HELP MARANTZ SR6004 no bass

F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
Righto, I just ran Audyssey. It sounded good even with that crappy Dynamic EQ turned on.
And guess what, Audyssey has now increased the 60Hz to +3 & 120Hz to +4db
Which is only 1db away from what I had set!

I dont even need my subwoofer, its off, the thing is infact boomy cuz its put up the bass in every channel I might need to drop it own in the centre a bit lol

What the hell happened to it the last time then?!

The more I play with this receiver, the more unexplainable behaviour.

This time the rear surround levels have not been dropped as much.
But the level matching is still pretty close, I'll drop it .5db each side & should be mint.

Any more opinions guys? Now that its all kind of over, I am annoyed & laughing at the same time hahaha What weird Sh1t seriously!
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Righto, I just ran Audyssey. It sounded good even with that crappy Dynamic EQ turned on.
And guess what, Audyssey has now increased the 60Hz to +3 & 120Hz to +4db
Which is only 1db away from what I had set!

I dont even need my subwoofer, its off, the thing is infact boomy cuz its put up the bass in every channel I might need to drop it own in the centre a bit lol

What the hell happened to it the last time then?!

The more I play with this receiver, the more unexplainable behaviour.

This time the rear surround levels have not been dropped as much.
But the level matching is still pretty close, I'll drop it .5db each side & should be mint.

Any more opinions guys? Now that its all kind of over, I am annoyed & laughing at the same time hahaha What weird Sh1t seriously!
I am glad to see that you finally seem enjoying this nice littel AVR. Now let's hope it will never "unfix" itself suddenly.:D
 
GranteedEV

GranteedEV

Audioholic Ninja
Righto, I just ran Audyssey. It sounded good even with that crappy Dynamic EQ turned on.
And guess what, Audyssey has now increased the 60Hz to +3 & 120Hz to +4db
It sounds like your mic placement on the first audessey setup may have messed things up.
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
It sounds like your mic placement on the first audessey setup may have messed things up.
Did you read the whole thing? He said even in pure direct, after factory reset etc. etc., this 6004 still put out much less bass than the puny RX-V3XX (forgot the exact number).
 
F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
Did you read the whole thing? He said even in pure direct, after factory reset etc. etc., this 6004 still put out much less bass than the puny RX-V3XX (forgot the exact number).
And back then I hadnt even bothered with Audyssey, because I was in pure 2ch Stereo listending to music. But had to leave the sub on with bass upto 160Hz outputting to both fronts & sub. When I turned the sub off back then the setup used to sound crap. But hey, its nice now.

I still need to finetune the sub, cuz I want to get more punch as opposed to boom, any tips guys? What I kind of want to do is something like more emphasys on the 100Hz freq without too much on 60Hz, does that make sense? Im already working on the placement.
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
I still need to finetune the sub, cuz I want to get more punch as opposed to boom, any tips guys? What I kind of want to do is something like more emphasys on the 100Hz freq without too much on 60Hz, does that make sense? Im already working on the placement.
I would just leave that to Audyssey but follow their instructions exactly, such as disabling all parametric EQ, disable all filters, set gain to mid point etc.
 
F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
I would just leave that to Audyssey but follow their instructions exactly, such as disabling all parametric EQ, disable all filters, set gain to mid point etc.

Audyssey decides to set crossover to send only 40Hz & below to the sub
When u enable audyssey in this AVR it automaticlaly turns of everything
The sub doesnt hav an eq, only a volume control, which I set to a third of the way, cuz even half way gets too strong

I then set the sub crossover to 80Hz & get the volume down. I liked that effect a bit, but then in depends on the material.

Also, this time Dynamic EQ & dynamic volume actually make Audyssey sound better, also seems to make the receiver louder in all sources. All in all, the sub seems to be used quite less if audyssey.

My sub position seems to be a problem, & that whole wall seems to be a bit of a problem, will look into it
 
F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
I am not clear what you are saying but to be clear, Audyssey does not set your speakers to small or large, your AVR does. Before running Audyssey again another time, you should pay Audyssey website a visit and since you are keen on bass, try here first:

http://ask.audyssey.com/entries/74454-bass-management


Hi peng, in my AR, to engage audyssey setup, u have to do a generic auto-setup, only then will it do the eq setup as part of it. After the audyssey test, it check strobes, it chekcs the freq resp & sets the spkr size & sub on/off & crossover etc everything. You can Not unfortunately just run the eq part of it as auto setup, which is why I use the word audyssey, but ur right I should use the word "auto setup"

After that, I go in manually to set the sub crosover, spkr size & levels which I do tend to make alterations to & get the best sound.
Cheers
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Hi peng, in my AR, to engage audyssey setup, u have to do a generic auto-setup, only then will it do the eq setup as part of it. After the audyssey test, it check strobes, it chekcs the freq resp & sets the spkr size & sub on/off & crossover etc everything. You can Not unfortunately just run the eq part of it as auto setup, which is why I use the word audyssey, but ur right I should use the word "auto setup"

After that, I go in manually to set the sub crosover, spkr size & levels which I do tend to make alterations to & get the best sound.
Cheers
Okay I know what you are saying now but still, for clarity, Audyssey does not set your speaker size. The AVR's auto setup set the speaker size, and they do have the tendency to set most floor standing speakers to large. If you read up on the Audyssey site they explained that and they even suggest you go back and set the speaker size to small.
 
F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
But I have 683s in the front, should I still set it to small? The 683s have 2 woofers in them & can put out serious LF is u so choose to.

Another question, is there any way to alter the EQ for the sub or get a similar effect from the receiver. I get a suspicion that running audyssey is doing something like taht to my sub, but I cant do it manually. Sorry I havnt had time to read the audyssey site will get to it thanks. I use the pre-out to connect to my B&W ASW608 which only has 2 modes, A & B which are like eq modes but what Id like to be able to do is reduce the 40Hz odd down & boost the 80Hz just a tad, I think itll give me a bit of punch that I like without the accompanying boom if u just put the volume up. Make sense?
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
But I have 683s in the front, should I still set it to small? The 683s have 2 woofers in them & can put out serious LF is u so choose to.

Another question, is there any way to alter the EQ for the sub or get a similar effect from the receiver. I get a suspicion that running audyssey is doing something like taht to my sub, but I cant do it manually. Sorry I havnt had time to read the audyssey site will get to it thanks. I use the pre-out to connect to my B&W ASW608 which only has 2 modes, A & B which are like eq modes but what Id like to be able to do is reduce the 40Hz odd down & boost the 80Hz just a tad, I think itll give me a bit of punch that I like without the accompanying boom if u just put the volume up. Make sense?
Definitey set the 683 to small and crossover to 60 or 80 Hz. I suspect you 80 Hz would suit your taste better but you should try both to find out for yourself.

You should connect the L RCA input of the sub to the 6004's subout. Before you run Audyssey you are supposed to turn off/disable the sub's EQ, filters etc., basically just leave everything to Audyssey and you will get the best result.
 
F

fuzzy_logic

Audioholic Intern
Hi Peng
The sub doesnt have an eq per say.
But it has 2 modes, which are similar to what could be an eq.
They have mode A - recommended for music, & mode B - for movies
BUt they suggest mode A as the standard.
You have to pick one fo those 2

I have ensured teh low pass filter is not in so its all pretty basic overall.

The sub was kept to tad below half volume during auto setup, as per audyssey/sub suggestion.

I peronsally, prefer to keep the sub cross over higher at 160Hz in this setup, & bass to pumping out to "both" mode mainly due to convenience.
Then I just keep sub off until I realy need it, like in movies with direct DTS/DD or when I want to enjoy the occassional dance music. So rather than putting the volume up & down between dts/stereo music sources(cuz stereo has eq applied), I can keep it constant & have as few changes each time. It works well enough, for now :)
 

fred_ugly

Audiophyte
Marantz Audyssey bug

This thread is over a year old, but in case someone else stumbles upon it like I did...

My Marantz fixed itself... So, all I did today was turned audyssey off & put my user eq settings back on.
No one pointed it out, or perhaps no other Marantz owners read the thread, but this sounds exactly like a known Audyssey bug in older Marantz firmware which lowers the bass output.
 
S

singhcr

Enthusiast
I am having this problem too, unfortunately. Anyone know what to do?
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
I am having this problem too, unfortunately. Anyone know what to do?
You need to provide more info if you actually expect assistance!
What AVR,
What speakers,
What source/input signal?
Did it work better before or with different gear.
Subwoofer?
Audyssey?
Etc.
 
S

singhcr

Enthusiast
You need to provide more info if you actually expect assistance!
What AVR,
What speakers,
What source/input signal?
Did it work better before or with different gear.
Subwoofer?
Audyssey?
Etc.
My mistake, you would obviously not be able to help without any info! *smacks head* ;)

My issue is entirely with my subwoofer and a lack of mid bass that lends you that "punch" when listening to movies.

I have a HSU VTF-15H and it's a beast. With my old JVC RX series AVR from 2002 or so, at a Q setting of 0.5, crossover at 80 Hz, EQ=1 with one port open and a volume of 40%, it was a powerful yet dynamic sub. I was using analog outputs from my Panasonic BD-DMP55 as this AVR couldn't decode the lossless audio codecs. I have a 5.1 setup and my mains and center were set to large. No double bass or anything. I believe the LFE gain was set to +6 as I heard that the LFE gain needed to be at least at +5 dB when using analog inputs.

So a little over a year ago I upgraded to a Marantz SR6011 and used my same Panasonic BD player, but set the player to bitstream output via HDMI instead of using the internal decoder. Keep in mind that my speakers are exactly the same, as is the room, speaker placement, etc. Absolutely nothing has changed- even the same cables.

When I ran Audyssey, the bass was nonexistent as it had set my LFE to -6 dB relative to everything else. I pushed the gain to +6 and that helped, but it was flat and muddy sounding. Engaging Dynamic EQ helped the bass become more prominent but it was even more flat. I tried running Audyssey many times, even with foam feet on the mic stand. Nothing improved.

So I turned off Audyssey and used the direct mode, even Pure Direct. I tried to set everything as close to what I had on my JVC- all speakers set to 80 Hz crossover, front and center speakers set to large, etc.

What I ended up doing to get it as close as I could was to set all speakers to small, set all speaker crossovers to 80Hz and engage LFE+Main as LFE alone made this situation worse. With my volume knob on the sub at 50% and a gain of +6, it was loud enough to my liking and was a marked improvement over using Audyssey, but the mid was just gone. I even tried using the second subwoofer input in case the primary one was damaged, but nothing happened. I thought that perhaps I had just preferred the sound that the Panasonic BD player had, so I used it for decoding and passed analog outputs to the Marantz to eliminate as many differences between it and the JVC setup as I could. No improvement. So if using the same decoder, speakers, sub, and crossover settings didn't produce the same results, what could?

I called Crutchfield tech support and Marantz tech support and after going through the standard processes of doing factory resets, etc, I asked for an exchange.

When I got the new AVR, the situation remained the same. I wondered if I was really hearing things correctly and dragged out my old AVR from storage and did an A/B test. I was right- the mid was back. Additionally, I use my sub with my 2ch Marantz amp for records with the LFE input from the multichannel amp disconnected and it sounds as good as it ever did, so I know nothing is wrong with the sub. It's not damaged.

Unfortunately, I refused to believe that a $1200 amplifier could sound worse in LFE output compared to a $200, 15 year old amplifier so I kept on trying to get it working. On top of that, it's a powered sub so the AVR doesn't do anything but pass a signal and at most applies a gain or lowers it when running in Direct. I could see that the sub signal may be filtered somehow when running Audyssey, but not in Direct.

Over the last year or so I just tried to get used to it. When I upgraded to a 4K OLED TV and started watching movies more often than I had, the LFE output really started to bother me. When I got an Oppo BDP-203 UHD player, the sound didn't improve (not that I thought it would, but just FYI).

I did more research over the weekend and re-ran Audyssey with the volume knob on my sub at 25% so when Audyssey did its level matching, the LFE was close to zero. It was at +1 dB which is pretty damn close. I had thought that perhaps the signal was being clipped during high volume LFE scenes earlier when my gain was set at +6 or so.

Once again, I can't replicate the performance I used to have with my JVC even in Direct mode. I increased the gain to +3.5 dB in the AVR and turned up the trim (volume) on the sub itself to about 50% and that helped, but the mid is still gone. LFE is set to LFE+Main, all speakers are set to small, and all crossovers are set to 80 Hz in Direct mode.

I just do not understand how a powered subwoofer that is in the same room with the same cables, speakers, and even decoder when using my old BD player's internal decoder and analog outputs cannot produce the same results with a AVR that is far superior to my old one. Considering that I already got a replacement when I first bought the unit, I can only conclude that there's something fundamentally wrong with this model or that I'm missing a setting somehow, but I am really out of settings to fiddle with here.
 
Last edited:
S

singhcr

Enthusiast
Set your speakers to small...
I have. They are all set to small, LFE set to LFE+Main and a crossover of 80 Hz.

Considering that I never used small speakers with my old amp, this just confuses me all the more.
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
I have. They are all set to small, LFE set to LFE+Main and a crossover of 80 Hz.
Just deleted post, after I caught it. Unless the room has changed, sub position, etc I'm not sure because the marantz has plenty of voltage to drive the sub. Audyessey can be tricky to get right. I'd just focus the setup again as that's your likely culprit. Did you download the Audyessey editor app?
 

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