Audyssey Speaker Levels Issue

[Bonscott]

A reset is not going to help. Audyssey is designed to adjust speaker levels for position and speaker sensitivity. The range of level in the auto adjustment program is actually more than adequate. The designers have every right to assume that the unbalanced and balanced input connections of connected power amps, would follow accepted convention and standards. Obviously this Emotiva amp does not and that is no fault of the Audyssey program.

Balanced xlr connections are a professional standard, and if you design a unit with professional interconnects then it needs to adhere to professional standards and not domestic ones.

Put it another way, if the balanced outputs of my Marantz pre/pro followed domestic standards, then I would have a big problem and need a bunch of voltage gain preamps. So Marantz made the correct choice as it is much easier to reduce a signal than boost it. The former requires a passive network and the latter an active one.

This basically is another strike against Emotiva and another reason to avoid them.

I emailed Audyssey and they sent me a response. You were right they suggested inline attenuators or RCA. What side should the attenuators be on. Pre/Pro or Amp. Or does it matter

 

[lovinthehd]

Just use RCA in that case, silly to continue with the xlr (or are we talking some unusual lengths?)

 

[Bonscott]

One thing the XLRs did was eliminate a very small hum coming out of my main speakers. That’s the reason I was thinking about the xlr attenuators

 

[lovinthehd]

One thing the XLRs did was eliminate a very small hum coming out of my main speakers. That’s the reason I was thinking about the xlr attenuators

What lengths are we talking about?

 

[Bonscott]

Cables are about 6 feet

 

[lovinthehd]

Cables are about 6 feet

Some sort of massive interference in that length to give the balanced cables a benefit?

 

[Bonscott]

No very slight. Probably be easier to just use RCA

 

[lovinthehd]

No very slight. Probably be easier to just use RCA

Hate to harp on it, but did you try a reset? These semi-computers can be just as buggy as computers

ps Also, what amp assign settings are you using....don't think it matters much, just curious.

 

[Bonscott]

Your right. Might as well try a reset. Nothing to lose. 5.2.2. 2 subs. 2 ceiling speakers. Had 2 of the Dolby speakers that sit atop the mains that fire up when I had the AVR. Don’t know if it’s worth buying another 2 channel amp now to use them

 

[lovinthehd]

Your right. Might as well try a reset. Nothing to lose. 5.2.2. 2 subs. 2 ceiling speakers. Had 2 of the Dolby speakers that sit atop the mains that fire up when I had the AVR. Don’t know if it’s worth buying another 2 channel amp now to use them

At worst it just resets your Audyssey setup.....

 

[PENG]

One thing the XLRs did was eliminate a very small hum coming out of my main speakers. That’s the reason I was thinking about the xlr attenuators

I used RCAs on both my AV7005 and AV8801, and never had hum issue. If your RCA interconnects are good and shorter than 3 meters, you probably can try playing around with the routes as it may just be some interference and not ground loop related. I do remember there were a lot of complainants about the AV7005 humming issues, but I don't remember if those who had the problem were using RCAs. I never understood why mine, and many others had no such issue at all. So there may be an outside chance that it could have been a quality control issue, hope not the case with the AV7706.

 

[Bonscott]

No luck with the Reset. However overnighted the XLR attenuators and SUCCESS!!!
FL. +2.0
FR -8.0
C. -6.5
Sur. L. -5.0
Sur. R -4.5
Top M L 5.0
Top M R 4.5
Sub 1 -7.5
Sub 2 7.0
Front Left attenuator did not click on as easy as the others. Might be why its positive
Thanks ALL for the help

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah that's a huge difference between L/R speakers....do they sound balanced?

 

[Bonscott]

They do. Thought about reconnecting the cable and running it again. Don’t know if it would make any difference

 

[Truthslayer]

Yeah that's a huge difference between L/R speakers....do they sound balanced?

Lovin is right, that seems like to much of a difference. Almost like one of your attenuators is bad. What kind did you get ? If you have an issue and need to return them. Let me know, i have some perfect Rothwell XLR inline attenuators 10db.

 

[TLS Guy]

Lovin is right, that seems like to much of a difference. Almost like one of your attenuators is bad. What kind did you get ? If you have an issue and need to return them. Let me know, i have some perfect Rothwell XLR inline attenuators 10db.

You could well be right. He should swap the right and left attenuators and that will tell if that is the problem.

 

[Bonscott]

Thanks Ran Audyssey 2 more times. You can tell from the chirps very week on the FL speaker. I will swap and see what happens

 

[Bonscott]

I used RCAs on both my AV7005 and AV8801, and never had hum issue. If your RCA interconnects are good and shorter than 3 meters, you probably can try playing around with the routes as it may just be some interference and not ground loop related. I do remember there were a lot of complainants about the AV7005 humming issues, but I don't remember if those who had the problem were using RCAs. I never understood why mine, and many others had no such issue at all. So there may be an outside chance that it could have been a quality control issue, hope not the case with the AV7706.

You are right. I switched to attenuators because of hum. One of them was bad. So I switched back to RCA. Messed with the cables and the hum went away. Should of listened to you guys and went RCA right away. Sounds Fantastic

 

[PENG]

You are right. I switched to attenuators because of hum. One of them was bad. So I switched back to RCA. Messed with the cables and the hum went away. Should of listened to you guys and went RCA right away. Sounds Fantastic

Thank you for the feed back, I always appreciate it because it helps me help others in the future. What you just found was not surprising. Hum, ground loops and other related issues could be hard to understand, and solving it sometimes require trial and error. I have read tons of info, even own a few books on the related topics and still found it very much a hit and miss thing on occasions. Even with no shortages of qualified electrical personnel, I lost count how many times my teams got into real troubles in industrial power distribution systems because of grounding issues and electro magnetic interference, let alone just hum and other funny noise in home audio systems.

I hope your attenuators were refundable, I never liked those things but I understand why you wanted to stay with balanced. If you compared the level trims for the channels, I bet they all look more reasonable than those with the attenuators in place.

 

[TLS Guy]

I emailed Audyssey and they sent me a response. You were right they suggested inline attenuators or RCA. What side should the attenuators be on. Pre/Pro or Amp. Or does it matter

The attenuators should be at the power amp, so they attenuate any noise picked up in the cables.