Denon AVR-X4400H - Initial Setup

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

I'm posting in a separate thread as I don't want to hijack any others. Hopefully folks here can offer some assistance if I'm going off the rails.

My new Denon AVR-X4400H arrived on the weekend, and I finally got time to begin to set it up in the recently renovated Games Room.

Above is a close representation (not to scale) of the room but a few minor tweaks have occurred since I put the drawing together. The room has a Lazyboy recliner close to the sweet spot, and the only other things in the room are a couple of dozen cardboard boxes still containing mostly kitchen stuff that has yet to find it's "forever home". The window coverings are "California Shutters", and the floor is a very heavy & wide "tile" strips - like a wide hardwood ( my Misses & her Decorator spec'd it). All I know is the room is very reflective. The TV screen is on the west wall. The jut out on the south wall is a window box and there's a larger window towards the west wall. Above the Sub in the drawing is another window in the corner. I recently added a second Sub, and arbitrarily changed the two Front Speakers to be outboard of the Subs which are now about 20 inches out on either side of the TV. When seated my left ear is pretty much in line with the Left Surround whereas the Right Surround is about 22 inches back (It looks more than that in my drawing because it's not to scale. ) The toe-ins of the speakers are no where as pronounced as drawn.

As you can tell I was eager to replace my Denon AVR-S900W receiver and try Dolby Atmos / DTS-X /Auro 3D.

So in my haste I followed the quick setup guide, as they don't even supply a paper, or even a CD, Manual on a $2,000 receiver (List price -in Canadian dollars)? OMG! I really should have connected it to our network, and updated the firmware first. Anyway I did the easy setup (with all 8 Audyssey Mic positions) in a pristinely quiet room. I wanted to try an immersive codec so I set it up without the two rear surrounds in this configuration. It ran through the setup routinely and I eagerly stuffed the BluRay Concert on the top of the pile.

This is an amazing concert for a man who's still on top of his craft at 70. I thoroughly recommend it.

Anyway, I set-up the Samsung BluRay player to Bitstream (DTD- HD Master is the multichannel sound on this disk) so the decoding would be via the 4400. It was impossible to get the two boxes (connected via HDMI) to allow this to occur. At least I couldn't get it to go. It freezes at the Home Menu. So in an effort to get the first tune going I let the Samsung decode and the HDMI handshakes let it all happen. It was then the Light went on about updating the firmware in both units.

See next post...

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

I had to resize some photos to share here and didn't want to lose the previous post.

So when the first song was playing, not very loudly, I noticed the soundstage didn't appear to be in front of me (as was normal with the Denon AVR-S900W receiver) but there seemed to be far too much coming from the Left Surround Speaker. I immediately checked the settings Audyssey came up with, and they were:

Now my very aged Fronts are extremely efficient Altecs so these settings are not unusual. What is unusual is the boost by Audyssey +11.5 db for the Left Surround versus the Right. The other settings all seemed to be within the realm of reasonableness.

(I am seriously thinking of changing out all 3 fronts and going to HSU CCB-8s, but for now I'm mucking about with my old dogs...)

So thinking I had a glitch, and I wanted to update the firmware, I decided to re-run Audyssey after an update.

The results were the same!

I decided to manually override the Left Surround level (I used Options on the remote while playing a tune) and pulled it back to 0.0 dB like the Right and the Soundstage was right in the middle where it should be. (Both Surrounds are new JBL Loft 30s.)

For grins I decided to look at the Crossover points and these are the results:

Again the Altecs have a 15 inch woofer so no real major surprise here, but the Sony Center only has dual 4 inch, and the Lofts are also 4 inch woofers. All the Top speakers are Polks with 6 1/2-inch Drivers with a large rear baffle volume, so I'd think they'd be a bit lower than the 4 inch boxes. But maybe for immersive sound Audyssey limits the overhead speaker crossover points?

Anyway, I'm confused on what to do next. Do I box up the 4400 and send it back to Gibby's as defective out of the box? Take it to a Denon repair center? Phone Denon like it says on the Box it came in?

What would you suggest?

 

[Leemix]

Check connections to left surround, check speaker, was something in the way?
Was the mic placed in MLP and fully vertical?
How did the test tone sound to you when you ran audyssey setup?

Edit: left and right surrounds look to be placed very differently? Reread text and you mentioned it.
Edit2: the volume trim is set only using the first position measurement.


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[PENG]

Jim, can you hook up the old Denon and compare the Audyssey settings? If the left surround's setting is normal with the old Denon then there is something weird going on. What puzzle me though, is that I can't imagine what kind of defect could cause the receiver to detect one or two channel incorrectly by such order of magnitude.

One quick trick too, is to swap the SL and SR speakers.

Once you get this sorted out, either by returning the receiver with another one, or you found the real root cause, you shouldn't settle on the "as found" crossover settings. You have to try lower and higher until you get the best results. I also highly recommend using REW to monitor each adjustment you made, unless you are very good at going by ears.

 

[panteragstk]

Jim, can you hook up the old Denon and compare the Audyssey settings? If the left surround's setting is normal with the old Denon then there is something weird going on. What puzzle me though, is that I can't imagine what kind of defect could cause the receiver to detect one or two channel incorrectly by such order of magnitude.

One quick trick too, is to swap the SL and SR speakers.

Once you get this sorted out, either by returning the receiver with another one, or you found the real root cause, you shouldn't settle on the "as found" crossover settings. You have to try lower and higher until you get the best results. I also highly recommend using REW to monitor each adjustment you made, unless you are very good at going by ears.

I agree.

I have a particular method I use when getting ready to run Audyssey that may help.

First I get out the old Radio Shack SPL meter and get everything level (75 DB) at the MLP before running audyssey. This seems to help get the levels pretty much right. After I run Audyssey I measure all the speakers again with the meter to see if anything screwy happened like it did with your setup. If it does I fix it and move on.

I also re-run Audyssey as you did and if the results are the same (which I haven't seen an issue like yours before) I manually adjust as needed.

From my experience Audyssey doesn't get the crossover 100% correct 100% of the time. It'll either be way too low or way too high so I manually adjust according to which speaker I'm using.

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

Thanks for chiming in. Before I read your posts I decided to go back to basics and dug out "the old Radio Shack SPL meter " (As panteragstk put it. It seems we think a bit alike. At least my SPL meter is digital ).

I went into manual setup, and ran test tones with the LF as reference at 75 dB. Choosing that speaker to start was easy as it's Denon's default for test tones. The starting point by default also uses the Audyssey set levels, and not 0.0 dB. (Which I thought was a bit weird, but who knows, you've got to start somewhere...)

So after ramping up the volume on the LF, I toggled through all of the speakers and most were bang on, except one of of the rear Atmos was down 1 dB, but that could have easily been my fat head in the way. (I didn't bother to tweak it for 1 dB. At least not now.)

Of course the Left Surround (LS) was cranking it out at 85 or 86 dB and I didn't want to leave it there too long as it drives the Family wild (and me too) as it's very annoying at that volume - even with the door closed. I then pulled it down from +11.5 dB and when it got to Zero -=> voila 75 dB.

IMHO there can't be anything wrong with the connections, or the LS speaker for that matter. (Leemix, thanks for trying, but remember this is not my first rodeo. The LS and RS are within the Dolby specifications position wise, as are all of the speakers in the room. It's my 3rd Denon HT Receiver in the House, and my 5th HT Receiver overall (The other two are Sony. I'm a bit of a nut.). I use a tripod to mount the Mic, and make certain it's absolutely vertical with nothing in the way to any of the speakers. (There is only a single Lazy Boy chair which I drag out of the way before testing.) All the test tones sounded routine - the Altecs of course were far louder than the rest.

The "old" Denon AVR-S900W receiver didn't have this issue when I disconnected it on Sunday, so I could plug in the 4400. I guess I could plug in the S900W again just to confirm it's the 4400 - once and for all. Or maybe I'll call Denon first in case they've got some magic reset for Audyssey I don't know about. I really don't want the hassle of returning this, and would like to work through it if at all possible.

I too typically manually adjust the crossovers, and sometimes even the distances on the lower tier receivers. Usually the crossover needs a little tweak, but some of these are just silly.

As some reviews chimed on about how good the 32 bit Audyssey performed on the 4400, I was expecting near perfection. My plan was to buy the App and set this up via Audyssey in various speaker configurations (remember there are 9 channels of amplification and I've got 11 speakers plugged into the 4400), saving each configuration back to the App; so I could easily switch without re-running Audyssey every time. If I have to do everything manually, it will be a pain.

As I mentioned elsewhere my REW skills are in their infancy. So without a decent Audyssey baseline, tweaking will take weeks, maybe months... This is frustrating and not what I was expecting..

 

[Leemix]

The app doesnt work exactly like the reciever run Audyssey so might be you wont get the wrong reading on the SL speaker with it. Worth a try. Its pretty easy to change distances and volumes in the app but i dont think you can get setups from the reciever into the app, only from the app (Might be you know and the wording was just a bit hasty), but its easy to set up different configurations within it.


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[PENG]

Hi Gents,

Thanks for chiming in. Before I read your posts I decided to go back to basics and dug out "the old Radio Shack SPL meter " (As panteragstk put it. It seems we think a bit alike. At least my SPL meter is digital ).

I went into manual setup, and ran test tones with the LF as reference at 75 dB. Choosing that speaker to start was easy as it's Denon's default for test tones. The starting point by default also uses the Audyssey set levels, and not 0.0 dB. (Which I thought was a bit weird, but who knows, you've got to start somewhere...)

So after ramping up the volume on the LF, I toggled through all of the speakers and most were bang on, except one of of the rear Atmos was down 1 dB, but that could have easily been my fat head in the way. (I didn't bother to tweak it for 1 dB. At least not now.)

Of course the Left Surround (LS) was cranking it out at 85 or 86 dB and I didn't want to leave it there too long as it drives the Family wild (and me too) as it's very annoying at that volume - even with the door closed. I then pulled it down from +11.5 dB and when it got to Zero -=> voila 75 dB.

IMHO there can't be anything wrong with the connections, or the LS speaker for that matter. (Leemix, thanks for trying, but remember this is not my first rodeo. The LS and RS are within the Dolby specifications position wise, as are all of the speakers in the room. It's my 3rd Denon HT Receiver in the House, and my 5th HT Receiver overall (The other two are Sony. I'm a bit of a nut.). I use a tripod to mount the Mic, and make certain it's absolutely vertical with nothing in the way to any of the speakers. (There is only a single Lazy Boy chair which I drag out of the way before testing.) All the test tones sounded routine - the Altecs of course were far louder than the rest.

The "old" Denon AVR-S900W receiver didn't have this issue when I disconnected it on Sunday, so I could plug in the 4400. I guess I could plug in the S900W again just to confirm it's the 4400 - once and for all. Or maybe I'll call Denon first in case they've got some magic reset for Audyssey I don't know about. I really don't want the hassle of returning this, and would like to work through it if at all possible.

I too typically manually adjust the crossovers, and sometimes even the distances on the lower tier receivers. Usually the crossover needs a little tweak, but some of these are just silly.

As some reviews chimed on about how good the 32 bit Audyssey performed on the 4400, I was expecting near perfection. My plan was to buy the App and set this up via Audyssey in various speaker configurations (remember there are 9 channels of amplification and I've got 11 speakers plugged into the 4400), saving each configuration back to the App; so I could easily switch without re-running Audyssey every time. If I have to do everything manually, it will be a pain.

As I mentioned elsewhere my REW skills are in their infancy. So without a decent Audyssey baseline, tweaking will take weeks, maybe months... This is frustrating and not what I was expecting..

This is really a weird symptom, indicating your have a defective unit, but I still think you should do one more simple and quick test just to be 101% sure.

1. Replace the surround right with the surround left speaker, using the same speaker leads for the surround right, but plug it to the AVR's surround left speaker terminal posts. Or you can use the surround left's leads if they are long enough, in that case, then swap the connections at the AVR, that is, the original surround left goes to the surround right speaker posts and vice versa for the other speaker.

2. Run Audyssey again, but only for the MLP just to check the levels again quickly. I can't remember if Audyssey let you do that, if not, then just run the second position without moving the mic (you can lie to Audyssey). Again all this is to save time.

3. Tell Audyssey you are are done, complete, let it finish calculating then you can check the result.

This is to make sure if the location of the surround left speaker is causing the mic and Audyssey to up the level. Audyssey measures spl not exactly the same way the RS meter does, but it should never be that far off. So again, I am just curious if the above exercise will yield different result.

The easiest thing to do is to return it and pick one up from Bestbuy, price match it to save another $5. I have the X4400H in a two channel system for a few days and now in the HT system also for a few days, and in terms of sound quality I am not missing the AV8801 at all. In fact the same XT32 on the Denon seems to be doing better than the Marantz, based on my REW measurements. The bass sounded better, so I ran REW in a hurry just to see what caused it, or it wasn't even real. So I hope you'll stick with the thing, but just get a new one..

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents.

Thanks for the Posts,

I haven't purchased the App yet as I wanted to make sure about the 4400 first. I was too bagged from work today to do anything other than vegetate in front of the TV after cooking /eating dinner.

All of my surrounds and ceiling speakers are fed from inside the walls and ceiling. I bought a couple spools of in wall speaker wire, and roughed it in during the renovation, when the ceiling was down. I installed wall plates and terminals with banana plugs beside the brackets for the 4 surrounds. So there isn't any slack at all.

Swapping those speakers seems like folly as they are both working just fine, It's just the Left one is being driven much harder. But I may do it just for grins...

I was wondering what the reset procedure

was for the 4400. So I looked it up.

I'm thinking this may also be a last gasp before calling Denon.

As for returning it and buying from my local Best Buy. They never stock this unit and besides, they wouldn't price match because it had a damaged carton mention on Gibby's Web page (anything to weasel out of giving a big discount.)

Let see what tomorrow brings.

 

[PENG]

Hi Gents.

Thanks for the Posts,

I haven't purchased the App yet as I wanted to make sure about the 4400 first. I was too bagged from work today to do anything other than vegetate in front of the TV after cooking /eating dinner.

All of my surrounds and ceiling speakers are fed from inside the walls and ceiling. I bought a couple spools of in wall speaker wire, and roughed it in during the renovation, when the ceiling was down. I installed wall plates and terminals with banana plugs beside the brackets for the 4 surrounds. So there isn't any slack at all.

Swapping those speakers seems like folly as they are both working just fine, It's just the Left one is being driven much harder. But I may do it just for grins...

I was wondering what the reset procedureView attachment 24940 was for the 4400. So I looked it up.

I'm thinking this may also be a last gasp before calling Denon.

As for returning it and buying from my local Best Buy. They never stock this unit and besides, they wouldn't price match because it had a damaged carton mention on Gibby's Web page (anything to weasel out of giving a big discount.)

Let see what tomorrow brings.

Jim, just some quick points:

1. Swapping speakers, that's not what I suggested in my last post, I meant to say place the left surround in the right surround's location (not swapping),that's what I meant by "replacing", sorry about my confusing narrative. You can simply put it side by side with the right surround. The rational is to eliminate the possibility that Audyssey may have trouble dealing with the location where your left surround is. I know it sounds weird, but it is a remote possibility, as Audyssey does not measure level the same way the RS meter does and it may be more prone to errors under some rare and odd acoustic conditions. I really don't know what I am talking about, just that I feel there are things that Audyssey, and probably most if not all REQ systems do things that we don't understand and thus require some trial and error, sometimes.. So I am not suspecting your speaker is the problem, but Audyssey may be (just a remote possibility) the culprit for that particular physical location.

Again, it is just to be 101% sure before you go through all the trouble of returning it for a replacement.

2. Re-initializing the processor is a necessary step, because if you call Denon they will ask yo to do it anyway. In fact I thought you had done that already, if not, you should do it first before anything else, it only takes a few seconds.

3. Bestbuy won't price match the damage box price, but they have to match the perfect box/full price, that is $1199 at the place you bought yours. They did that with me, so I pay $1193,99 net. I just checked, the $1199 is still on, website says ending today, but they seem to be extending it every day.

Regardless, once you get everything sorted out you will be happy, as this thing performs so well that I don't miss the Marantz AVP at all. Make sure you give it a lot of cooling, it runs as warm, if not warmer than the Marantz, even just idling.

 

[-Jim-]

I did try the reset tonight but no joy. Tomorrow I swap surrounds and then if that fails, I'll call Denon before I put back my "old" Denon AVR-S900W.

 

[-Jim-]

Today I swapped the surrounds and I'll be damned if the issue didn't move with the Speaker.

Just to confirm I puller another Loft 30 from a different system and temporarily put it on some boxes (We've still got lots from the Reno ), re-ran Audyssey, and it was within 0.5 dB of the other surround.

Tomorrow, I'll move over the Speaker Bracket and do a full Audyssey setup (I only did 3 positions for these last tests). Then I can start to play with all the features on the 4400.

Boy am I relieved, but now I'll have to sort out the JBL Loft 30.

Thanks for the assist.

 

[PENG]

Today I swapped the surrounds and I'll be damned if the issue didn't move with the Speaker.

Just to confirm I puller another Loft 30 from a different system and temporarily put it on some boxes (We've still got lots from the Reno ), re-ran Audyssey, and it was within 0.5 dB of the other surround.

Tomorrow, I'll move over the Speaker Bracket and do a full Audyssey setup (I only did 3 positions for these last tests). Then I can start to play with all the features on the 4400.

Boy am I relieved, but now I'll have to sort out the JBL Loft 30.

Thanks for the assist.

Congrats! I have probably run Audyssey over 100 times from 2 Dennon AVRs and 2 Marantz prepros, and I have read just about everything I could find on the www related to Audyssey, and other REQs. Many info on the www are not credible for a variety of reasons but I am confident that I could tell (most of the times anyway) the good ones from the bad ones (e.g. TLSGuy's, and mine too, maybe)

Based on my experience, and Googled knowledge, I found that you have to run it a few times with slightly different mic elevations in order to get the best of it from your main listening positions. If only have time to do it once, then just follow the instructions to the letter, but do make sure the mic points to the ceiling, and about 1.5" higher than the couch back, or ear height whichever is greater.

I highly recommend using the Editor App right off the bat, it allows you to save the curves from different runs and can choose to load the one you pick any time. I have tried both and the results were close, so whatever issues @Pogre experienced before must have been fixed by D&M, Denon for sure.

The mic positions suggested in the manual is probably the best, it is just the following that can make a difference:

1. Mic At ear height, 1", 2", or 3'" above the couch back.
2. Not too close to the couch back, 4 to 7" seems good.
3. Distance between mic positions 2 through 8 to be within 24" from the main position as suggested by the App.
4. Very important!! Make sure the room is quiet, I actually turned off the HVAC.

Some REQ claimed they could ignore the noise floor, I buy that totally if the noise floor is constant, but not if it varies, for example in one of my room, it is not far from the AC unit outside, and it is open to the kitchen and a big friidge not too far away. So the mic could easily be fooled whenever the compressors kicked in, that's just a couple of examples. Probably the best time to do it is after mid night lol..

Once you are happy you have done your best Audyssey run, you have to play with the crossovers. Let's say the Denon (not Audyssey) set the mains to full band, you would then play your bass heavy music (high quality ones), listen carefully for clarity related characteristics, and then try 40, 50, 60, 80, 90, 100, 110 Hz. I did it with my ears and REW. If you don't use REW, it's okay to do it by ears only, but then you should take more time just to be sure you have heard enough for each XO point. I hope you don't find this boring, I just want to share my good experience with the 4400. It doesn't happen very often that two people on AH acquire the same AVR in the same month.

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Peng,

Thanks for the post. I'm always eager to learn more about setting up systems better. However, it's summertime and I'm getting pulled in lots of directions, both at work and with family. Like today for instance. I was going over to my mother-in-laws to repair her fence but my misses set a different priority, and now I need to go look at more furniture to complete the remodeling after the Reno.

I'd love to stay at home and just tinker with the X4400H. (I use a tripod and set the Mic at ear level when seated.) But as I stated above: "The room has a Lazyboy recliner close to the sweet spot, and the only other things in the room are a couple of dozen cardboard boxes still containing mostly kitchen stuff that has yet to find it's "forever home". " The misses has reduced the number of boxes a bit every week. So it's obvious we need to get some furniture into the room before spending hours doing serious tweaking of the X4400H. Until I get some more free time, I'll leave the setup as is, but I may tweak the crossovers. Why do you say Denon sets them and not Audyssey? I thought it was Audyssey using it's proprietary algorithms that calculated them based off the data accumulated during the setup tests. I'm blown away the 32 bit software still makes mistakes.

I have spent some time looking at how to get Atmos to run (as that was the point of moving from the "old" Denon AVR-S900W receiver to the X4400H and installing the 4 in-ceiling speakers). So to me that's the next "to do" on the list. It's becoming more apparent that I messed up thinking the existing Blu-Ray Player would send all the data via Bitstream, and let the 4400 decode it. I'm probably headed into a Samsung UBD-M7500 4K Ultra HD HDR Blu-Ray Player even though I don't have a 4K TV; and no immediate plans to buy one either. I can get a deal on the Samsung and the remote will be compatible with the Samsung TV (not that we'll use it much for it). What do you use for a Blu-Ray Player with the 4400? Do you set it to Bitstream of have the Player decode the audio?

Thanks for the assist.

 

[PENG]

Hi Peng,

Thanks for the post. I'm always eager to learn more about setting up systems better. However, it's summertime and I'm getting pulled in lots of directions, both at work and with family. Like today for instance. I was going over to my mother-in-laws to repair her fence but my misses set a different priority, and now I need to go look at more furniture to complete the remodeling after the Reno.

I'd love to stay at home and just tinker with the X4400H. (I use a tripod and set the Mic at ear level when seated.) But as I stated above: "The room has a Lazyboy recliner close to the sweet spot, and the only other things in the room are a couple of dozen cardboard boxes still containing mostly kitchen stuff that has yet to find it's "forever home". " The misses has reduced the number of boxes a bit every week. So it's obvious we need to get some furniture into the room before spending hours doing serious tweaking of the X4400H. Until I get some more free time, I'll leave the setup as is, but I may tweak the crossovers. Why do you say Denon sets them and not Audyssey? I thought it was Audyssey using it's proprietary algorithms that calculated them based off the data accumulated during the setup tests. I'm blown away the 32 bit software still makes mistakes.

I have spent some time looking at how to get Atmos to run (as that was the point of moving from the "old" Denon AVR-S900W receiver to the X4400H and installing the 4 in-ceiling speakers). So to me that's the next "to do" on the list. It's becoming more apparent that I messed up thinking the existing Blu-Ray Player would send all the data via Bitstream, and let the 4400 decode it. I'm probably headed into a Samsung UBD-M7500 4K Ultra HD HDR Blu-Ray Player even though I don't have a 4K TV; and no immediate plans to buy one either. I can get a deal on the Samsung and the remote will be compatible with the Samsung TV (not that we'll use it much for it). What do you use for a Blu-Ray Player with the 4400? Do you set it to Bitstream of have the Player decode the audio?

Thanks for the assist.

Out in the Outlet mall right now but will get back to you later.

 

[KEW]

Boy am I relieved, but now I'll have to sort out the JBL Loft 30.

First, check the speaker cable by swapping it (if you haven't already). My brother had a speaker cable that his cat had stuck a claw through that gave us fits! It worked perfectly at lower volumes, but problems started when the volume went up - presumably as the potential between the pos and neg increased it arced over the wires that were very close to each other. IIRC, It sounded bad before it gave a good solid short to shut down the amp. We figured amp first, but after replacing it figured it must be something about the speaker, then he finally noticed the rough spot in the cable when he was winding it around his hand/elbow. I checked both ends of the cable, but never thought about damage in the middle of the cable length (aside from kink/stress, which is visually obvious). In this case, feel was really the only way to discover it! Yeah, you could see it if you looked close and knew where to look, but the small puncture in the 12 Ga, cable was not a conspicuous discontinuity.

 

[PENG]

Hi Peng,

I was going over to my mother-in-laws to repair her fence

After the recent wind storm, here in Ontario the fence contractors are too busy to even return calls. Lots of people are going to have to learn how to replace the posts.

Why do you say Denon sets them and not Audyssey? I thought it was Audyssey using it's proprietary algorithms that calculated them based off the data accumulated during the setup tests. I'm blown away the 32 bit software still makes mistakes.

The founder Dr. Chris Kyriakakis had clarified this many times in the past.

https://audyssey.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212342423-Changing-the-cross-over-settings-after-running-Audyssey

Below is pasted from the linked FAQ linked above:

Audyssey Labs

March 25, 2011 09:43

MultEQ does not set crossovers. It simply finds the roll off that each speaker has in the room and where it's placed. The crossovers are set by the AVR maker. There is a benefit in raising the crossover up: the MultEQ filters in the subwoofer channel have 8x more resolution and so will produce a smoother bass response. I would recommend using 80 Hz.

Just to show you the difference I found between XO60 and 90 for my LS50 and E15HP sub, below is a comparison graph, green is 60 Hz, red 100 Hz, with no smoothing at all. That's with the Marantz AV8801, the AVR-X3400H and X4400H actually produced better results for whatever reasons, without even using the App, but I didn't save the 60 Hz plot that I did with the AV8801. Obviously the plots are for both left, right channel and the subwoofer playing together, and it is only in my room for my set up, so ymmv..

What do you use for a Blu-Ray Player with the 4400? Do you set it to Bitstream of have the Player decode the audio?

I have the Oppo BDP-105 that is not a 4K player as such but can upscale to 4K output. I always set it to bit stream as I don't see any benefits to let the player do the decoding, and I like to see the AVR/AVP display the audio codec, instead of just PCM. I will get a 4K player only if and when the price for a good one drops below $100, and there are more 4k titles available at lower price. Until then up scales 4K is good enough and actually my 65" set is too small for me to notice the difference anyway.

 

[-Jim-]

First, check the speaker cable by swapping it (if you haven't already). My brother had a speaker cable that his cat had stuck a claw through that gave us fits! It worked perfectly at lower volumes, but problems started when the volume went up - presumably as the potential between the pos and neg increased it arced over the wires that were very close to each other. IIRC, It sounded bad before it gave a good solid short to shut down the amp. We figured amp first, but after replacing it figured it must be something about the speaker, then he finally noticed the rough spot in the cable when he was winding it around his hand/elbow. I checked both ends of the cable, but never thought about damage in the middle of the cable length (aside from kink/stress, which is visually obvious). In this case, feel was really the only way to discover it! Yeah, you could see it if you looked close and knew where to look, but the small puncture in the 12 Ga, cable was not a conspicuous discontinuity.

Hi Kew,

As I swapped Surround Speakers side to side and the issue moved with it, that indicated an issue with the Speaker and not the cable. Then I replaced the Speaker with another Loft 30 I borrowed from our Family Room HT, and when it worked perfectly, that proved it was a speaker issue. (By the way, I pulled all new in-wall cables for this (and the Family Room) during a recent renovation.

 

[-Jim-]

After the recent wind storm, here in Ontario the fence contractors are too busy to even return calls. Lots of people are going to have to learn how to replace the posts.



The founder Dr. Chris Kyriakakis had clarified this many times in the past.

https://audyssey.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212342423-Changing-the-cross-over-settings-after-running-Audyssey

Below is pasted from the linked FAQ linked above:




Just to show you the difference I found between XO60 and 90 for my LS50 and E15HP sub, below is a comparison graph, green is 60 Hz, red 100 Hz, with no smoothing at all. That's with the Marantz AV8801, the AVR-X3400H and X4400H actually produced better results for whatever reasons, without even using the App, but I didn't save the 60 Hz plot that I did with the AV8801. Obviously the plots are for both left, right channel and the subwoofer playing together, and it is only in my room for my set up, so ymmv..


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I have the Oppo BDP-105 that is not a 4K player as such but can upscale to 4K output. I always set it to bit stream as I don't see any benefits to let the player do the decoding, and I like to see the AVR/AVP display the audio codec, instead of just PCM. I will get a 4K player only if and when the price for a good one drops below $100, and there are more 4k titles available at lower price. Until then up scales 4K is good enough and actually my 65" set is too small for me to notice the difference anyway.

Thanks for the info Peng.

It took all last weekend to repair the aged fence at my mother-in-laws. It was as hot as it ever gets here in Greater Vancouver, so I'm glad that's behind me now. At the last minute my wife changed her mind (why do women do that so often?), dropped shopping for furniture, and said to repair the fence.

Of course that meant today I had to go shopping for furniture => all day. We are focussing on the Family Room first, as if we tried to do more than one room at a time, we'd never get it done. Besides, I've got 3 of my Lazy Boy Recliners in the Family Room temporarily. Once that room has new furniture, I'll put 2 of them in the Games Room (with the 4400 HT) to make 3, and take the other one downstairs. Of course we don't agree on what kind of seating we should have for the Family Room but my wife and her interior decorator (when we did the Reno planning) have a sectional pencilled in for that room. So this could be a long process.

But I did make some progress on the Games Room System, and got Dolby Atmos working. I bought a Samsung UBD-K8500 4K Blu-Ray Player this week, and it took me a while to work through it, but it now works fine. See

Blu-Ray Player when moving to Immersive Sound - Atmos / DTS-X / Auro-3D?

I have no intent to move to a 4K TV in the near term either. (We have three 55" 1080P LED LCD TVs in the house already. I have a deal with my wife that I'll buy a 4K TV only when one of them dies.) My logic was most immersive soundtracks seem to be packaged (almost exclusively) with 4K Movies. So I thought I'd need a 4K player to push the Bitstream sound to the 4400 in most case moving forward. The existing Samsung BDJ6300 wouldn't push Bitstream to the 4400, so I needed to do something to make it happen. And as I got the for Samsung UBD-K8500 for only $99.99 at Open Box, I figure it was a wise investment considering all the money and effort I've tossed at going to immersive sound so far.

Thanks for the guidance on the Audyssey setup and links. It seems strange a brand like Denon would stumble so badly on setting the crossovers. Especially on a more top end receiver like the 4400. But it is what it is. I'm hoping to get some free time to re-run Audyssey (all 8 locations), and then I'll tweak the crossover points. But even with them a bit wonky, the Dolby Atmos sound on the first part of Black Panther, was pretty good.

As much as I'd like to be tweaking the setup tomorrow, I have a tile repair to do in my son's shower. It looks like a long job too, so once again it may be a while to my next round with the 4400.

The impact shown in your graph is definitely significant and should be noticeable by ear. Thanks for sharing that. I'd love to have the time to learn REW enough to become proficient, and use it to tweak the system. You seem to have a good handle on it.

 

[-Jim-]

Just a heads up. I am having fun with the setup as is using just Cable TV as a source, but the Tile repair has quickly become a full blown renovation of the bathroom. (It's amazing how much damage a bit of water can do.) So the Family priority is on that so my tinkering here is on the back burner.