Auto Calibration Comparison?

avnetguy

avnetguy

Audioholic Chief
Just wondering if Audioholics has any plans to do a comparison between the different Auto Calibrations out there. It would be nice to see some real comparative data, even just on the basics, on how these routines setup our AVRs in a few different environments.

I do see these features as being a key component for better sound to the vast majority of HT buyers. I also think it would be good to get some baseline data to compare how good they are now vs some time in the future when claimed advancements are made.

Anyone else see value in this?

Steve
 
Last edited:
cpp

cpp

Audioholic Ninja
Until someone does valid comparisons between Tact, Audyssey, YPAO, ARC etc...etc.. they are all about as good as the other. I've had YPAO and now Audyssey xt32 and everything sounds the same to my old ears. You hear people say, "man get a Denon 4311 for the XT32" cause it's better than the others", "NO, get a Anthem with ARC its the best". I say, it's all hearsay to me. Until valid test are performed by some recognized knowledgeable person or group with true audio skills, using the correct measuring equipment and software, in a controlled room/chamber, using the same sources, speakers and the audio smarts to document the test without showing any bias, then we can see facts about which calibration software provides or meets a person expectations.
 
Last edited:
timoteo

timoteo

Audioholic General
Ive said it before, ive owned receivers with MCACC, EzEQ, Audyssey & now YPAO. They all have done a great job of getting you started in the right direction. They all make mistakes of size identification but they all sound just as good as the other! Thats my experience & my 2 cents on the matter. Id never buy an AVR based on the Auto Setup it has. I look at other, more important features!!

I would however love to see a comparison!!!
 
STRONGBADF1

STRONGBADF1

Audioholic Spartan
I'd love to see it done but I bet it would be a ton of work and then you need to word the article so most can understand it...
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
They all make mistakes of size identification
If you are referring to setting speakers to small or large, according to Audyssey, they have nothing to do with that one.
 
avnetguy

avnetguy

Audioholic Chief
I'd love to see it done but I bet it would be a ton of work and then you need to word the article so most can understand it...
Guess it really depends on what you want to test and one could always do more indepth articles in stages. So if you had one or two different room shapes, each with their own 5.1 speaker setup then swapped in each comparable AVR unit for auto-configuration and then compare the basic setup results. I guess doing each auto-configuration a few times would be wise, just to check the consistency.

Steve
 
HexOmega

HexOmega

Audioholic
What metrics would we want to measure?

Off the top of my head:

1) Distance between speaker and microphone (for accurate time delay)
2) Level matching
3) Pre- and post-measurement frequency response at the microphone/listening position
4) Consistency among multiple measurements
 
avnetguy

avnetguy

Audioholic Chief
What metrics would we want to measure?

Off the top of my head:

1) Distance between speaker and microphone (for accurate time delay)
2) Level matching
3) Pre- and post-measurement frequency response at the microphone/listening position
4) Consistency among multiple measurements
That list looks good.

For number #3 I gather you're suggesting that an actual reading be taken before and after configuration with external equipment. Maybe a shortcut (thinking less work here) would be to just show the PEQ numbers each setup selected, more for just comparison rather than actual accuracy.

Also, to keep things simple, only a single position measurement would be used and it would be located in a typical layout's sweet spot.

Steve
 
smurphy522

smurphy522

Full Audioholic
One important aspect would be revealed: Do these all seek to flatten out response?

Room Calibration is one of the features I consider in obtaining the short list for my new AVR. Determining (measuring) how good that feature performs would be very worthwhile. Agreed it would be difficult but much of the in-depth reviews are detailed and time consuming.

I believe it would be an industry 1st - measuring the performance of automatic calibration methods.
 
agarwalro

agarwalro

Audioholic Ninja
Also throw in Deqx, Mini DSP and DCX 2496.

Up I went there :).
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
I would love to see a test done as well. I would like both an objective and subjective evaluation done. The objective eval would tell us how good each one is relative to the others. The subjective eval would tell us if human perception are able to denote tiny differences between the ones that run really close in terms of performance to those whose performance gaps are more considerable.
 
Z

Ziontrain

Audioholic Intern
Such tests will never be conducted by any website or magazine that sells AV receivers - or advertisements for them. Because consumers would find out that either none of them add much value or at best maybe 1 or 2 and the rest all are no better than placebo.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Such tests will never be conducted by any website or magazine that sells AV receivers - or advertisements for them. Because consumers would find out that either none of them add much value or at best maybe 1 or 2 and the rest all are no better than placebo.
Wow. Do you get out often? :rolleyes:
 
agarwalro

agarwalro

Audioholic Ninja
Such tests will never be conducted by any website or magazine that sells AV receivers - or advertisements
Which is exactly why it might just be done by Audioholics.

Tom, Gene, Clint, et al., have been audiophile counterculture (and, for fact based reporting) since before counterculture was cool...
 
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
I was going to post a new thread on this until I did a quick search and found this one titled almost exactly as I had planned on titling the new thread.

So I'll just add my comment here instead as it seems that this auto-calibration comparison seems woefully elusive, or perhaps those who might conduct one do not find it a worthwhile endeavor. At any rate, it seems to be of great interest to those of us who do not have ultra-ideal system/speaker layouts in acoustically perfect rooms, and at least IMHO, the room calibration functionality of any given AVR can truly make a difference in these much less ideal acoustic situations. Whether or not one is particularly better than the other well... that's the big question, but after now having had experience with MCACC, Audyssey MultiEQ XT32, and most recently, YPAO, I have firsthand experience to know that they certainly don't all run the same, and my end results have varied from platform to platform.

I've made two calls recently: One to SVS (makers of my speakers) and the other to Yamaha (as I recently bought the RX-A2060BL model). I asked both about most of these calibrators tendencies to set even small speakers to large, despite their size and FR, and the best answer I got was from the SVS rep. He told me that this is commonly due to placement and possible boundary gain influencing the mic during the sweep checks; resulting in a lower registered response than what the speaker may actually be capable of, and the mic isn't able to tell the difference. At least given my layout, with my couch up against the rear wall, he said that made the most sense to him and it makes sense to me. He suggested I move the mic out to a position that is actually a bit forward of the MLP and see what happens. So I did, and it still set them to large. MCACC also always set these same speakers to large and only Audyssey ever got it right and set them to small. This in of itself isn't a huge deal, I was used to going back in, setting them to small post-calibration with MCACC and moving on. I do the same now with YPAO.

Getting into the finer details of each, it seems that each one of these three main ones do offer some unique corrections, with MCACC (at least in the higher end Elite models of 5-10 years ago) seeming to top the list of additional corrections it employs during its calibration.

MCACC seems to be a bit more explicit about these features with listed offerings such as standing wave control, group delay control, full band phase control, sub eq, and reverb control, while both Audyssey and YPAO showcase the EQ, level and distance settings, but these additional corrections seem to get lumped into black boxes of mystery known as "XT32" (for Audyssey) and "R.S.C." (Reflected Sound Control) in Yamaha's case. Strangely enough, when I asked the Yamaha rep about R.S.C., he quickly stuttered a response that the question was above his paygrade and that he would have to elevate that to a Level II or III support tech who would call me back. ??? So that call back never happened, and my questions about it go unanswered. I like the fact that with MCACC it would actually show all these things it was doing while it was doing it, so I at least had some kind of tangible evidence that it was doing more than simply pushing around a few EQ sliders.

I can also now safely say that, while my new Yamaha powered system sounds good, MCACC seemed to do a much better job at taming my difficult room than either Audyssey or YPAO and I have run both of them many many times in many different ways. I used to be able to just run MCACC once, reset all my speakers back to small, maybe nudge up the sub level a few db and call it a day. Now I'm experimenting with different speaker positions, room treatments, even replaced my center channel speaker all in the pursuit of taming these nuisances from my bad room. MCACC seemed to correct for them very efficiently; so far I cannot say the same for YPAO/Audyssey, though with some experimentation I've at least gotten YPAO to somewhat get me there; then I fine tune it the rest of the way manually. It still doesn't get the system as good sounding as MCACC ever did on its own. I would really like it if Audyssey and YPAO showed us a little more of what's behind the curtain when its running their calibrations other than just showing us some eq curves, distances and levels. If YPAO R.S.C. is doing a damn thing to address phasing or impulse response, it certainly ain't giving up its secrets. In the Navy we had a phrase, "Well I guess I'll just push the old 'I believe' button!" That kind of applies here. :)

I know this is all entirely anecdotal and subjective; maybe not quite the scientific analysis/comparison being sought, but until that happens at least it's a real world comparison between the three main ones out there on the mass market from someone who has direct experience in all three.
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
I also liked how mcacc treated my room. But sorry halon. Now you have to try Dirac live. From what I've seen, nothing is even close.
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
I don't think they are all equal.

Sean Olive did a comparison, but I don't think he revealed the results for each one.

I recall him saying some were better than others.

So not all are equal.

But perhaps Sean can elaborate on which were the best ones.:D

Audio Musings by Sean Olive: The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products
^This has it all right here! The only two systems that scored well by listeners were Harman products.

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/11/subjective-and-objective-evaluation-of.html
 

Latest posts

newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top