Audyssey killing my HT sound?

TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Well here is the deal, I believe my HT has returned to its formal glory. I turned off Audyssey XT32 and its just the pure sound with no stupid roll offs or knee capping. I listened to a bunch of 5.1 music and had a giant smile on my face. In the end I guess I like the simplistic, less complicated way YPAO does "room correction" and really all I want is auto set of speaker levels, distances/delays.
My system today had me smiling ear to ear. I was playing some 5.1 music pretty loud. I know Def Tech takes a lot of heat for various reasons but man do I love my Def Tech speakers. They really sound great when not being held back. I need to do some more critical listening this time movies and some Dolby demo discs I have but I think turning off Audyssey fixed everything. I just want my speakers, my system to run full range and not be cut off of any frequencies and I have that now. Very happy right now.
Thank you MUCH for the help, the info, and discussion.
Well you have found out the hard way. These room correction systems are bogus and not a line of inquiry worth pursuing in my view. That is something that should be left out of receivers and pre/pros, and the money better spent elsewhere or a price reduction. Those systems are just not worth the money and added complication.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Works for some, not so much for others as has been said. That said, how you run it does matter, and what settings you keep after you run it matter as well (for example some avrs leave Dynamic Volume on post-Audyssey but that's a dynamic compression routine I'd suggest turning off; Dynamic EQ might be useful at lower volumes and may be better as setup for movies rather than music without tweaking the Reference Level Offset). How you position mic and number of mic positions can make a difference, too. If the avr sets your speakers to large rather than small, when using a sub (do you use a sub?) is another. Some prefer Audyssey for movies and not for music. Like any other dsp setting on an avr, use it or not as you prefer. I find it useful myself often depending on which system (2 of 3 at present).
 
Matthew J Poes

Matthew J Poes

Audioholic Chief
Staff member
Well you have found out the hard way. These room correction systems are bogus and not a line of inquiry worth pursuing in my view. That is something that should be left out of receivers and pre/pros, and the money better spent elsewhere or a price reduction. Those systems are just not worth the money and added complication.
While I've already expressed my displeasure with Audyssey, along with many other room corrections, I don't think this is a fair statement. The Harman work did, in fact, show that the corrected response was preferred. It's still applying the correction to the response, which was preferred, it just happens to involve a lot more human intervention than the automatic room correction systems do. EQing the LF's to remove peaks in the bass caused by boundary interference effects and room modes is absolutely necessary in my opinion. Automatic correction schemes can do this and do so well, improving the perceived sound.

The problem is how they operate, how the algorithm makes judgment calls. One of the bigger problems that I find is that they apply a flat room curve, which is not typically desirable. It often makes the system sound thin. They also often apply correction in the mid's and highs in ways they shouldn't. If the speaker has a really good power response, then the EQ has an easier job, the algo doesn't have to make any smart judgment calls. Most speakers do not have such an ideal power response and as such the algo has to make judgment calls with far too little information. As such it often makes mistakes, correcting things in ways that are audibly inferior (and which the end user is likely to have no idea about).

I'm still working on an article around this topic for Audioholics. I've delayed the article while I spend some time revisiting a lot of the classic literature. I already posted much of the theory and research into this concept in my Mic article thread. The key remains that the mic doesn't pick up what our ears can hear. No matter how reliable the mic is, if the software is having to make corrections based on faulty (but consistent) information, then the corrections will be wrong. The in-room response captured by an omnidirectional microphone is a lot different from what we actually hear tonally. You might think you can simply account for this, but actually, it's dependent on the speaker's dispersion. It's further complicated by the fact that this interacts with the room itself. How much of the reflections are being absorbed or dissipated impacts the response as captured by the mic, which still differs from the tonal balance that we hear. At low frequencies, no matter how much you absorb, some bass will still reflect and the dimensions of any normal listening room is physically small relative to the length of a period at 100hz or below (especially below) meaning we still hear those reflections as part of the direct sound (It isn't really direct, but it's part of what we hear as the initial sound), what is captured in the steady-state for the most part.

But that doesn't mean we can't apply correction using an algo that is better than no correction, even with a largely perfect speaker. The key is that the software either needs to know the dispersion of the speaker, or the end user needs to know. We need more research characterizing how different dispersion patterns impact the in-room response and the relationship between that and listener preference curves. I have some ideas around this, but no definitive research to cite. It's something we need to probably investigate further. In any case, based on this information, the shape of the preference curve can be obtained. In addition, we want ideal speakers, as I don't think it is possible or desirable to correct the speakers in this way, especially with regard to the dispersion pattern anomalies.

Dirac, one of the corrections I find get's it right more often than not, especially with lesser systems, uses a pretty sophisticated algo to assess the room. One of the reasons for the multiple measurement points in that system is not just about improving the response over a wider listening area, it is actually used to characterize the room/speakers. By taking multiple measurements in different points in space you can begin to understand what is going on with the speakers vs the room. Is it diffraction? Is it related to an uneven polar response? Is it a room mode? SBIR? The software can figure that out, to some extent, and apply a correction that minimizes problems without introducing new ones. A common misunderstanding of that software (and many other sophisticated correction systems) is that it is averaging those measurements and applying an inverse of the transfer function. That is incorrect, what it actually does is create an inverse transfer function (with some limits applied for sanity sake) that is based on a best-fit line that minimizes the variance at any one measurement point.
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
While I've already expressed my displeasure with Audyssey, along with many other room corrections, I don't think this is a fair statement. The Harman work did, in fact, show that the corrected response was preferred. It's still applying the correction to the response, which was preferred, it just happens to involve a lot more human intervention than the automatic room correction systems do. EQing the LF's to remove peaks in the bass caused by boundary interference effects and room modes is absolutely necessary in my opinion. Automatic correction schemes can do this and do so well, improving the perceived sound.

The problem is how they operate, how the algorithm makes judgment calls. One of the bigger problems that I find is that they apply a flat room curve, which is not typically desirable. It often makes the system sound thin. They also often apply correction in the mid's and highs in ways they shouldn't. If the speaker has a really good power response, then the EQ has an easier job, the algo doesn't have to make any smart judgment calls. Most speakers do not have such an ideal power response and as such the algo has to make judgment calls with far too little information. As such it often makes mistakes, correcting things in ways that are audibly inferior (and which the end user is likely to have no idea about).

I'm still working on an article around this topic for Audioholics. I've delayed the article while I spend some time revisiting a lot of the classic literature. I already posted much of the theory and research into this concept in my Mic article thread. The key remains that the mic doesn't pick up what our ears can hear. No matter how reliable the mic is, if the software is having to make corrections based on faulty (but consistent) information, then the corrections will be wrong. The in-room response captured by an omnidirectional microphone is a lot different from what we actually hear tonally. You might think you can simply account for this, but actually, it's dependent on the speaker's dispersion. It's further complicated by the fact that this interacts with the room itself. How much of the reflections are being absorbed or dissipated impacts the response as captured by the mic, which still differs from the tonal balance that we hear. At low frequencies, no matter how much you absorb, some bass will still reflect and the dimensions of any normal listening room is physically small relative to the length of a period at 100hz or below (especially below) meaning we still hear those reflections as part of the direct sound (It isn't really direct, but it's part of what we hear as the initial sound),what is captured in the steady-state for the most part.

But that doesn't mean we can't apply correction using an algo that is better than no correction, even with a largely perfect speaker. The key is that the software either needs to know the dispersion of the speaker, or the end user needs to know. We need more research characterizing how different dispersion patterns impact the in-room response and the relationship between that and listener preference curves. I have some ideas around this, but no definitive research to cite. It's something we need to probably investigate further. In any case, based on this information, the shape of the preference curve can be obtained. In addition, we want ideal speakers, as I don't think it is possible or desirable to correct the speakers in this way, especially with regard to the dispersion pattern anomalies.

Dirac, one of the corrections I find get's it right more often than not, especially with lesser systems, uses a pretty sophisticated algo to assess the room. One of the reasons for the multiple measurement points in that system is not just about improving the response over a wider listening area, it is actually used to characterize the room/speakers. By taking multiple measurements in different points in space you can begin to understand what is going on with the speakers vs the room. Is it diffraction? Is it related to an uneven polar response? Is it a room mode? SBIR? The software can figure that out, to some extent, and apply a correction that minimizes problems without introducing new ones. A common misunderstanding of that software (and many other sophisticated correction systems) is that it is averaging those measurements and applying an inverse of the transfer function. That is incorrect, what it actually does is create an inverse transfer function (with some limits applied for sanity sake) that is based on a best-fit line that minimizes the variance at any one measurement point.
I would agree with what you are saying in general, based on my understanding of many of the research, technical articles that I have read over the years, and then force my mind to think logically. The part I am not quite sure if you got it right is what you said in your 3rd paragraph, about the mic and what our ears hear being different. I can see your point about our ears don't hear the same way the mic does, and that you can't correct (at least not properly/perfectly) what you can't measure correctly. However, if you consider we are talking about reproducing music in our home using media source that are typically derived from recording studios and/or live venues, that also involved all sorts of mics. I think this is a valid point but one that deserves further investigation based on theory, experiments, and with inputs from other experts, and ideally with involvement from the academic world such as university research facilities that have the appropriate background. I believe would be a long shot though, because being mostly useful in the hifi and ht fields, it would be a very low priority that could not compete for any funding in the academic world.

I am glad that you mentioned "But that doesn't mean we can't apply correction using an algo that is better than no correction, even with a largely perfect speaker".

In your last paragraph, you talked about "a common misunderstanding................................", but I am not clear if you refer to the software developers, or the users, or both, but I should PM you on that, along with some suggestions for the article you are working on (hope you don't mind). Thank you for a very thoughtful and well written post.
 
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L

Leemix

Audioholic General
The Harman work did, in fact, show that the corrected response was preferred.
Out of curiosity, how long did they listen, was it a minute or two, five, thirty or did they listen for hours or over days before choosing a preference?
I liked your post and either i missed it or the information wasnt in the harman link. Its good you are looking at this field because room correction who, why or why not is very interesting.



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H

Hetfield

Audioholic Samurai
All I know is I'll never trust a room correction system again. I'd like to try DIRAC but even that I don't think I'd care for. I just want speaker levels and distances/delay done. Let my speakers and my system free. I don't want frequencies cut off or rolled off.
Oh funny story about 15 years ago I bought a THX processor and was so excited to see the THX mode. The first day I thought something didn't sound right and I did some turn on and off testing and that I ended up hating that. That rolled off the high frequencies as well. I ended up returning that THX processor for a non thx processor.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Works for some, not so much for others as has been said. That said, how you run it does matter, and what settings you keep after you run it matter as well (for example some avrs leave Dynamic Volume on post-Audyssey but that's a dynamic compression routine I'd suggest turning off; Dynamic EQ might be useful at lower volumes and may be better as setup for movies rather than music without tweaking the Reference Level Offset). How you position mic and number of mic positions can make a difference, too. If the avr sets your speakers to large rather than small, when using a sub (do you use a sub?) is another. Some prefer Audyssey for movies and not for music. Like any other dsp setting on an avr, use it or not as you prefer. I find it useful myself often depending on which system (2 of 3 at present).
Agreed everything you said in this post. I don't know how many, in terms of %, of the D&M, Onkyo, NAD (For Onkyo, Integra, NAD, older models only) did run and leave Audyssey on, but I am quite sure the majority of Anthem ARC and Dirac owners do leave REQ on.

Now, may be @M Code can give us some idea as to how much Audyssey equipped AVRs/AVPs outsell Dirac and Anthem ARC :D(I know there are other but these 3 are clearly most often mentioned on forums).

Until then, I am going say people who prefer to leave Audyssey on in some form, i.e. DEQ, DV, bypass, manually adjusted trims, XOs etc., likely out number those who prefer the opposite. I say this because of the simple rule that we tend to hear more about complains, than praises, fair?:D I also do realize that not everyone who leave it "On" actually do so because they prefer.. as such, as it could simply be that they didn't bother spending time comparing, and/or just assume they are supposed to do it, and simply follow instructions.

This thing is getting to be like the "do all amps sound the same, or not" topic, one that is not only forever controversial in the "answers to the question", but also the question itself.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
All I know is I'll never trust a room correction system again. I'd like to try DIRAC but even that I don't think I'd care for. I just want speaker levels and distances/delay done. Let my speakers and my system free. I don't want frequencies cut off or rolled off.
Always good to see for yourself.

I've listened to a couple of systems using DIRAC and ARC. I didn't like any of them.

Bottom line again: some people like RC, some people don't.
 
H

Hetfield

Audioholic Samurai
Always good to see for yourself.

I've listened to a couple of systems using DIRAC and ARC. I didn't like any of them.

Bottom line again: some people like RC, some people don't.
Count me as one that does not like it, although I never had an issue with YPAO for some reason.
All I know is I'm looking forward to doing more listening this week.

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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Count me as one that does not like it, although I never had an issue with YPAO for some reason.
All I know is I'm looking forward to doing more listening this week.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
I think there is a poll somewhere on Room Correction.

Or maybe not, and we might start a poll out of curiosity. :D

But it's pretty easy to tell whether you like it or not, isn't it?

I first experience RC over 20 years ago. It sounded like pure crap. I think they've made the RC less offensive, but I still have never experienced a RC that actually made the sound better. Best case scenario I've seen is that the RC didn't worsen the sound too much.

I think the salient question someone new might ask is, "Why use any RC at all if your speakers and room already sound AWESOME?" :D

I guess the answer to that question is, "Well, I guess my room acoustics didn't already sound AWESOME." :D

So look on the bright side. Now you know that your room acoustics is pretty dang good. :D
 
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Matthew J Poes

Matthew J Poes

Audioholic Chief
Staff member
Preferred by whom? The very people they cherrypicked and trained?

Or some randomized population?
It’s not cherry picked beyond ensuring they have functioning hearing. Sometimes they train them to be better listeners but not to pick out their products. They design their products around what they find.
 
H

Hetfield

Audioholic Samurai
I think there is a poll somewhere on Room Correction.

Or maybe not, and we might start a poll out of curiosity. :D

But it's pretty easy to tell whether you like it or not, isn't it?

I first experience RC over 20 years ago. It sounded like pure crap. I think they've made the RC less offensive, but I still have never experienced a RC that actually made the sound better. Best case scenario I've seen is that the RC didn't worsen the sound too much.

I think the salient question someone new might ask is, "Why use any RC at all if your speakers already sound AWESOME?" :D

I guess the answer to that question is, "Well, I guess my speakers didn't already sound AWESOME." :D
Well I'm questioning everything now. All this stuff about flat response speakers, and flat room acoustics. My speakers aren't considered flat, more lively I guess and I love them. I'm a little curious now whether I would like a "flat" sounding speaker. Something tells me not now.

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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
It’s not cherry picked beyond ensuring they have functioning hearing. Sometimes they train them to be better listeners but not to pick out their products. They design their products around what they find.
The key word is PREFERENCE. You don't train people on PREFERENCE.

If all they did was give a hearing test to make sure the subjects were not deaf, I can appreciate that.

But to TRAIN anyone in ANYWAY on how to listen and what to listen for and what to PREFER is to induce BIAS.

Even if they deny that they were training the subjects on what to prefer, that's what they were doing - training the subjects on what to prefer.

The world "Inception" comes to mind. :D

Why bother doing a DOUBLE-BLIND test when you already induced bias before the study?

People don't need to be told whether they LOVE the sound of something or love the taste of some foods.
 
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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Well I'm questioning everything now. All this stuff about flat response speakers, and flat room acoustics. My speakers aren't considered flat, more lively I guess and I love them. I'm a little curious now whether I would like a "flat" sounding speaker. Something tells me not now.

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Well, the ANECHOIC frequency response can be FLAT. But it doesn't mean the ROOM frequency response should be FLAT.

What we hear in Real Life isn't like what's inside an anechoic chamber. :D

But at the end of the day, you're right, if it sounds great, then it is great.

You don't need a piece of paper to tell you otherwise. ;)
 
Phase 2

Phase 2

Audioholic Chief
As in the movie Scarface, in Tony Montana's best voice, I never liked that piece of sh$t. Far as I know AC killed my speakers. :p Just picking Guys, this Thread has turned into a very good read.
 
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2

2channel lover

Audioholic Field Marshall
Well here is the deal, I believe my HT has returned to its formal glory. I turned off Audyssey XT32 and its just the pure sound with no stupid roll offs or knee capping. I listened to a bunch of 5.1 music and had a giant smile on my face. In the end I guess I like the simplistic, less complicated way YPAO does "room correction" and really all I want is auto set of speaker levels, distances/delays.
My system today had me smiling ear to ear. I was playing some 5.1 music pretty loud. I know Def Tech takes a lot of heat for various reasons but man do I love my Def Tech speakers. They really sound great when not being held back. I need to do some more critical listening this time movies and some Dolby demo discs I have but I think turning off Audyssey fixed everything. I just want my speakers, my system to run full range and not be cut off of any frequencies and I have that now. Very happy right now.
Thank you MUCH for the help, the info, and discussion.
The room is a huge factor and every room is different so I'm not sure we can rely on any Room EQ system to be the "be all, cure all."


I ran Audyssey XT32 and got pretty good results...especially the side surrounds which in my space put the left side surround only about 3' from the MLP and the right one is a good 6' away.

Post Audyssey I bumped the subs up +3dB and have not looked back, not messing with it anymore.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
As in the movie Scarface, in Tony Montana's best voice, I never liked that piece of sh$t. Far as I know AC killed my speakers. :p Just picking Guys, this Thread has turned into a very good read.
So it didn't just give your speaker a BKA (below knee amputation).

It killed the whole speaker?

Dang. Sentinel Event Lawsuit right there bro. Haha. :D

Better run before they catch you. :D
 

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