"Official" Audyssey thread (FAQ in post #1) - Page 198

I can find many recommending 120Hz, but none recommending against setting it higher. I didn't know it went higher to be honest with you.

Hi,

Yes, its your house. Therefore, you can call listening to music by yourself a "Home Theater" if you so wish. However, if concern about other listeners doesn't enter into your thinking, then its obvious you have a ready-made solution to the "Variability in hearing" issue that you raised earlier.

Larry

Where's Chris? We need some adult supervision.

Be careful what you wish for.

Does not Audyssey Flat get you close to the compensation sought for the high-end?

I'm afraid it does.
Chris

Yes, this is absolutely a real issue and all I can say is "it is under investigation"

Chris

The Dolby standard is very clear. Dolby encoding hardware applies an 8th order low pass filter at 120 Hz. That's as close as you will get to a brick wall digitally. There is no audible content above 120 Hz in the LFE channel.

Chris

Thank you for coming to my rescue! It seems the upcoming release of Audyssey with various curves to select from addresses the issue nicely. Thanks.

Nope. First, the figures you mean are from 12kHz to 20kHz as no human hears in the megahertz range. Second, it is not likely that listeners with normal presbycusis will want the HF turned up in compensation for their reduced HF sensitivity. The reason is that normal neural adaptation resets our internal references by listening to real events, including concerts. If you tip up the audio system in compensation, it will sound overbright compared to live music. Third, I think the major reason that some people have expressed dissatisfaction with Audyssey is that they have come to expect an exaggerated tish-boom from their hifi.

I'm bumping my own post to see if there is a way to set Audyssey optimally and still have the Denon's Front Panel Display light "green".

You're correct of course. I meant 12kHz to 20kHz. I am not advocating "tipping up" the frequency response to compensate for hearing loss; I'm advocating not "tipping down" the high frequency response by 2db which may exacerbate the effects of hearing loss - or at least given the option not to.

Quick question regarding my subwoofer setting .. I have Denon 1909 and after auto setup, it has my sub distance farther than what it really is and its set to LFE+Main. Im using Velodyne DPS-12 sub (Polk RTi-4 - Fronts / CSi3 - Center / Onkyo Satellites for Surrounds). I read in the Audessey FAQ that i should set the Low-Pass freq on the sub to its highest setting. Not sure if that is the case but I'll have to check.

Should the setting in the AVR for the sub be LFE or LFE+Main? What would be the optimal crossover setting for it?

Ive been using an Onkyo 602 for the longest time so its been awhile that ive messed with different settings on receivers. And with this new Audessey stuff, it kinda gets confusing

The general feeling is to set the sub's low pass to 120Hz, The speakers to small (a 80Hz crossover is a good starting point), and LFE not LFE+Main.

thanks. ill try that when i get home from work. i need to run the auto-setup again anyways since i didnt do the positing properly lol

The "tipping down" is based on acoustical analysis of small-space listening and is appropriate for all ears.

I have been reading the manuals for the Onkyo 876 and the Denon 2809. I am trying to understand some Audyssey features, but I need some clarification.

It looks like MultEQ XT must be on for both Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume to work. When I read the description of Dynamic EQ, it looks like it does the same thing as THX. Is that true? Can you use both or do you just use one or the other?

Also, I have read the Audyssey really doesn't work well with Def Tech BiPolars. I know I don't use it with my 605. I tried it a couple of times, but I didn't like it. Does anybody else have this problem?

My main issue is I want to upgrade for Dynamic Volume, but if the Audyssey features don't work with BiPolar well and you must have them on to use Dynamic Volume, I wonder if it's worth upgrading.

OK, but the frequencies below 120Hz are still affected by the LFE LPF. For example, when I set the LFE LPF to 120Hz on my receiver, the frequencies below 120Hz have more roll-off than when I set the LFE LPF to 250Hz.

Is there a good reason to set the LFE LPF to 120Hz instead of a higher setting such as 250Hz?

My fronts have built-in powered subwoofers and Audyssey has set them from Full to 150Hz (perhaps even higher once) all based on the microphone's placement. No real clear pattern although it seems the lower I place the microphone in the chair and lower the setting goes. However I always keep it at least a foot away from the back of the chair (at listening level). Recently I moved them a little closer to the side walls and since then Audyssey always comes back with Full Range.

Dynamic EQ is not like what THX does, since it has measured the room and actually knows the volume of content as it's being played back in the room itself. In other word's it's not just a dynamic loudness feature that is guessing. And IMO, it's extremely impressive and maintains the surround sound and the bass if you're listening at less than reference, which most people do.

You have to run audyssey to be able to use Dynamic EQ and/or Dynamic volume. You can turn dynamic EQ and dynamic volume on and off independantly of whether audyssey EQ is turned on.


No.


There's no reason it doesn't work fine with bipolar speakers. You can always bypass the mains if you want to.

Thanks Chris, so can you run Dynamic EQ with THX processing?

I have two questions about microphone orientation and placement.

1) Given what I've read from Audyssey about the microphone and the grazing angle, etc, how should the microphone be oriented for speakers significantly out of the horizontal plane of the microphone, for instance in-ceiling speakers? Should the microphone still be kept level and at ear-height as with normal speakers in the room that would be placed at or near ear-height? Or should the microphone be angled to a plane that passes through the speakers in the ceiling? Or some compromise?

In a lot of situations, speakers in the ceiling might be right above, or basically above the microphone if it's held flat to the floor. Since we do NOT want to point the microphone at speakers that are at ear height but leave it flat to the floor so the sound arrives at ~90 degrees to the mic element, what should be done for in-ceiling speakers or other speakers that are more above the listening position?

2) The microphone positions about the listening position make sense for sampling the sound immediately around the main listening position, but I do not understand why the recommendations say that it should be kept at the same ear height for all. Certainly room modal problems exist in the vertical plane, so why not take a few samples around the listening position above and below as well? What about seating that reclines? Having all your samples at one elevation seems like it would miss completely freq response changes based on elevation.

Yes.

You are better off ignoring the red light.

Chris

You can always select Audyssey Flat and not have the tipping down. Denon makes that a user choice and Onkyo makes it automatic when you are in THX mode. Of course, in the latter case, you would have to manually turn off Re-EQ in order to be Flat.

Chris

That would only happen if the LPF in your product is not implemented with a high enough order.


No reason. Setting higher is not a problem.

Chris

Some have been able to tilt the mic for in-ceiling speakers in between measurements. It's a little tricky, but it can be done.


In general, this is true. However, it is complicated by the fact that you may end up too far off the vertical axis of the tweeter. Some variation in height is desirable for low frequency capture, but too much will affect the high frequencies.

Chris

I can attest to that. In one of my more compulsive moments, I ran Audyssey with 20 mic positions, most at ear level, and sampled a few above and below to within 18" of the room boundaries. The results were terrible, immediately discarded and I repeated with a more sane procedure.

Another question, what is the delay of audyssey? I'm assuming there has to be at least a little bit. I haven't noticed any discernable delay at all in any of my viewing since I've added it to my system, but curious as to how that works? Seems like in most cases video would still be delayed more in processing, so it wouldn't be much of an issue still. But curious as to what the delay is, and if there's variance between products or features or whatnot (esp dynamic volume)?

The MultEQ delay is 0 incrementally. That is because of the way DSP frameworks are set up. The audio processing through a DSP is performed in blocks rather than sample by sample. So, there is a fixed input to output delay that is directly related to the processing block size. You incur that delay the minute you put a DSP in the path, even if no algorithms are running on it. Then the architecture is such that any filtering algorithm such as MultEQ that runs on the DSP fits within the existing processing delay so it doesn't add anything more. Typical input to output delays for high end DSP chips are on the order of 10-15 ms.

Dynamic Volume is a different story. One of the innovations is that in the way it employs a look ahead so that it can assess the perceived loudness of the current and upcoming audio. There is some additional delay associated with that, but it has been optimized so as to not be perceptible given the bigger delays incurred because of the video processing.

Chris

Okay, you win.