Calibration ideas needed

J

Jack N

Audioholic
This is kind of a Back To The Future kind of thing. I have a very old Yammie RX-V3300 receiver that was built long before receivers started coming with built-in self-calibration systems. Up to this point I’ve been crudely calibrating it by ear. It does have a built-in pink-noise generator but it’s basically useless as it jumps from speaker to speaker way too fast to be of any good. I’ve looked for pink-noise discs but I never know how they’re going to work (all speakers playing at once, one at a time, jumping from speaker to speaker, etc) as the descriptions are always so vague. I’m looking for ideas on how I can calibrate this unit more accurately.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Thanks. I was trying to think of something simpler but this would give me an excuse to start learning REW.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
While nothing wrong with having a measurement mic and REW, I'd think it wouldn't be horrible to use the current pink noise and an spl meter, even a phone app, to get fairly close in any case.....might be annoying if there's no way to pause per channel and make level adjustments, tho. Maybe @3db has some ideas for you, he's got a couple older Yamaha avrs....
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
This is kind of a Back To The Future kind of thing. I have a very old Yammie RX-V3300 receiver that was built long before receivers started coming with built-in self-calibration systems. Up to this point I’ve been crudely calibrating it by ear. It does have a built-in pink-noise generator but it’s basically useless as it jumps from speaker to speaker way too fast to be of any good. I’ve looked for pink-noise discs but I never know how they’re going to work (all speakers playing at once, one at a time, jumping from speaker to speaker, etc) as the descriptions are always so vague. I’m looking for ideas on how I can calibrate this unit more accurately.
That is a very old receiver, designed for a non standard speaker arrangement and has prologic. It has no HDMI capability

Honestly those older receivers were a definite downgrade from good two channel stereo.

My advice is to use it in a good 2.1 system and forget its old outdated multi channel capabilities. It probably makes a good 2, or 2.1 channel unit.
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
While nothing wrong with having a measurement mic and REW, I'd think it wouldn't be horrible to use the current pink noise and an spl meter, even a phone app, to get fairly close in any case.....might be annoying if there's no way to pause per channel and make level adjustments, tho. Maybe @3db has some ideas for you, he's got a couple older Yamaha avrs....
I largely saw it as an easy way of giving control where there was none…

However, as TLS pointed out there is no HDMI and iirc, that is how REW wants to connect through the computer to AVR. Definitely am uncertain if it can work through a phone jack to rca.
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
However, as TLS pointed out there is no HDMI and iirc, that is how REW wants to connect through the computer to AVR. Definitely am uncertain if it can work through a phone jack to rca.
I would have recommended the same, but didn't think about HDMI connectivity. That could make it not very useful, lol.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
I largely saw it as an easy way of giving control where there was none…

However, as TLS pointed out there is no HDMI and iirc, that is how REW wants to connect through the computer to AVR. Definitely am uncertain if it can work through a phone jack to rca.
My old laptop does not have HDMI, so I am using an adapter that combines USB audio out and VGA out into an HDMI signal which I run to my AVR. REW allows me to use the USB out for audio. It is highly configurable. I managed to make my first measurements a week or two ago.

I bet you could even use the 1/8" headphone jack on a laptop with an 1/8" to RCA adapter and run it to a receiver, although I'm uncertain as to whether the headphone output would be good enough quality at the extreme frequencies. If the op is not running a subwoofer it might be ok for his purposes. I suppose I could test it with a pair of headphones.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I largely saw it as an easy way of giving control where there was none…

However, as TLS pointed out there is no HDMI and iirc, that is how REW wants to connect through the computer to AVR. Definitely am uncertain if it can work through a phone jack to rca.
Yeah you'd still have to get around the hdmi thing, perhaps a test disc would suffice.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Yeah you'd still have to get around the hdmi thing, perhaps a test disc would suffice.
I can confirm that REW can output to any device that is registered to the audio mixer. I can output to USB audio, Realtek Audio (default device / internal speakers) and to the headphone jack. Only potential issue I see is that the headphone amp may not be very good quality, but a simple IC op-amp is enough to drive earbuds and they can actually measure pretty flat. Simple 1/8" to RCA adapter would do the trick.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Some useful information in these posts. Thanks. It sounds as though I'm going to have to try an adapter that Eppie mentioned, or try to find a good pink-noise disc. This brings up two questions. 1) If I go the REW route, do I need to be concerned about the quality of the output signal leaving the laptop? 2) If I go the disc route, is it feasible/possible for me to burn my own disc in some way so that I get the signal going to one speaker at a time?

FWIW - I'm leaning on trying to make REW work for this (I'll be using it on another system I'm putting together also) so posted a couple of questions over in the REW Support forum about the hardware. Might as well take advantage of any Black Friday specials if I can. I'd still like to get answers to the above questions please. Thanks.
 
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Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
I have not come across any detailed measurements on laptop headphone amps. If I had to make an educated guess, I think it would be ok for REW. I'm still learning REW, but it sends a signal well below the max output, around -20dB to -25dB, so it's not driving the amp hard. I suspect that laptop manufacturers would use a simple op-amp to drive headphones and that's mature technology that should be designed for 20Hz to 20kHz. REW has a signal generator built in, so you could test specific frequencies, but at our age the upper frequency content isn't that audible any more any way. ;)

Should be possible to make a disc. Just need an audio file of pink noise and the right software. Audacity can manipulate sound files and Windows Media Player can burn discs. Just set the disc on repeat. If you want to burn the REW sweeps, you could try and capture them in Audacity and save to a file format which could be burned to a disc but I don't see any use in that. REW needs to play the sweeps and record the speakers at the same time. I don't know if you can get REW to record a sweep that's played back from another source.
 
J

Jack N

Audioholic
Ok. Well, I'll need the equipment to calibrate the other system anyway so I might as well buy it now and try to see if I can get it to work on my out-dated system. If I can't, it's not like I'd be losing anything. Thanks.
 
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