Hey Rojo, thanks for response. What do you mean by REW and the room being Live?
REW =
Room EQ Wizard, a free but thorough acoustic analysis program. It has a rather steep learning curve, but
AustinJerry's tutorial is a good place to start. You'll also need a measurement mic -- either a calibrated USB mic such as the
UMIK-1 (simplest to use, but doesn't allow for time domain measurements); or a calibrated XLR mic like this
Dayton EMM-6 + a
phantom power supply +
USB sound interface, although many choose to combine the phantom power supply and USB interface using a
USB mixing board, panning the mic to the left and the line audio to the right, using the left for acoustic measurements and the right for loopback timing reference. There appear to be several people selling such measurement eqiupment on
Home Theater Shack with ads over a year old -- people who bought stuff but left it sitting on a shelf forever, procrastinating due to REW's learning curve I guess. It might be worth your while to PM some of them and see if you can score a bargain.
None of this is necessary for you to use Audyssey successfully. But if you'd like to dip your feet into the acoustic measurements water and see and quantify what you are hearing, REW is a great way to do it.
Room being live, I meant lots of reflections keeping the sound alive long enough that they can cause problems.
Compressed- a little hard to explain. The audio sounds compressed, squished and reduced. It does not have much volume or openness and it sounds like it is 'Forced Small.' The best way to try and describe is if you have ever downloaded a movie to your HDD. Then before you burn it, you reduce/compress the sound to minimize the size. The audio under those circumstances sound 'compressed.' I do leave Dynamic EQ on and turn on and off Dynamic Volume depending on material. I agree with you about room issues skewing Audyssey outcomes. I also think (probably ignorantly) covering the couch helped with the high tones because without blankets High Tones are reflected from the leather couch back to Mic so Audyssey naturally turned / tuned them down.
I've noticed that my system volume is generally around 10dB lower with Dynamic Volume turned off, but it still sounds good if I turn it up 10dB. Also, Audyssey's setting of the subwoofer level seems very conservative to me. I always turn the subwoofer and dialog volumes up about 6 - 9dB immediately after running Audyssey setup -- salt to taste, of course. I always have to fix Audyssey's guesses at crossover frequencies as well. Audyssey is usually pretty great at flattening frequency responses, but it is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.
Anyway, it's all about the sound. If you're getting good sound with a blanket on the back of the couch and with measurements taken in only 3 locations, then do that, enjoy your music, and we won't judge.
