Audyssey Questions

[Halon451]

Audyssey equalization is a total mess. In any good system Audyssey should only be used for level and distance and NOTHING else. The Eq at a distance I do not believe is possible. Audyssey Eq only ruins the sound of good systems.

I do think that Audyssey sets levels correctly including the LFE. My measurements on two systems that have Audyssey show it to be spot on.

I note that it seems universal these days that subs are set far too high. If that's the way you like it fine, but for classical music a sub set too high is a real quality spoiler. Of you go to the concert hall and listen critically you will be surprised at how little deep bass there is.

Audyssey sets my LFE at around -10 db and my measurements and my ears tell me it is spot on.

The sub is now the most miss used part of people's systems.

I think it depends on the content. I appreciate classical music a great deal, but rarely cue it up on my system (I'm a rock and roll and metal kind of guy ). I can definitely see your point there in that regard. However, there's a world of difference between a concerto and Mad Max's Fury Road.. For the latter, yeah - I want to feel that action as much as I hear it. I've always tried to bump up my sub's gain just enough to give it a fairly tactile response in that regard but not overly dominate the aural spectrum in my room. I've had that sweet spot dialed in perfectly for years now and haven't changed my speakers/subs. I just can't seem to be able to dial it in to that spot with this new Marantz/Audyssey setup.

I've considered reviewing the EQ corrections Audyssey has made, and trying to approximate those in manual setting - then adjusting to taste from there. But then I've read that Audyssey does so much more than parametric EQ and by doing so I'm really limiting myself in terms of how much is actually being corrected, beyond wayward frequencies anyway.. so I don't know. Maybe worth trying. If it fails I can always just set it back to the reference EQ and try to figure something else out.

 

[rojo]

^ Don't mind him. He's the forum automated room correction grouch. As you say @Halon451, your mains sound stellar while your center channel is lacking. I truly think it's the speaker. The horizontal MTM format more often than not produces horrible off-axis response and lobing, and even on-axis that particular speaker appears to have a dirty great 10dB peak around its crossover point. Maybe MCACC was better at flattening the peak. *shrug*

One benefit of buying locally is the ability to audition. Maybe returning the Marantz and trying a similar Yamaha wouldn't be the worst idea. If you don't, you might always wonder what would happen if you did.

 

[Halon451]

Maybe. I'll def try a few more things before I go through the painful process of disconnecting everything again and boxing it back up for a return. I just feel for the money I paid for thing I ought to damn well have an experience that's nothing short of completely satisfying. And without having to spend thousands more on speakers, sub EQ devices, etc.

 

[Halon451]

Also no guarantee YPAO would yield a better result if I did. I really truly wish the Elite line was still what it used to be this would've all been a no brainer.

 

[rojo]

Maybe. I'll def try a few more things before I go through the painful process of disconnecting everything again and boxing it back up for a return. I just feel for the money I paid for thing I ought to damn well have an experience that's nothing short of completely satisfying. And without having to spend thousands more on speakers, sub EQ devices, etc.

Also no guarantee YPAO would yield a better result if I did. I really truly wish the Elite line was still what it used to be this would've all been a no brainer.

The maxim to live by is this: good sound comes from good speakers. Electronics plays a comparatively minor role in sound reproduction. Since it's the physical speakers that couple to the air to make vibrations, the speakers are the chief factor in sound reproduction accuracy. You're right that there's no guarantee that YPAO would be any more or less effective than Audyssey. Also, the best use of EQ is to account for room response, not to fix poorly designed speakers.

Still have your Pioneer AVR? Now that you are paying critical attention to the sound of your center channel, try hooking the old AVR back up and see whether the center sounds as different as you remember. If it does, then you might consider replacing your Marantz with a newer Pioneer.

 

[yepimonfire]

Hi guys, so having just bought a new Marantz SR6011 my initial joy over the sound quality has begun to give way to some disappointment over a few peculiarities I've begun to notice. I believe it may have to do with the Audyssey reference corrections that have been applied. I will note that these are all things I never noticed before with my old Pioneer and the same SVS S-series speakers and sub in a 5.1

So I'll list the issues and then list everything I've done to try and correct them.

The problems:

1.) overly trebly sounding vocals with some harshness and almost crackling type sounds on the S's and loud sounds containing higher frequencies such as explosions (specifically shattering sounds I'll get to LFE in a moment)
2.) surrounds are turned up way too loud as to almost completely obscure the front sound stage.
3.) The sub-bass sounds and LFE are present but seems to lack the punch and power that I know that SVS 12" ported sub is capable of. I've been using that thing for years now and I'm very familiar with its capabilities. Overly boomy and feels almost strained
4.) Some content seems boosted in the 200-300Hz range giving vocals a slight "boxy" sound. I only know this range bc I have experience mixing music and know this is the range that I always have to cut a bit to reduce that boxy sound. Again I've used these speakers a long time and know they don't typically sound like this.

What I've done:

1.) Manually reduced the surround levels post-Audyssey which has helped balance them with my front sound stage greatly
2.) Tried multiple mic placement configurations; about the best I've gotten with it so far is by more tightly clustering the 8 points around the MLP at ear height and at least 1.5 feet away from the back wall. Couch is pushed up against the wall.
3.) experimented with Dynamic EQ on and off.. def noticeable improvement at lower volumes with it on but not so much at reference level
4.) repositioned speakers/subs, ad nauseum; have gained only marginal improvement
5.) adjusted all crossover settings back to 80Hz which is where I always had the best results on my pioneer.
6.) varied the LFE crossover settings to every one available.
7.) Tried turning Audyssey off (nope), flat, L/R bypass, etc. overall still sounds better turned on but the above issues are frustrating

So my room is def not ideal by any means.. no chance at all of moving the couch away from the wall, room is way too narrow. I've scoured tons of threads on this topic and find that many others experience the same issues. My question then is: what's the trick to using audyssey? I read that it's "soooo great and way above its competition" but then I read threads like mine and think "man my old one position MCACC did a much better job than this POS."

What are you guys' experience with it? Any tips/tricks that I haven't found or tried yet?

This pretty much mirrors my experience with Audyssey multeq as well which is why I stopped using it. It's like it tried to fix the frequency response but did so in an extremely over exaggerated way, I actually took measurements before and after. I had a 6dB dip at 70hz, Audyssey gave me a 10dB gain, making everything sound bloated. I had a minor dip across the upper midrange, Audyssey gave me an extremely in your face grating midrange and added sibilance to speakers that never had a hint of sibilance before. It also liked to set the distance of the sub wrong. Now I know sometimes it does this to compensate for delay added by the subs internal circuitry, but it was setting it at 14ft, which was twice the distance I was from it, and it was obvious it was out of phase from the main, again, a measurement with the fronts running full range and the crossover on double bass showed the sub having a flipped phase from the mains, which was resolved upon setting the distance back to 7ft.

The results after running it over 10 times exactly the way Audyssey recommends were extremely random, especially on the subwoofer's eq and the levels and distance. The only thing it really did was align the phase angles across the frequency range to almost exactly the same, which was kind of impressive. Other than that it was a disaster.

Audyssey is supposed to correct the frequency response and supposedly it's the best out there, but it just made things worse. Measurements don't lie.

As far as whether or not the subs level is too low in your case, most people when setting a sub by ear turn it up way too loud. Try using an SPL meter.

 

[Halon451]

I'm almost wondering if the off-axis response of that center tweeter with the other mic placements is contributing. So Audyssey is measuring a low response at the various points outside the MLP and applying too much boost in that range to compensate. I'm going to try something.. and pretty much reject the multi-point recommendation and run all 8 measurements from the MLP just to see what happens. It may very well kill whatever actual benefits I've gained from spreading the measurement area out but if it fixes the shrill center sound I at least know that part is an axial issue. Furthermore the MCACC seemed to do just fine from one measurement point. I may still just be spreading the points out too far.

 

[Halon451]

The maxim to live by is this: good sound comes from good speakers. Electronics plays a comparatively minor role in sound reproduction. Since it's the physical speakers that couple to the air to make vibrations, the speakers are the chief factor in sound reproduction accuracy. You're right that there's no guarantee that YPAO would be any more or less effective than Audyssey. Also, the best use of EQ is to account for room response, not to fix poorly designed speakers.

Still have your Pioneer AVR? Now that you are paying critical attention to the sound of your center channel, try hooking the old AVR back up and see whether the center sounds as different as you remember. If it does, then you might consider replacing your Marantz with a newer Pioneer.

I hear that man and agree. Though my old SVS speakers are not exactly slouches. I know there's much better out there but they've suited me very well for years.

And no... I was quick to sell the old Pioneer cause I desperately needed to recoup some of the cash that had been flying out of my wallet with all this upgrading.

 

[yepimonfire]

The maxim to live by is this: good sound comes from good speakers. Electronics plays a comparatively minor role in sound reproduction. Since it's the physical speakers that couple to the air to make vibrations, the speakers are the chief factor in sound reproduction accuracy. You're right that there's no guarantee that YPAO would be any more or less effective than Audyssey. Also, the best use of EQ is to account for room response, not to fix poorly designed speakers.

While it's certainly true you can't fix bad speakers with EQ, I disagree that speakers alone are the chief factor in accurate reproduction. You can take the flattest speaker and put it into a small square room with bare walls and floors and it will sound like crap. Ever seen an in room measurement of a bad room with no smoothing?

 

[TLS Guy]

We have a good discussion here. Yes, I gladly admit to being the auto Eq grouch and with good reason.

I agree Eq will not make a bad speaker good. We have visited this many times. Yep, notes a 14 ft distance to his sub. This is something Audyssey probably got right. I find it does get distance right.

A point all need to take on board, is that steady state frequency response tells you nothing about time. The frequencies could have hours, or even days delay an you would not know it.

So lets take a sub crossed at 80 Hz. That is a wave length of 13.75 ft, pretty close to 14 ft.

So the second order high pass in the receiver advances it about 3.5 ft. Now the fourth order low pass delays it 7 feet. So we have a crossover time error of 10.5 feet right off the bat. Now add group time delay in the sub if it is ported and you can see how Audyssey could be dead on at Yep's 14 feet.

The other issue is that speakers cause room problems to come to attention. This is because most speakers have poor transient response. In addition the bass Q is frequently too high. They are also awash in time/phase errors, which are two ways of saying the same thing. I build low Q speakers and keep time transgressions to the absolute minimum compatible with a good smooth frequency response. This obviates my need for room correction. I have one rule, if normal speech sounds good in the room, then a loudspeaker should sound good reproducing speech in the room and anything else. Speakers carry the lions share of the blame for making room modes an issue. This is mainly related to not stopping and stating when they should and having multiple drivers with huge time smear. This is the norm that most have to deal with.

Now to Halon's rock issue and subs.

Unfortunately musicians and others want to come here to master their work. One is a well known guitarist, song writer/composer.

People in the studios no longer know their craft. I have been working with a guy in LA who apparently has Grammy's that has had enormous difficulty providing me with a mix down I will even master.

Now I have one I can work with, but there is far too much 1 to 2 KHz output and actually not enough bass. Well I visit modern studios and I note mixing being done at high level with diminutive mix top monitors and a huge sub. The sub is turned up far too high and that is what they mix to.

So the customer ends up turning up his sub too high.

This musician has brought me a reel to reel master from his work in the 80s that he wants me to master to CD. The monitors used were the old renowned studio Urei speakers.

This was the sort of gear prevailing back then.

So I loaded the 10.5 inch reel on my Revox A700 and guess what. The sound is perfect with plenty of bass. When the customers get it, they will be turning down their subs, guaranteed.
I'm not going to Eq that tape at all!

There in lies a lot of the problem.

One last thing, if you are using a center with horizontal MTM, you are behind the eight ball, as dispersion is excellent in the vertical plane but lousy in the horizontal plane, which is the reverse of what you want, and exacerbates room problems.

 

[Halon451]

My room is a challenge no doubt about it. Narrow, side to side setup across the short distance, vaulted ceiling, hardwood floors (mitigated however slightly by a rug), couch up against the wall. The only kind of actual "treatment" I've done is I long ago added a foam platform to the sub to decouple it from the floor. That definitely helped tighten up the low end way back then

I've read a lot of threads from people talking about Audyssey really setting the sub distance way outside it's actual physical distance but in my case it seems to be pretty spot on as the tape measure shows to every speaker in my system.

 

[Halon451]

A point all need to take on board, is that steady state frequency response tells you nothing about time. The frequencies could have hours, or even days delay an you would not know it.

So lets take a sub crossed at 80 Hz. That is a wave length of 13.75 ft, pretty close to 14 ft.

So the second order high pass in the receiver advances it about 3.5 ft. Now the fourth order low pass delays it 7 feet. So we have a crossover time error of 10.5 feet right off the bat. Now add group time delay in the sub if it is ported and you can see how Audyssey could be dead on at Yep's 14 feet.

TLS, seeing as how Audyssey set my sub distance at just about 9.5 feet which is pretty much the actual physical distance to the MLP, could this potentially be contributing to my low end muddiness? I'm pretty much up against the boundaries of my knowledge when it gets to understanding this particular topic. I've read that Audyssey gets many things wrong, but sub distance is something that it calculates quite well, even those distances that are greatly out of sync with the actual measured distance, due of course to these factors (delay, wavelength, etc.). The general consensus I've read is that it's more than okay (in fact encouraged) to fiddle around with settings after you've run Audyssey but that sub distance should be left alone, no matter what it reads.

 

[PENG]

My REW/UMIK-1 before and after plots (I posted them a few times on this forum) clearly show Audyssey XT32/subEQ and even XT are doing a good job. I ran all 8 positions as recommended by Audyssey but I know in the end the sweet spot is within inches from the main sitting position. If I sit anywhere else then all bets are off.

I'll say this again, if you don't take the time to read the fine prints you may not get good results and I firmly believe that's why so many people complained about it all over forums.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/audio-processing/68407-audyssey-multeq-faq-setup-guide.html

https://audyssey.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/202387323-Audyssey-101

If you don't have time to read everything, at least make sure you did do the following.

- Disable, bypass all adjustments provided at the back panel of your sub. If there is no means to do so, then set them to where they will do the minimum or nothing. For example, if there is no provision to disable the crossover, set it to maximum.

- Position the Mic well clear of any wall, and point the Mic directly up, i.e. vertically not horizontally.

- For high back furniture, it is okay to have the Mic a few inches higher than your ear level so it clears the highest point at the back.

- Make sure there are nothing big, e.g. Ottoman, coffee table etc. in between the speakers and the Mic.

When it is all done, feel free to increase the subwoofer level by 3 dB or a little more to your liking, and enable DEQ, disable LFC and Dyn Vol. If your room is relatively small, select Audyssey flat, also try L/R bypass if that sounds better to you.

 

[PENG]

I guess some of us do know TLSG does not have any faith in REQ especially Audyssey. I respect that, but I just wish he has tried Audyssey XT32 SubEQ HT. The Audyssey version he has in his AV8003 is a very basic one, not even XT if I remember right. I used XT before, it was okay but I always thought I could do better manually, and I did do it manually in the end but it took hours.

Once upgraded to the AV8801's XT32, I didn't bother doing anything manually before I know as matter of fact that there is no way I can do it better manually with all the PEQ I have in my SVS Ultra subs.

 

[Halon451]

My REW/UMIK-1 before and after plots (I posted them a few times on this forum) clearly show Audyssey XT32/subEQ and even XT are doing a good job. I ran all 8 positions as recommended by Audyssey but I know in the end the sweet spot is within inches from the main sitting position. If I sit anywhere else then all bets are off.

I'll say this again, if you don't take the time to read the fine prints you may not get good results and I firmly believe that's why so many people complained about it all over forums.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/audio-processing/68407-audyssey-multeq-faq-setup-guide.html

https://audyssey.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/202387323-Audyssey-101

If you don't have time to read everything, at least make sure you did do the following.

- Disable, bypass all adjustments provided at the back panel of your sub. If there is no means to do so, then set them to where they will do the minimum or nothing. For example, if you cannot disable the crossover, then set it to maximum.

- Position the Mic well clear of any wall, and point the Mic directly up, i.e. vertically not horizontally.

- For high back furniture, it is okay to have the Mic a few inches higher than your ear level so it clears the highest point at the back.

When it is all done, feel free to increase the subwoofer level by 3 dB or a little more to your liking, and enable DEQ, disable LFC and Dyn Vol. If your room is relatively small, select Audyssey flat, also try L/R bypass if that sounds better to you.

Thanks PENG, I have been reading a lot on this already so I certainly don't mind taking a good look at those links you provided, thank you. Yes I've done all the basic setup stuff and have, more or less, followed the Audyssey recommendations to a tee. Only when it didn't produce the sound I was expecting did I start experimenting with things such as closer mic placements, etc.

 

[PENG]

Thanks PENG, I have been reading a lot on this already so I certainly don't mind taking a good look at those links you provided, thank you. Yes I've done all the basic setup stuff and have, more or less, followed the Audyssey recommendations to a tee. Only when it didn't produce the sound I was expecting did I start experimenting with things such as closer mic placements, etc.

I forgot to mention, before you throw away Audyssey and invest in miniDSP, take the first step to buy their UMIK-1 Mic first. Then you can download REW for free and try to figure out what's really going on. Each time I ran Audyssey I ran REW to see the results. If things get worse, I would make some changes, normally just by moving the subs a little and ran Audyssey again. After a few times, I was able to find the best I could achieve in my room.

 

[Halon451]

Yeah, I may just do that regardless. I've always been very curious to see that kind of response my room is truly giving aside from whatever corrections are applied in the AVR. Even if it's just for my own personal knowledge I think it's a good tool to have at my disposal. Those mics aren't expensive either, are they? What are they about 70 bucks I think, last I looked?

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm guessing from this and your other thread that your major issue is more your room and possibly speaker placement as well as your seating position conspiring against you. Your sonic memory may not be as good as you think either, you may be simply overthinking things.

Distance is delay and physical distance of a sub won't account for inherent delay in a sub's amp, so getting the physical distance accurately isn't necessarily accurate; you might try the distance tweak, though. You have no crossover with your LFE, it is only a low pass filter for .1 channel content. While I've had excellent results in general from Audyssey, there may be some adjustments to taste necessary to sub and surround level. Some like various Audyssey settings for music, some don't...possibly based on other reasons than what Audyssey is particularly doing or not. I wouldn't adjust the sub's gain after running Audyssey but rather by changing sub level in the avr (in that this is more precise and consistent adjustment than the gain dial).

While Pioneer may not be the same company they once were, I doubt their avrs have any particular issues related to MCACC that they didn't already have and besides they do have a newer/improved version of MCACC these days from what you had. Perhaps you just like the way MCACC does things (if the newer version(s) of MCACC don't change something you like of course).

 

[PENG]

Yeah, I may just do that regardless. I've always been very curious to see that kind of response my room is truly giving aside from whatever corrections are applied in the AVR. Even if it's just for my own personal knowledge I think it's a good tool to have at my disposal. Those mics aren't expensive either, are they? What are they about 70 bucks I think, last I looked?

USD75 If you buy directly from minidsp https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1 or $10 more typically from elsewhere.

Below is my multichannel plot, green is Audyssey off.

 

[Halon451]

Your sonic memory may not be as good as you think either, you may be simply overthinking things.

This is quite possible, as Rojas suggested as well. Or maybe not so much memory but far less critical observation at work - once I had it set up with my old system and was satisfied I've rarely had to tweak it since.*

...you might try the distance tweak, though.

That looks like a great tweak, I guess I'd definitely have to invest in one of those UMIK-1's to use it though. Which I don't currently have.

While Pioneer may not be the same company they once were, I doubt their avrs have any particular issues related to MCACC that they didn't already have and besides they do have a newer/improved version of MCACC these days from what you had.

I was 100% set and ready to go buy the newest 4k equivalent Pioneer Elite currently on sale in my local store, and pulled back from that plan after reading comments on here and other places. Even the guy in the store (Best Buy, Magnolia section) echoed that sentiment - the Elites are still good AVR's but these days you can get a bit more bang and reliability for the same buck (or thousand, lol). So far from what I've seen the Marantz is a beast - quite powerful, versatile and robust, full of many great features I like and integrated very easily into my system. The only thing I'm having trouble with is Audyssey trying to rob me of the sound I know my speakers and sub are capable of, even within the confines of my crappy living room.

*Memory or critical listening aside, I'm pretty sure that had my old Pioneer started producing muddy bass that wasn't there before my ears would have perked right up. I did enough tweaking back in the day setting my old system up to know when something would have been amiss.