Okay, here is the deal, I am trying to do a comparison of two pairs of subs.
I am using an x4000 with BS-22's for one pair of subs,
and a 4311 with BS-22's for the other for the other.
Frankly, I don't understand how other people can do subjective evaluations with any amount of time between them because I cannot (not because I don't think they can). The best I can do is have a general sense of better or worse with a vague ability to pin-point the specifics. Consequently, I need level matched systems to do a useful comparo and confirm my observations as solidly repeatable.
I ran Audyssey on both units. Strangely, the x4000 defaulted the BS-22's to a 120Hz crossover while the 4311 set it at 80Hz (which is what I had decided on beforehand). It is a curiosity, but I'm not worried about that as I have set the x4000 to 80Hz and am getting essentially the same sound from both systems when I turn the subs off. The only difference I hear is reasonably attributable to the locations of the speakers which are side by side. Neither sounds better than the other, but I can sense a slight change in position of the image from the listening position (~13 feet away). At this point, I am fairly confident that I have adequately equivalent sound with which to compare the subs, and am pretty pleased that I did not run into more issues.
Now is where I run into issues. I turned on the subs with the 4311 and they were overbearing to my ear (Aud-Flat, Dyn EQ-On, Dyn Vol-Off). I turned the DynEQ Offset to 10db which gave me a good sound.
With the x4000, the bass is also too heavy, but an Offset of 10dB makes it too light. I don't believe this is really a reflection of the subs, but perhaps gain and amplification differences between the 4311 and x4000, but I really don't know how DynEQ works.
Thus I am looking for ideas on how to tone down the bass in an equitable fashion to allow me to assess their musicality.
Can I leave DynEQ on or will it cause discrepancies based on the differences between the receivers?
One school of thought is simply to independently adjust each pair to the best settings for my ears at this point, and then make my assessment (after all, I would do that with either pair I owned).
Am I missing anything important... because I am largely ignorant of the details of AVR processing?
