Audyssey Editor App- With Screenshots!

[PENG]

@PENG, I think his big evidence is on the curve editor screenshot. If you look at the one I posted, the red line goes all the way over to the left without dropping. On the one he posted. It starts to drop off early. I believe that is the big red flag, but I seem to remember an Audyssey app team member chimes in at AVS and said it was squared away. But now we see this.
I think an email to the developer would be in order.

Not so fast....Please revisit your winner rated post#269 and my response to that in post#272.

It does seem that Audyssey will not target the impossible. I think this could well be the case for thepiecesfit. It is not the sub but likely the placement/room induced effect.

 

[PENG]

Your before chart does show (what I have to assume to be) a room null with the deep drop around 50Hz. Unfortunately there is little detail on exactly how Audyssey works, but I know @ATLAudio had a similar situation where Audyssey gave up on trying to provide flat bass below a room null he had. Once he eliminated the room null, Audyssey did a good job of maintaining flat in-room FR down to around 10Hz!
As a test, try moving your sub a foot or two to see if you can reduce the "before null" and see if the target curve improves. Even though this might put the sub somewhere where you would never actually locate it, it would confirm why this is happening. You could then look at feasible alternate locations or adding a second sub to reduce/eliminate the null!

@William Lemmerhirt and/or @PENG , I generally thought an EQ system like Audyssey could not do much with a null, since increasing the amplitude of the signal (gain) would only make the null deeper! Yet Audyssey seems to have done an impressive job of reducing it (if their chart is to be believed). Any ideas what is going on here?

Agreed, if it is a "pure" null, it knows and likely wouldn't even bother trying.

 

[Pogre]

That looks like a lot of room for a single sealed sub.

 

[thepiecesfit]

That looks like a lot of room for a single sealed sub.

That is true. Think that goes without saying and a second one is on the possible horizon. It is adequate for the time being

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Your before chart does show (what I have to assume to be) a room null with the deep drop around 50Hz. Unfortunately there is little detail on exactly how Audyssey works, but I know @ATLAudio had a similar situation where Audyssey gave up on trying to provide flat bass below a room null he had. Once he eliminated the room null, Audyssey did a good job of maintaining flat in-room FR down to around 10Hz!
As a test, try moving your sub a foot or two to see if you can reduce the "before null" and see if the target curve improves. Even though this might put the sub somewhere where you would never actually locate it, it would confirm why this is happening. You could then look at feasible alternate locations or adding a second sub to reduce/eliminate the null!

@William Lemmerhirt and/or @PENG , I generally thought an EQ system like Audyssey could not do much with a null, since increasing the amplitude of the signal (gain) would only make the null deeper! Yet Audyssey seems to have done an impressive job of reducing it (if their chart is to be believed). Any ideas what is going on here?

Well in general boosting nulls is basically useless although you might get another 3db out of one, not worth it. As far as audyssey goes, I believe it has a 9db limit for safety. Since the screenshots are only predictions made by audyssey it’s hard to say what the “after” really means. I can’t say if Audyssey recognizes that it can only boost so far, or vice versa and thinks it can fix everything. I feel like the former makes sense.
The good news is he has rew and seems to know how to use it.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Not so fast....Please revisit your winner rated post#269 and my response to that in post#272.

It does seem that Audyssey will not target the impossible. I think this could well be the case for thepiecesfit. It is not the sub but likely the placement/room induced effect.

After looking back at this, I think you’re right. I’m a little surprised that my previous words escaped me, but thanks for the reminder lol.
I kinda wish that audyssey would run at least once after the calibration to see “actual” results vs just predictions. I know that would create an Audyssey vs REW can of worms but I think it’d be better. Better resolution would be nice too. Still, it’s much better than what we had before.

 

[PENG]

In my opinion, using the editor to restrict the range, de-select the MRC, or not limit the range but select the HF roll off are good things to do. To custom shape the curve is not a good idea unless one is prepared to use REW or other similar software to verify the results that will likely lead to a lengthy process of trial an error that may eventually lead to better results.

 

[thepiecesfit]

In my opinion, using the editor to restrict the range, de-select the MRC, or not limit the range but select the HF roll off are good things to do. To custom shape the curve is not a good idea unless one is prepared to use REW or other similar software to verify the results that will likely lead to a lengthy process of trial an error that may eventually lead to better results.

I’ve played with the MultEQ curve editor and it is very clumsy. The changes also take a while to upload. I would love something with PEQ. Are folks having better results with something along the lines of a MiniDSP HD? Besides the investment, can similar results be attained with the curve editor? That is of course besides the dips in the frequency response.

 

[PENG]

I’ve played with the MultEQ curve editor and it is very clumsy. The changes also take a while to upload. I would love something with PEQ. Are folks having better results with something along the lines of a MiniDSP HD? Besides the investment, can similar results be attained with the curve editor? That is of course besides the dips in the frequency response.

In my experience, using REW with minidsp hd in combination with Audyssey would help very little, not worth the effort. Others reported better results. So, like anything else, it depends.

Edit:

I forgot to mention that I did try the Dirac Live standalone beta versions. It seemed a little more user friendly in terms of editing, but not by much. If your goal is to level the bass bumps in the below 200-300 Hz range, imo XT32+Editor App is just as good (there are pros and cons for both).

Also, you mentioned your love for PEQ, then may be you should consider Yamaha's as YPAO is afaik PEQ, i.e. IIR (infinite impulse response) based. There are pros and cons for each, but there seem to be consensus among experts in the field that FIR (finite impulse response) based (such as Audyssey) is better overall for Room EQ, than IIR based (such as YPAO). Anthem is also IIR based, yet it seems to enjoy much better reception in the community than YPAO. I think that has something to do with Yamaha being too slow in improving theirs and Anthem's natural advantages in terms of editing, being PC based. On the subjective side, people, including "experts" tend to favor boutique/semi boutique brands in their reviews regardless of what measurements may show. I think it is possible that the latest YPAO versions are as good or better than Anthem ARC.

Siemens Digital Industries Software Community

 

[KEW]

I’ve played with the MultEQ curve editor and it is very clumsy. The changes also take a while to upload. I would love something with PEQ. Are folks having better results with something along the lines of a MiniDSP HD? Besides the investment, can similar results be attained with the curve editor? That is of course besides the dips in the frequency response.

Peng was getting good results from Audyssey before he tried the miniDSP!
If you are getting poor results from Audyssey, you are much more likely to benefit from miniDSP/REW!
However, you might get the Mic and REW first so you can see what you can do using sub location.
The non-technical approach is called the subwoofer crawl:

 

[Pogre]

Peng was getting good results from Audyssey before he tried the miniDSP!
If you are getting poor results from Audyssey, you are much more likely to benefit from miniDSP/REW!
However, you might get the Mic and REW first so you can see what you can do using sub location.
The non-technical approach is called the subwoofer crawl:

Yes, I have some issues with my room that were more than Audyssey could handle alone. A Mini really helped me dial it in a lot better.

On a side note, I've switched my crossover setting back to 80 hz and I think I prefer it now. At 120 I can feel more bass but it also seems kind of... fuzzy? I'm missing a little bit of detail I think.

 

[ryanosaur]

Yes, I have some issues with my room that were more than Audyssey could handle alone. A Mini really helped me dial it in a lot better.

On a side note, I've switched my crossover setting back to 80 hz and I think I prefer it now. At 120 I can feel more bass but it also seems kind of... fuzzy? I'm missing a little bit of detail I think.

I've kept mine at 80, since I determined that sounded best... but I don't really recall going higher. I experimented mainly between 60 and 80, with 80 winning me over for the balance of better bass performance from the subs, and allowing the speaker to focus more above that which resulted in slightly more clear mids and highs.
Which begs the question if there is a balance point, so to speak, where the subwoofer stops offering a LF performance improvement against what one can hear up above from the speakers.
I might have to experiment between 80 and 100, just to see if I continue to hear any difference.

For my setup, I first mad the decision of 80 for the BMRs. With the 3s deeper extension and more capable driver, I thought 60 was good... but the pudding proved to still sound better at 80.

*shrugs

This will warrant some further examination.

 

[Pogre]

I've kept mine at 80, since I determined that sounded best... but I don't really recall going higher. I experimented mainly between 60 and 80, with 80 winning me over for the balance of better bass performance from the subs, and allowing the speaker to focus more above that which resulted in slightly more clear mids and highs.
Which begs the question if there is a balance point, so to speak, where the subwoofer stops offering a LF performance improvement against what one can hear up above from the speakers.
I might have to experiment between 80 and 100, just to see if I continue to hear any difference.

For my setup, I first mad the decision of 80 for the BMRs. With the 3s deeper extension and more capable driver, I thought 60 was good... but the pudding proved to still sound better at 80.

*shrugs

This will warrant some further examination.

I spent some real quality time the last few days going through all of my settings and experimenting with different crossovers and DSP modes. When I'm at 120 hz you can definitely feel a little but more bass, but things get a little muddy in the mid to high range. To me it almost sounds like putting a blanket over my speakers. I've determined that at 80 hz I'm still getting plenty of bass and a little bit more clarity.

*Edit: I also found out that for whatever reason Audyssey is trimming the 63 hz band by 10 dB! No wonder my towers sound anemic when I shut the subs down! What would be causing that?

 

[Pogre]

When I turn Audyssey off and go to Graphic EQ I can "Curve Copy" what Audyssey did, pic below...

That's not me. Audyssey keeps cutting that 63 hz band by 10 dB and it does not sound right. I can manually turn it up with GEQ but that's defeating Audyssey and I do like what DEQ does for my bass...

*Edit: I should mention that this is only a problem when I want to play my towers full range with Audyssey ON. Having the mini for my subs let's me bypass that.

 

[PENG]

When I turn Audyssey off and go to Graphic EQ I can "Curve Copy" what Audyssey did, pic below...
View attachment 33641

That's not me. Audyssey keeps cutting that 63 hz band by 10 dB and it does not sound right. I can manually turn it up with GEQ but that's defeating Audyssey and I do like what DEQ does for my bass...

*Edit: I should mention that this is only a problem when I want to play my towers full range with Audyssey ON. Having the mini for my subs let's me bypass that.

Does your REW plot show a dip at 63 Hz if you sweep with the 2 mains and subs all running? If not, then Audyssey is doing its job, but it does not mean you will like the effect.

 

[Pogre]

Does your REW plot show a dip at 63 Hz if you sweep with the 2 mains and subs all running? If not, then Audyssey is doing its job, but it does not mean you will like the effect.

Thsee are older charts. The first one is with no dsp.

I see a huge dip at 60 hz. I'll keep digging and see if I can find one after Audyssey and before dsp...

 

[Pogre]

There it is...

That's after Audyssey and possibly even after I did some more tweaking with the Mini because you can see that dip get smaller as I raise the crossover.

Just for the record this is what I ended up with...

 

[Jon AA]

I've kept mine at 80, since I determined that sounded best... but I don't really recall going higher. I experimented mainly between 60 and 80, with 80 winning me over for the balance of better bass performance from the subs, and allowing the speaker to focus more above that which resulted in slightly more clear mids and highs.
Which begs the question if there is a balance point, so to speak, where the subwoofer stops offering a LF performance improvement against what one can hear up above from the speakers.
I might have to experiment between 80 and 100, just to see if I continue to hear any difference.

For my setup, I first mad the decision of 80 for the BMRs. With the 3s deeper extension and more capable driver, I thought 60 was good... but the pudding proved to still sound better at 80.

*shrugs

This will warrant some further examination.

Are you increasing the sub level a few db from where Audyssey sets it? If so, keep in mind when you audition different crossover settings, you're not auditioning different crossover settings...you're auditioning different tonal balances of the overall response. Correcting the sub and main speakers to the same curve in the bass region will allow you to change the crossover setting without changing the overall response.

 

[Pogre]

Are you increasing the sub level a few db from where Audyssey sets it? If so, keep in mind when you audition different crossover settings, you're not auditioning different crossover settings...you're auditioning different tonal balances of the overall response. Correcting the sub and main speakers to the same curve in the bass region will allow you to change the crossover setting without changing the overall response.

I do bump my sub level a few dB after I get a flat response. I'm using a MiniDSP for my subs too. Audyssey doesn't quite get me there on its own. The purple line on the 2nd graph is with no DEQ and the rest are with DEQ and the different offsets.

 

[ryanosaur]

Are you increasing the sub level a few db from where Audyssey sets it? If so, keep in mind when you audition different crossover settings, you're not auditioning different crossover settings...you're auditioning different tonal balances of the overall response. Correcting the sub and main speakers to the same curve in the bass region will allow you to change the crossover setting without changing the overall response.

I do not bump my sub trim. I have actually been struggling with the decision to lower it as I think audyssey runs ‘me a little too hot for my mostly music usage. I have not done that either, yet.