Audyssey in x4500h not working

[autreym]

I have this exact same issue. I didn’t have it originally prior to updating the firmware so that might have been the culprit. But basically I had the exact same sequence of problems and eventually narrowed it down to being a bad mic (or so I thought) because like the OP, I used an old mic I had with a pioneer elite receiver and that seemed to work fine but obviously isn’t calibrated like the audyssey mic for the denon

so long story short I contacted denon and they sent me a new mic, unfortunately still having the same issue with the new mic

so I’m not sure what to do from here - OP please let me know if you end up figuring out how to resolve

if I could figure out how to reset the firmware to original that might be a good test

 

[TLS Guy]

I have this exact same issue. I didn’t have it originally prior to updating the firmware so that might have been the culprit. But basically I had the exact same sequence of problems and eventually narrowed it down to being a bad mic (or so I thought) because like the OP, I used an old mic I had with a pioneer elite receiver and that seemed to work fine but obviously isn’t calibrated like the audyssey mic for the denon

so long story short I contacted denon and they sent me a new mic, unfortunately still having the same issue with the new mic

so I’m not sure what to do from here - OP please let me know if you end up figuring out how to resolve

if I could figure out how to reset the firmware to original that might be a good test

It seems from my enquiries that Denon/Marantz now have a slew of bad mics out there.

Basically those mics are the cheapest of junk.

I always thought that the mics were dynamic, as they have no battery and the the cable is two pair. Since I had trouble with my mic, I find they are in fact condenser mics. So they are powered though the signal cable in a two wire system. This is a totally appalling and unacceptable design. For proper and reliable phantom mic powering you need two cables carrying the signal AND a screen with a three pin connector not two pin as are on these perfectly horrid mics.

So the pro way, and not the mickey mouse way to do this, is to have the +ve voltage on BOTH of the the signal cables and the -ve on the screen. Both legs of the signal should be at identical voltage above ground. Any other way is NOT acceptable and fraught with troublesome issues.

If it works, these mics are good enough for speaker level and distance, but absolutely nothing else. Since my issues I have have learned more as to why Audyssey is a totally unacceptable system, and certainly not to be used for any critical equalization. It is a lousy misbegotten system from the ground up, and not anywhere near professional standards that those of us with advanced sophisticated systems require.

 

[Reckel]

I have a replacement mic coming from denon foc but who knows when I’ll actually get it since it’s on a nation wide back order, that’s what I was told anyway. I was able to borrow a mic from a marantz from a home theater business near me and it worked with no issues.
Since I have a umik1 and rew been seriously thinking about getting a minidsp also been thinking about getting a projector and screen but that’s a entirely different discussion in a thread I’ll create

 

[Reckel]

Hello I'm new here

Hey, what’s going on. Welcome

 

[Reckel]

I forgot to get back with you guys but I ended up having a bad mic. The place I bought the 4500 from ended up sending me one free of charge and it worked perfect. I had also ordered one while I was waiting and now I have two.

 

[Reckel]

Ok so obviously I had some issues with my mic when I started this thread last January and guess what, I’ve got same damn issues going on again. I finally added the minidsp 2x4hd to my system and have been playing and getting great results for the last two weeks. Everything has been fine until last week when I was playing around and my initial replacement mic didn’t work right.
I just figured it was the mic again. So I actually had bought a back up mic while I was waiting for denon to send me one and have been using that one. This Sunday I was playing again and went to run audyssey with the back up mic and no dice with audyssey in the app and without app. Funny thing is I played Friday and Saturday and it was working just fine.
Last week I said screw it, I ordered another mic just to have an extra on hand. Well since my back up seemed not to be working I opened the brand new one up Sunday or Monday and I’m still getting nothing with audyssey. I find it hard to believe I have three bad mics and the one is literally brand new, am I wrong thinking that?
I’m thinking it’s been my 4500h. So I called denon and they’re terrible to talk with but a request was put in for me to send it somewhere to be serviced, it’s still under warranty since I bought it in august of 2020. Do you guys think I have three bad mics or it’s the avr?

 

[Reckel]

Most recent mic I bought was from Amazon which stated it was compatible with my avr. I want to order another one but idk if I’d just be wasting my money. Idk wth to do

 

[PENG]

Most recent mic I bought was from Amazon which stated it was compatible with my avr. I want to order another one but idk if I’d just be wasting my money. Idk wth to do

I think the chance to have 3 bad mic is 1/10000000!!

I would say something else is wrong. It has been a long time since you first reported the issue, so I have to ask again, have you tried a factory reset? I don't think it will work with a reset so you should only do it just before you send it out to Denon. By resetting it yourself then a) you can tell Denon you have already done that, b) save them time (a couple minutes lol..) doing it, and c) you know it is not something due to software glitch that happened for whatever reason.

On the minidsp, not trying to discourage as it is a great product and you have already it. It is just too bad that so many people seem to have listened to hearsay that you need it to dial in the bass when in fact (based on my extensive use of Audyssey with and without the minidsp) if you have 1 or two subs, a later model AVR that has Sub EQ HT such as your X4500H, then you absolutely don't need one unless you have other good reasons and I suppose in your case you probably do. Otherwise, at the most, you can spend $20 on the Editor App, invest an hour or two tweaking with it and you will beat the minidsp for sure.

The minidsp would be very useful if you do use Dirac with it though, such as for another system that don't come with XT32/subEQHT.

 

[Reckel]

I think the chance to have 3 bad mic is 1/10000000!!

I would say something else is wrong. It has been a long time since you first reported the issue, so I have to ask again, have you tried a factory reset? I don't think it will work with a reset so you should only do it just before you send it out to Denon. By resetting it yourself then a) you can tell Denon you have already done that, b) save them time (a couple minutes lol..) doing it, and c) you know it is not something due to software glitch that happened for whatever reason.

On the minidsp, not trying to discourage as it is a great product and you have already it. It is just too bad that so many people seem to have listened to hearsay that you need it to dial in the bass when in fact (based on my extensive use of Audyssey with and without the minidsp) if you have 1 or two subs, a later model AVR that has Sub EQ HT such as your X4500H, then you absolutely don't need one unless you have other good reasons and I suppose in your case you probably do. Otherwise, at the most, you can spend $20 on the Editor App, invest an hour or two tweaking with it and you will beat the minidsp for sure.

The minidsp would be very useful if you do use Dirac with it though, such as for another system that don't come with XT32/subEQHT.

Yea I’ve reset it twice and still nothing. I respect what you have to say and appreciate all the help you gave me with ratbuddyssey but I have 3 subs and the minidsp for me just seemed easier than trying to use my finger on my phone with the app making cuts. I have the app on my phone and that’s what I run audyssey through. Minidsp seemed easier but honestly I never tried using my fingers to create my own housecurve in the app so you may just be right.

 

[PENG]

Yea I’ve reset it twice and still nothing. I respect what you have to say and appreciate all the help you gave me with ratbuddyssey but I have 3 subs and the minidsp for me just seemed easier than trying to use my finger on my phone with the app making cuts. I have the app on my phone and that’s what I run audyssey through. Minidsp seemed easier but honestly I never tried using my fingers to create my own housecurve in the app so you may just be right.

As I said, the mini can be useful if and when you have good reasons for using it just you do obviously. Just that I have read too many posts where people could have done without it and save money and the extra wiring.

 

[TLS Guy]

Yea I’ve reset it twice and still nothing. I respect what you have to say and appreciate all the help you gave me with ratbuddyssey but I have 3 subs and the minidsp for me just seemed easier than trying to use my finger on my phone with the app making cuts. I have the app on my phone and that’s what I run audyssey through. Minidsp seemed easier but honestly I never tried using my fingers to create my own housecurve in the app so you may just be right.

Loosing Audyssey is no great loss. As I have said before those horrid mics are two wire, and yet powered by that two wire cable. That is "Mickey Mouse" engineering and unprofessional.

I suspect one of two things has happened, but the end result the same. Either the powering circuit has failed, either because it was faulty, or one of those faulty mics blew the powering circuit. The latter is more likely. The proper and professional way to power a condenser mic, is three wire, with the two signal leads at the same voltage AND Polarity, and the opposite polarity on the shield. That way the transducer senses zero voltage, as there is no potential across the mic capsule. That is the correct way to do it.

Anyhow Audyssey is only any good for levelling and distance, and you have workarounds for this. A lot of what Audyssey creates is as good as creating the data out of the back of your neck, with the below 300 Hz range excepted, where there is a chance it might produce useful data.

I would suggest a better system like the Dayton omni mic in any case.

I would certainly not bother sending your receiver in for repair over that minor issue.

 

[PENG]

Loosing Audyssey is no great loss. As I have said before those horrid mics are two wire, and yet powered by that two wire cable. That is "Mickey Mouse" engineering and unprofessional.

I suspect one of two things has happened, but the end result the same. Either the powering circuit has failed, either because it was faulty, or one of those faulty mics blew the powering circuit. The latter is more likely. The proper and professional way to power a condenser mic, is three wire, with the two signal leads at the same voltage AND Polarity, and the opposite polarity on the shield. That way the transducer senses zero voltage, as there is no potential across the mic capsule. That is the correct way to do it.

Anyhow Audyssey is only any good for levelling and distance, and you have workarounds for this. A lot of what Audyssey creates is as good as creating the data out of the back of your neck, with the below 300 Hz range excepted, where there is a chance it might produce useful data.

I would suggest a better system like the Dayton omni mic in any case.

I would certainly not bother sending your receiver in for repair over that minor issue.

Too bad you have such bad experience with Audyssey, I have experience with 5 Audyssey mics so far, the oldest one is about 15 years old and the youngest about 5. All are still in good shape, the youngest two have been used many times.

I have yet to see you post one of your FR that comes close to mine, in terms of flatness from say 15 Hz to 200 Hz. But I am just kidding, knowing full well you can't compare FR under totally different conditions, different gear, different room, different everything. By the same token, I suggest you let people try it out and not tell them how useless Audyssey is.

 

[TLS Guy]

Too bad you have such bad experience with Audyssey, I have experience with 5 Audyssey mics so far, the oldest one is about 15 years old and the youngest about 5. All are still in good shape, the youngest two have been used many times.

I have yet to see you post one of your FR that comes close to mine, in terms of flatness from say 15 Hz to 200 Hz. But I am just kidding, knowing full well you can't compare FR under totally different conditions, different gear, different room, different everything. By the same token, I suggest you let people try it out and not tell them how useless Audyssey is.

Here is the FR of a main speaker. The droop below 40 Hz can be corrected by turning up the amps to the lower 10" drivers, however the room response shows that not to be the right thin to do.

This is the center FR.

This is the FR at MLP all speakers driven. The impulse response shows the speakers are well timed.

Here is the front row.

Back row.

Obviously you can only time speakers for one location.

The back row has the worst FR, but it sounds OK. That 1 to 3 K dip just makes it seem you are at the Mezzanine level.

Those results do seem to provide he best balance in the room. All seats have good speech clarity and give a good experience. That is all without the benefit of Audyssey.

 

[PENG]

Here is the FR of a main speaker. The droop below 40 Hz can be corrected by turning up the amps to the lower 10" drivers, however the room response shows that not to be the right thin to do.

Thank you, your speakers by themselves look excellent as I can tell by the smoothness of the FR. However, we are talking about whether auto REQ such as Audyssey and Dirac are as useless as you have been telling others, so that's why I asked to compare yours and mine in the range 15 - 200 Hz. I realize you don't use subwoofers for your truly full range towers so let's just compare 20 to 200 Hz to be fair to your main speakers in case they may not do as good as my two subs at below 20 Hz.

1) L+R+Sub (The L+Sub and R+Sub are just as good if not better)
I want to show this one first because I limited it to 15 to 125 Hz where Audyssey seems to be most effective. You can see that with 1/12 smoothing, the FR is within a little less than +/- 1 dB. I have never seen anyone posted better results than mine in this range. I did spend time using the MultEQ Editor App to tighten things up. There is really no need to so it though because I doubt anyone can hear much of a difference between +/- 5 vs +/- 1 dB in this range when watching a movie or even music. I did it because I had time and it was fun.

Now the 15 to 200 Hz range:

This one has no smoothing at all, I did it to see how bad those narrow dips were above 125 to 130 Hz. You and I both know that no REQ systems, auto or manual can eliminate such kind of dips so there isn't Audyssey's fault at all.

For clarify, I am not saying you can't get good results without using REQ, as yours clearly look great. My point simply is, for a lot of people who don't have rooms and speakers as good as yours can, quite possibly benefit from auto REQ such as Audyssey and Dirac's. My results prove it. so can other AH members such as @Pogre, and many others who posted many of their results over the years. Pogre certainly can vouch for the benefits of using Audyssey, especially when used with Apps to restore the otherwise loss of some good room gains, and to limit the EQ range for those who may not like the elevated highs in some cases.

The one below just show how bad the results were without using Audyssey (obviously that would apply to my room and speakers only):

Regardless of the measured results, if I didn't prefer the sound with Audyssey on, I would have just disable it.

Those results do seem to provide he best balance in the room. All seats have good speech clarity and give a good experience. That is all without the benefit of Audyssey.

Understood, but then again as I mentioned before, not everyone has speakers as good as yours. I understand from your posts before you designed and built them yourself, that's prove of a job well done!

 

[Pogre]

Thank you, your speakers by themselves look excellent as I can tell by the smoothness of the FR. However, we are talking about whether auto REQ such as Audyssey and Dirac are as useless as you have been telling others, so that's why I asked to compare yours and mine in the range 15 - 200 Hz. I realize you don't use subwoofers for your truly full range towers so let's just compare 20 to 200 Hz to be fair to your main speakers in case they may not do as good as my two subs at below 20 Hz.

1) L+R+Sub (The L+Sub and R+Sub are just as good if not better)
I want to show this one first because I limited it to 15 to 125 Hz where Audyssey seems to be most effective. You can see that with 1/12 smoothing, the FR is within a little less than +/- 1 dB. I have never seen anyone posted better results than mine in this range. I did spend time using the MultEQ Editor App to tighten things up. There is really no need to so it though because I doubt anyone can hear much of a difference between +/- 5 vs +/- 1 dB in this range when watching a movie or even music. I did it because I had time and it was fun.


View attachment 54808

Now the 15 to 200 Hz range:

This one has no smoothing at all, I did it to see how bad those narrow dips were above 125 to 130 Hz. You and I both know that no REQ systems, auto or manual can eliminate such kind of dips so there isn't Audyssey's fault at all.

For clarify, I am not saying you can't get good results without using REQ, as yours clearly look great. My point simply is, for a lot of people who don't have rooms and speakers as good as yours can, quite possibly benefit from auto REQ such as Audyssey and Dirac's. My results prove it. so can other AH members such as @Pogre, and many others who posted many of their results over the years. Pogre certainly can vouch for the benefits of using Audyssey, especially when used with Apps to restore the otherwise loss of some good room gains, and to limit the EQ range for those who may not like the elevated highs in some cases.


View attachment 54809

The one below just show how bad the results were without using Audyssey (obviously that would apply to my room and speakers only):

View attachment 54810

Regardless of the measured results, if I didn't prefer the sound with Audyssey on, I would have just disable it.





Understood, but then again as I mentioned before, not everyone has speakers as good as yours. I understand from your posts before you designed and built them yourself, that's prove of a job well done!

 

[Reckel]

This is the measurements i have been getting but i have been playing more than just these. First pic is from the 8th after eq and after audyssey, deq on/off. Second pic is what i started with before anything with three subs. The 3rd pic is from the 18th of just eq, no audyssey yet and the 4th pic is after eq and audyssey of deq on/off. The first pic is the best response i have got but i decided to play around after that and probably should of just left it alone. In the first pic the top orangish response is exactly the housecurve i created with the mini and by turning on deq i was able to get exactly what i created.

 

[Reckel]

There is no smoothing on any of the pics

 

[PENG]

View attachment 54813

Thanks, look really great, I thought you had a couple big dips too before, did they get smoothed off? Just wonder how they look without smoothing.. It would be for curiosity only as we all know such narrowly focus dips even if very big, are not audible issues. And I don't remember, after flattening it like that to be pretty, did you use something like the Harman curve to tilt it up a few dB for real world use?

 

[PENG]

View attachment 54816View attachment 54817View attachment 54818View attachment 54819
This is the measurements i have been getting but i have been playing more than just these. First pic is from the 8th after eq and after audyssey, deq on/off. Second pic is what i started with before anything with three subs. The 3rd pic is from the 18th of just eq, no audyssey yet and the 4th pic is after eq and audyssey of deq on/off. The first pic is the best response i have got but i decided to play around after that and probably should of just left it alone. In the first pic the top orangish response is exactly the housecurve i created with the mini and by turning on deq i was able to get exactly what i created.

Great work! I bet you can easily hear the difference between with REQ on and off, a much better difference obviously.

 

[Pogre]

Thanks, look really great, I thought you had a couple big dips too before, did they get smoothed off? Just wonder how they look without smoothing.. It would be for curiosity only as we all know such narrowly focus dips even if very big, are not audible issues. And I don't remember, after flattening it like that to be pretty, did you use something like the Harman curve to tilt it up a few dB for real world use?

That's after some tweaking to take care of those dips. I do use Hsu's VTF tuning and DEQ to make a house curve.

I've been in pm's with Reckel trading tips and getting itchy to play again. Now that I have a better understanding of the Harman curve I might get more ambitious and see what I can do from top to bottom. I know my speakers already measure very well through midrange to high frequencies so getting my bass straightened out has always been my priority.

I have been doing more reading tho and feel like I understand more so I'm hankering to play around again sometime soon. When I do I might do a suite of measurements and post results.