Anthem MRX 500

[psbfan9]

YPAO will set any speaker to large if it can play 80Hz I believe.

In running my YPAO, I set all my speakers to small so that the sub would get ALL the bass. That's the only thing I touched in the settings. I ran YPAO three time for each of teh EQ setting, "natural, flat, and front" and stored each setting into memory. This way I could expereiment between teh three eq settings when the mood hit me.

Thanks for this 3db! I never would have considered running YPAO with the three different settings. I'll see what happens

 

[ahblaza]

Thanks for this 3db! I never would have considered running YPAO with the three different settings. I'll see what happens

My friend, it so good to see you this happy with your new toy, let me know what you think after calibration, I'm considering a Yamaha myself. I'm not much of a RC person but am eager to hear your results after running the software YPAO. That 3db guy seems to know his stuff
Cheers Jeff

 

[DS-21]

So have you pulled the trigger yet? I wouldn't worry about the made in China part because most gear in that price range would be made in China or Malaysia anyway. As others have said if you really believe in their ARC being the best REQ (no idea why people would)

It's not the best, just the best in the price class with no serious competition since the demise of the Trinnov-equipped Sherwood R-972. I'd like that to change. I hope Emotiva gives us a useful implementation of Dirac if they ever release their pre-pro, and it would be nice if Pioneer and Yamaha develop their systems into relevance as well. (There are some rumblings that Pioneer may get serious next year.) Audyssey could also improve, and join the first rank of RC systems. Also, perhaps someone could try again with Trinnov in a reasonably priced piece of kit.

But back to ARC, it handles the upper bass properly, and can be set to not touch the signal above the modal region.

Read Dr. Rich's review on SECRETS, posted earlier. Dr. Rich is, of course, a Ph.D. EE and a full Professor.

Audyssey's comparative flaws relegating it (in standard form) to the second tier of RC systems are by now well-known: neutering the upper bass by EQ'ing out room gain, and the crappy speakers compensation notch.

Audyssey-based platforms really need to include the Pro license in their higher-end lines. Audyssey does a good job of fitting measurements to the target curve, so it's just a matter of fixing the curve.

As to Anthem ARC vs others, they may be superior but not able to see any hard proof, going by blind faith I put more faith in Audyssey base on circumstance factors only. Some people get fixated on what they called the "notch" filter but that's one opinion vs the founder of Audyssey who is also an EE with a PhD degree.

It's worth noting that ARC came out of the ATHENA project at the NRC (Canada), just like Harman's JBL Synthesis system. ATHENA was, of course, started under a Ph.D., Dr. Floyd Toole.

It's also worth noting that Audyssey MultEQ XT (on Audyssey's standalone box) was found worse than no EQ in the Harman blind tests, even on crappy speakers (B&W N802?), conducted under the direction of another Ph.D., Dr. Sean Olive. And XT32 wouldn't have done better, because it doesn't fix the above two problems. It just makes the fit to the target curve more accurate.

It's obvious that the least-preferred curve is from Audyssey, based on the flat bass and midrange notch. (Incidentally, in that test ARC basically tied with "no EQ," but the current ARC target curve looks more like that of the 3d-ranked (and better than "nothing") system in Dr. Olive's 2009 test, which was RoomPerfect.

I realize that and did mention it in my post too, Audyssey calls that thing midrange compensation and claimed that it comes from psychoacoustics as needed. Of course people from the competing camp prefer to call it a "notch" filter***

You mean, "some people prefer to use the technically correct term, rather than a meaningless marketing sound-bite."

I would love to say congratulations to psbfan9 as well but just not sure if he did pull the trigger on the MRX500 or not. I am tempted to grab the lower priced 300 for myself instead of spending almost as much on the Audyssey Pro kit. I see the MRX as an interesting affordable toy for me.

If you want to keep liking your Denon AVR-as-prepro, don't.

But there should be an MRX-310 (and 710; no 510 has been mentioned) out soon. Anthem's been tight-lipped about what changes may be a part of it. Hopefully, just like before, there's basically no reason to buy the more expensive one over the cheaper one.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

It's not the best, just the best in the price class with no serious competition since the demise of the Trinnov-equipped Sherwood R-972. I'd like that to change. I hope Emotiva gives us a useful implementation of Dirac if they ever release their pre-pro, and it would be nice if Pioneer and Yamaha develop their systems into relevance as well. (There are some rumblings that Pioneer may get serious next year.) Audyssey could also improve, and join the first rank of RC systems. Also, perhaps someone could try again with Trinnov in a reasonably priced piece of kit.

But back to ARC, it handles the upper bass properly, and can be set to not touch the signal above the modal region.

Read Dr. Rich's review on SECRETS, posted earlier. Dr. Rich is, of course, a Ph.D. EE and a full Professor.

Audyssey's comparative flaws relegating it (in standard form) to the second tier of RC systems are by now well-known: neutering the upper bass by EQ'ing out room gain, and the crappy speakers compensation notch.

Audyssey-based platforms really need to include the Pro license in their higher-end lines. Audyssey does a good job of fitting measurements to the target curve, so it's just a matter of fixing the curve.



It's worth noting that ARC came out of the ATHENA project at the NRC (Canada), just like Harman's JBL Synthesis system. ATHENA was, of course, started under a Ph.D., Dr. Floyd Toole.

It's also worth noting that Audyssey MultEQ XT (on Audyssey's standalone box) was found worse than no EQ in the Harman blind tests, even on crappy speakers (B&W N802?), conducted under the direction of another Ph.D., Dr. Sean Olive. And XT32 wouldn't have done better, because it doesn't fix the above two problems. It just makes the fit to the target curve more accurate.

It's obvious that the least-preferred curve is from Audyssey, based on the flat bass and midrange notch. (Incidentally, in that test ARC basically tied with "no EQ," but the current ARC target curve looks more like that of the 3d-ranked (and better than "nothing") system in Dr. Olive's 2009 test, which was RoomPerfect.



You mean, "some people prefer to use the technically correct term, rather than a meaningless marketing sound-bite."



If you want to keep liking your Denon AVR-as-prepro, don't.

But there should be an MRX-310 (and 710; no 510 has been mentioned) out soon. Anthem's been tight-lipped about what changes may be a part of it. Hopefully, just like before, there's basically no reason to buy the more expensive one over the cheaper one.

Here are my impression of this study.

1. A "study" of only eight NON-randomized subjects (n = 8) is statistically INSIGNIFICANT. I mean, come on, they need at least 50 subjects and they need to be randomized, not CHERRY-PICKED Harman trained people. C'mon man.

2. When you run Audyssey, it sets speakers to Large instead of small, XO to 40Hz instead of 80Hz, and it sets the subwoofer level WAY TO LOW! No wonder the bass seems "FLAT"! Everyone who uses Audyssey knows this, including Harman. Yet, I doubt Harman went back to set speakers to Small, XO to 80Hz, and increased the Subwoofer trim level to anything AUDIBLY decent! C'mon man!

3. And Harman probably used the Audyssey curve, instead of Audyssey FLAT curve, which I find to sound much better and more lifelike than the DEFAULT Audyssey curve. C'mon man!

4. Plus, I doubt if Harman used the Audyssey Dynamic EQ, which dramatically IMPROVES the sound quality, especially the BASS. C'mon man!

5. So basically Harman probably used the WORST possible Audyssey RC setup and compared it to the BEST possible Harman RC setup. C'mon man!

IMO, if Harman had studied 50 randomized audiophiles (instead of 8 trained Harman people) and used the BEST POSSIBLE Audyssey RC setup (Small speaker size, 80Hz XO, Audyssey Flat, Dynamic EQ, increased Subwoofer to audible level, etc), instead of the worst possible Audyssey RC setup, the outcome would have favored Audyssey!

So I see why Gene says that anybody can setup their DBTs to favor their own products!


And another thing. Why the hell did they use the B&W 802N, instead of the Salon2, KEF 207/2, JBL 6332, etc?

And how good is that JBL subwoofer anyway?

C'mon man!