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.
