing loss in high freqs (no doubt from rockin my Strat on my Fender Twin in my misspent youth).

Thus I use Flat for certain CDs that benefit, to my ear on that day at that volume, from the high-end boost to bring out detail otherwise lost to me. For ex., Larry Coryell's "Sapphire Blue". I used to use Flat occasionally to help poorly recorded film dialog, though since my last CC upgrade and using XT32 I don't recall needing to do that.

OTOH I use DEQ for all film material (RLO=0) and TV (RLO=15). DEQ is also very nice for lower-level 2 ch music listening (RLO=10). But for MC music DEQ boosts surrounds too much so is not usually worth the additional tweaking of speaker levels or using the Fader to trim down the surrounds. So I leave DEQ off and just turn the MV up.

I have a surround processor that doesn't have any room correction software.

What 3rd party products are out there? Which ones are good and why?

Could I use a Shure sm58 mic, or perhaps an sm57 or do I need to use one that comes with the software?

^^^

nothing that is "affordable" unfortunately... the trinnov standlne eq, while aupposedly out of this world, also carries an out of this world price tag...

there are ways on eq'ing the sub though inexpensively, and that really is the area that "needs" the most attention in any home environment...

options include:

- antimode 8033... 5 minute, set and forget, setup... works quite well, i used to use one...

- used as-eq1... a bit longer setup but still automated... gets you the equivalent of xt32 for the sub channel... highly recommended by many members...

- bfd/minidsp/others... manual... requires knowledge, time and patience... many get good results with this option...

to be completely honest, if you want better room correction, you are likely better off seling your existing processor and buying a unit that includes the room correction you desire...