Howdy folks......been lurking here for quite some time.....sorry about that. Wasn't sure where the best place for this post was.......thought about the Audyssey thread……but then changed my mind, as I didn’t want to skew the results
I happened upon
rickardl's 2012 posts showing the difference between Audyssey multeq XT and XT32. The pre-out plots
rickardl shows suggest (to me, anyway) that a) serous low frequency room modes will not be sufficiently addressed by XT and b) the activity in the high frequencies may be less than beneficial.
For the record, I have a 7.1 system with a Denon 4308CI (multEQ xt), JBL Studio 590's (fronts), 530's (surrounds), 520 (center), and a relatively capable (-3dB at 22 Hz) homebrew 12 inch sub, in a 22 X 18 X 8.5 ft room (the 18ft dimension is the only front to back option, and it is really 16-20 ft, depending upon where you are in the room: 20 ft on the centerline, 16 on the sides). I am 90% music/10% movies....of the music (the thrust here, obviously), I quite often (80% of the time) use Denon's 7 channel stereo processing on the stereo material.....it sounds pretty sweet. Mostly.
I say "mostly" because I have lovely 90.2, 109.8 and 125.1 Hz room modes .......I have measured these with REW and find them to exhibit +4 to +12dB peaks (depending upon which one we are talking about) with 1/6 octave smoothing. Know that I spent a short while in the music biz as a mix engineer........when there is a lot going on in this part of the spectrum, I hear them......when there isn't, I can mostly ignore them. I have optimized speaker/sub locations and listening positions with REW - I think I have the best LP I can get, given my equipment and the room orientation I have chosen (currently symmetrical L to R, and about 80% back towards the rear wall, F to R).
What to do? The idea of being able to tailor my own PEQs totally enthralls me.......but I am at a loss to see how any of the available options will easily work for me. As inputs to the 4308CI, I have a turntable via standalone preamp, OPPO BDP105 stereo outs (spotify streaming PC via USB DAC or stereo discs) and OPPO HDMI (movies, stereo and surround SACD and DVDA), and a LittleDot MK3 tube preamp via another CD player through a Musical Fidelity VDAC. I could use the MiniDSP nanoavr or 10 x 10 hd between the Oppo and the Denon.....but that misses the LittleDot and turntable paths, and the stereo OPPO path (basically all the stereo paths). I do not use the multichannel analog outs of the OPPO at this time.
The simplicity of Audyssey, were it truly effective, appeals to me. It covers all sources I have.....and when I look at
rickardl's plots (referenced above), I see why XT isn't cutting it for me. If you have some significant room modes in the 20-200Hz range, XT is not going to bring happiness.
Further disclosure.......I use XT on the 4308CI, and I appreciate what it does. I have an 80Hz crossover between mains/sats and the sub. I also employ a Behringer Ultra q pro PEQ that I had laying around for the sub channel out of the 4308CI (this unit gives me 2 bands in the 20-80Hz range).....this works fab for
For the record # 2, I am not concerned with correcting anything above 200Hz or so. When I look at
rickardl's documentation regarding what XT is doing in the high frequencies, I cringe, just a little bit. I like what I see XT32 is (and isn’t) doing in the high frequencies. And I very much like what I see XT32 is doing in the low frequencies, compared to XT.
Which makes me now state my hypothesis……..I need Audyssey multeq XT32.
Please talk me out of it. Or into it. And I’d like to keep it under a grand, if at all possible…..
Thanks much – hopefully I am not being too demanding for the first post…..
