Does room correction (YPAO) add sound from sub to R and L during auto set up?

S

SJThomps

Audiophyte
I have Yamaha RXV 2500 that does not room correct/equalize the sub channel. On a whim I tried sending full range signal (set mains to LARGE) to sub via L R speaker level inputs and ran YPAO. On YPAO lowest frequency being affected is band centered on 63hz but better than nothing. Tried several iterations - got slightly different results each time. However, found one that yields good sound - smoother overall frequency response as some peaks were cut and a fuller upper base (L R are Dali Zensor 1s). I am assuming the sub (old Velodyne CT 120) output has been added to L R during YPAO auto set up and subsequent music playback from the sub thus shares to some degree the same room correction applied to the L R channels. What do you think?
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
If you set the mains to large, all the frequencies will go to them. Also, the bass frequencies below the low pass filter will go to the sub. I do this myself. I find it better sounding than the traditional setup as well.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
If you set the mains to large, all the frequencies will go to them. Also, the bass frequencies below the low pass filter will go to the sub. I do this myself. I find it better sounding than the traditional setup as well.
With a Yamaha? Which model? What is your opinion of YPao?
 
S

SJThomps

Audiophyte
If you set the mains to large, all the frequencies will go to them. Also, the bass frequencies below the low pass filter will go to the sub. I do this myself. I find it better sounding than the traditional setup as well.
I should have mentioned that the L R speakers receive their signal via the Velodyne's speaker level outs with high pass crossover set at 100Hz (high pass filter has 6 dB per octave slope). Played new Don Henley CD tonight - dang, this sounds pretty good! Note: to avoid bloat from subwoofer I have it 2 feet off floor - looks ridiculous so I am thinking of replacing Velodyne with SVS SB 1000 - I wonder if I will actually hear any improvement with music though the SVS from all reports should offer tighter base.
 
M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
For any room correction scheme to work properly, you need to connect the subwoofer to the LFE/subwoofer line level output on the receiver, not a speaker output.
 
S

SJThomps

Audiophyte
For any room correction scheme to work properly, you need to connect the subwoofer to the LFE/subwoofer line level output on the receiver, not a speaker output.
Yes, if you want YPAO to set everything. Before running YPAO I set mains to large so full range signal would go to R L speakers, set all other speakers to small, set crossover to 100 Hz, and connected receiver R L speaker outs to subwoofer and then connected R L speakers to subwoofer speaker level outs. On sub set subwoofer low pass crossover to 80 Hz and high pass to 100 Hz. Told YPAO to not check speaker size. The results seemed good (YPAO made only a couple boosts or cuts in each channel - I reduced any 6 or 7dB boosts by 3dB). Tweaked subwoofer level a bit on sub. Result is fuller sound - compared to sound from my Sennheiser HD 580 phones - pretty close match. I used Yamaha "Natural" EQ setting - sort of mimics a "house curve" I think so bottom end seems fuller.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
I am assuming the sub (old Velodyne CT 120) output has been added to L R during YPAO auto set up and subsequent music playback from the sub thus shares to some degree the same room correction applied to the L R channels. What do you think?
I have a 2600 I am just getting familiar with. You're sending an EQed speaker level signal to the sub which discards anything above 100 Hz and then has to convert the rest back to line level before it can be re-amplified into sub out put . I don't think you gained anything there in terms of more EQ control. A line level RCA cable is a better way to carry a signal to a sub and LFE isn't something you generally want your mains to see.

Can you set your mains to large and tell your 2500 that you have a sub that you want to see ALL the LFE? If you feel a need to adjust below your 63 Hz band, you can do that with the sub volume control and then compensate the 63 Hz band accordingly.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
With a Yamaha? Which model? What is your opinion of YPao?
I have a 663 and a 2600.

With the 663 in a 5.2 H/T I thought YPAO made the sound too thin, devoid of bass and tinny. YPAO confirmed the findings I had with a Rives disc which prompted me to lightly roll off the bottom end and that got me let's say half of the vocal clarity that YPAO delivered but without abandoning all hope of a bottom end.

The 2600 is in a 2.2 system. It's hard for me to describe what I found with YPAO there but I liked it a lot. The main tell on the difference was with vocals. YPAO put the voice everywhere while at the same time turning the volume down on it. I looked at the settings and they did and didn't make sense but I took the 6 bd boosts at ~ 13k and 16k Hz and toned them down to +2.

I own some measurement gear and aspire to one day using it. It would be nice to see what I am hearing in the pursuit of understanding. Don't laugh ... it could happen.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I have a 663 and a 2600. The 2600 is in a 2.2 system. It's hard for me to describe what I found with YPAO there but I liked it a lot. The main tell on the difference was with vocals. YPAO put the voice everywhere while at the same time turning the volume down on it. I looked at the settings and they did and didn't make sense but I took the 6 bd boosts at ~ 13k and 16k Hz and toned them down to +2.

I own some measurement gear and aspire to one day using it. It would be nice to see what I am hearing in the pursuit of understanding. Don't laugh ... it could happen.
Who's laughing? This is serious bidness!

Go ahead and set up the measurement gear and look at the response as you make changes to it- being able to see what's changing helps associate what you hear with what you can see happening. Play with the distance settings, too- I found that I could hear changes in the smallest distance increment in the Denon AVRs and to be honest, being wrong by .1 foot was almost as annoying as being wrong by a larger amount. I would set it so the distance was the same and it still didn't sound right, so I worked on the speaker placement and THAT made it sound better.

I have only worked with YPAO a couple of times when I helped install a small-ish system and since I didn't know the AVR's setup, the other guy who actually worked for the store did it and then he proved that he didn't understand it, either. Didn't have a clue about what Neural is, etc and thinks all of the compensation is basically a joke. Doesn't see any value in acoustical treatment, either. Not exactly an authority.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
You mean Natural? Like as an option with Flat and Front?

To most people there really isn't a lot of value in RC and acoustic treatments. So far the only measurements I have done in the H/T with the 663 show peaks at 50, 100, and 200 Hertz using a RS analog SPL meter and a Rives II disc.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
You mean Natural? Like as an option with Flat and Front?

To most people there really isn't a lot of value in RC and acoustic treatments. So far the only measurements I have done in the H/T with the 663 show peaks at 50, 100, and 200 Hertz using a RS analog SPL meter and a Rives II disc.
No, it was 'Neural'. It's their way of making a 2 channel system sound like it's creating some kind of surround mode.

A large part of the reason most people don't want acoustic treatments is that they can be seen. When people think that anything larger than Bose cube speakers are 'huge', something that makes the sound better needs to be invisible in order for most people to accept it as a possibility in their system.

The thing about using a meter is that those frequencies showed them as "peaks, when it's more likely that the frequencies between them were troughs, caused by cancellations. The 50Hz-120Hz range is where most rooms have problems and they can be properly dealt with, but not through equalization. When interference causes energy loss, adding energy at the speaker doesn't make it better because the interference came from reflections. If you change the reflections, you'll change the loss/gain in energy.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
The thing about using a meter is that those frequencies showed them as "peaks, when it's more likely that the frequencies between them were troughs, caused by cancellations


adding energy at the speaker doesn't make it better because the interference came from reflections.
There was even a peak up around 400Hz on the 663 but I don't intend to mess around much up that high. The troughs were wider than the spiked peaks. My whole strategy is to cut the peaks and to reduce YPAO's 6 db boosts at 15k Hz to +2. The memory functions are a big help in being able to go back and forth between settings on the 2600. It's also convenient in that the 2600 operates the 2.2 set up plus a couple of on wall speakers for a TV. They have different settings as does a Denon DVD 1920 which requires a 6 db boost in bass when using the analog audio outs for SACD.
 
S

SJThomps

Audiophyte
I have a 2600 I am just getting familiar with. You're sending an EQed speaker level signal to the sub which discards anything above 100 Hz and then has to convert the rest back to line level before it can be re-amplified into sub out put . I don't think you gained anything there in terms of more EQ control. A line level RCA cable is a better way to carry a signal to a sub and LFE isn't something you generally want your mains to see.

Can you set your mains to large and tell your 2500 that you have a sub that you want to see ALL the LFE? If you feel a need to adjust below your 63 Hz band, you can do that with the sub volume control and then compensate the 63 Hz band accordingly.

Here is what I am trying to do to. My Dali Zensor 1s are a little base shy – part of this may be a room issue but after much trial and error I have them positioned for smoothest base response and stereo imaging – about 5 ft. from front wall so no boundary reinforcement there. To get more base I really don’t want to boost the Dali’s much – would be inconsistent with what they are – small bookshelves. So would like the boost to come from the subwoofer as much as possible. Hence, I connected the Dali’s to the speaker level outs on the sub with a 100Hz high pass filter setting. The sub is connected to the speaker level outs on my 2500 from which they get a full range signal (mains set to large on 2500 – so yes this includes LFE). By running YPAO to set levels, distance, and EQ only (not set size or crossover), I was hoping to keep most of the base boost to the sub (though I realize that with the sub’s 6 dB per octave high pass filter slope I am only down perhaps 9dB at 50 Hz in the mains). I set the low pass filter and volume on the sub to get the smoothest transition from sub to mains – ended up at about 85Hz. As I said the results after a couple trials were very pleasing.

So, my real question is this: would it be worth the time and effort to use the standard approach, i.e., line level connection from 2500 to sub, let YPAO set everything, then perhaps tweak crossover and sub volume a bit to get best results. I am inclined to say no as the 2500 will not equalize the sub channel so any base boost will have to come from the mains (though would be set to small) and from fiddling with sub crossover and volume.

Note: I mostly listen to music - movies are of secondary importance.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
I confirmed that your sub does in fact have a high pass filter. I was surprised. It's the slope of the low pass filter that would interest me. On a THX rec'r that slope is 24 db/oct. I use to have an old H/K with a 12 db/oct slope and I found the sub channel to be too localizable (or whatever that word is) for nearfield use.

It's just a question of which crossover you want to use. YPAO will have EQ'ed that signal either way. I guess you're making you're rec'r amplify the LFE too but there isn't any draw on it. Anyway, my inclination would be to let the rec'r handle the bass management and then get a shielded coax to get that crossed signal to a sub.

Either way, YPAO's control of the 62.5 Hz frequency is still executed in the sub. I'm not clear on why you say YPAO will not EQ the sub. It would EQ the sub out channel the same as the speaker level outputs. The differences you're encountering with speaker level connections is the use of a different crossover and I think speaker cable is more prone to RFI/EMI.

I think it would be interesting to see the difference to take note of the YPAO values both ways. I wouldn't run speaker wire to a sub and I haven't seen anybody else do it either. I do seem to remember folks with bigger brains than me saying not to do that as well. However I do have a great admiration for people that never listen. :)
 
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