Denon/Marantz vs Yamaha vs Anthem Thread

Ken32

Ken32

Full Audioholic
The new Klipsch stuff does seem to be smoother than the old, but not nearly smooth enough for me to mess with.

Brightest speakers I've heard recently are the Q Acoustics 3020's that I liked at the store, and totally hated at home. Just all top end, with nothing down below. They almost sounded to me like they were out of phase, so I swapped one set of cables' polarity and, well, they weren't out of phase. I need to sell those things. I hate them even on my PC, where I have an old set of Yamaha bookshelves, can't remember the model, running off a Yamaha mini receiver. I have no problems listening to them all day.

I have no desire to touch Klipsch ever again. I think they're more for people with lesser/hard of hearing. Kind of glad i got that out of my system. I've seen a lot of people say the Q acoustics are very bright. I've personally not tried them. Never liked the way they looked.

However; I've stated before, I love the HTD level 3 (kapton ribbon) horn tweeter. It was so smooth and detailed. Their real wood (Macassar Ebony) is beautiful in person. They even send you gloves to use while unpacked so you don't get prints on them. Classy. No matter how loud i cranked it it never fatigued. Ever. They be on my list if i ever leave B&W.
 
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sakete

Audioholic
Anyone know if there is a way for the display on the Yamaha receivers to show both Artist + Song when streaming music? As it is now, I can only pick one.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Anyone know if there is a way for the display on the Yamaha receivers to show both Artist + Song when streaming music? As it is now, I can only pick one.
When I name my music files, I include both Song and Artist (Eagles - Hotel California). So I get both. :D
 
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sakete

Audioholic
Well, so far I've run YPAO and then copied over the results to manual PEQ. The high frequencies were really boosted with YPAO, so I brought those back down to neutral. And actually brought all frequencies above 200hz to neutral, so now only lower frequencies are affected. It does sound less boomy now, but I'm sure I can do better and will go the REW route for sure at some point, probably next month.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Well, so far I've run YPAO and then copied over the results to manual PEQ. The high frequencies were really boosted with YPAO, so I brought those back down to neutral. And actually brought all frequencies above 200hz to neutral, so now only lower frequencies are affected. It does sound less boomy now, but I'm sure I can do better and will go the REW route for sure at some point, probably next month.
When you do REW, you will see how changing the location/position of the UMIK-1 affects the FR.

If you have a lot of free time, it will be interesting. Compare the FR of Natural vs Flat vs NO EQ. Take the best one and use PEQ to adjust the frequencies that are not within the usual +/-3dB.

I think in my case, the best FR was actually NOT using ANY EQ at all. So I did not copy any YPAO over to Manual since YPAO was actually worse than NO EQ in my case. Then I just changed a few frequencies using PEQ.

But actually, since NO EQ at all produced a decent +/-2.4dB response for me, I probably won't even mess with EQ altogether, except for just playing around PEQ for fun when I have more time. :D
 
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sakete

Audioholic
So interestingly, YPAO measured my left speaker as being 10ft away and my right speaker as 9.2ft away. Actual distance of both to the listening position is closer to 9.2ft. Should I adjust the left speaker to also be 9.2ft? Or is YPAO accounting for something in its measurement?

Right speaker is tucked in a corner, left speaker more open. Listening position is dead center between the two speakers.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
So interestingly, YPAO measured my left speaker as being 10ft away and my right speaker as 9.2ft away. Actual distance of both to the listening position is closer to 9.2ft. Should I adjust the left speaker to also be 9.2ft? Or is YPAO accounting for something in its measurement?

Right speaker is tucked in a corner, left speaker more open. Listening position is dead center between the two speakers.
The YAPO measures differently for the speaker distances as your right speaker is closer to a corner than the left one. My opinion is since the right speaker sits close to a corner, it slightly boosts it's acoustic output and that difference is picked up by the microphone with the resulting distinct distance figure.

I wouldn't change anything in the distance settings. But should you notice that the right speaker is not as loud which I doubt, you could make the adjustment.
 
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sakete

Audioholic
The YAPO measures differently for the speaker distances as your right speaker is closer to a corner than the left one. My opinion is since the right speaker sits close to a corner, it slightly boosts it's acoustic output and that difference is picked up by the microphone with the resulting distinct distance figure.

I wouldn't change anything in the distance settings. But should you notice that the right speaker is not as loud which I doubt, you could make the adjustment.
Thanks, I thought that distance only affected the timing/delay (i.e. when is the sound wave received by the microphone)?

I noticed for example that when playing music, the hihats on a song didn't play at the exact same moment on both speakers using the YPAO settings, so I made the distance setting equal (9.2ft) and it sounded better to my ears.

Anyway, I just toed the speakers in a bit more giving me a better soundstage at the listening sweet spot, so will need to redo measurements. Will try to do that tonight.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I think all these Auto EQ usually do a good job with distance and levels. But I trust Manual more.
 
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sakete

Audioholic
Just redid the YPAO, now with speakers facing the listening position and now both were measured at 9.2 ft distance. It did increase the level on the right speaker by +0.5db. Copied over YPAO flat to Manual PEQ and tweaked it so that it's flat from 250hz and up, everything below that I left as measured by YPAO. It essentially boosts the low end on the left speaker, and reduces it on the right speaker, which to me intuitively makes sense as the left is in the open and the right is in a corner. Sounds pretty good at this point, but again I'm sure with rew and some trial and error I can do better :)

Still don't get why YPAO boosts the highs so much, and puts a huge dip in the lower mids.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Just redid the YPAO, now with speakers facing the listening position and now both were measured at 9.2 ft distance. It did increase the level on the right speaker by +0.5db. Copied over YPAO flat to Manual PEQ and tweaked it so that it's flat from 250hz and up, everything below that I left as measured by YPAO. It essentially boosts the low end on the left speaker, and reduces it on the right speaker, which to me intuitively makes sense as the left is in the open and the right is in a corner. Sounds pretty good at this point, but again I'm sure with rew and some trial and error I can do better :)

Still don't get why YPAO boosts the highs so much, and puts a huge dip in the lower mids.
Well, you and I will see if manual PEQ will produce the best FR.

I played just a little on my first time with REW and I was able to get the best FR with manual PEQ. But I need to confirm that the second time to make sure it’s not a fluke. :D

A lot control with PEQ. Not just the Frequencies, but also the Q-values. On my first go, I assumed Q of 0.5 was the best. But I didn’t even try any other Q values.
 
hemiram

hemiram

Full Audioholic
Just redid the YPAO, now with speakers facing the listening position and now both were measured at 9.2 ft distance. It did increase the level on the right speaker by +0.5db. Copied over YPAO flat to Manual PEQ and tweaked it so that it's flat from 250hz and up, everything below that I left as measured by YPAO. It essentially boosts the low end on the left speaker, and reduces it on the right speaker, which to me intuitively makes sense as the left is in the open and the right is in a corner. Sounds pretty good at this point, but again I'm sure with rew and some trial and error I can do better :)

Still don't get why YPAO boosts the highs so much, and puts a huge dip in the lower mids.
I had the same thing on two different Yamaha receivers when running YPAO. IMHO, it sounds pretty bad. I gave up when I got my TRS-7810 a couple of years ago, and not running YPAO sounded better, and it wasn't close. A little old fashioned bass and treble seemed to be about right. A friend with a much better room acoustically had the same results with both his receiver, can't remember the model number, but it's a big one, 20XX and my 7810. I have the mike and stuff to do REW, but I haven't had the time to really do anything with my new AVX-4500H yet. Next week I will get busy with it to make sure there are no refurb bugs and if it passes all that testing, 2 weeks later, I will get serious with it. In between I have what is hopefully the last doctor nonsense for a long while.
 
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sakete

Audioholic
I had the same thing on two different Yamaha receivers when running YPAO. IMHO, it sounds pretty bad. I gave up when I got my TRS-7810 a couple of years ago, and not running YPAO sounded better, and it wasn't close. A little old fashioned bass and treble seemed to be about right. A friend with a much better room acoustically had the same results with both his receiver, can't remember the model number, but it's a big one, 20XX and my 7810. I have the mike and stuff to do REW, but I haven't had the time to really do anything with my new AVX-4500H yet. Next week I will get busy with it to make sure there are no refurb bugs and if it passes all that testing, 2 weeks later, I will get serious with it. In between I have what is hopefully the last doctor nonsense for a long while.
I thought the corrections it applied below 250hz were pretty decent, going by my ears at least, but anything above that wasn't that great so I removed all adjustments above 250hz.
 
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Deckard71

Junior Audioholic
Hello to everyone

First message here.

One thing not many people know regarding the “inferior” YPAO: you can copy the YPAO Natural EQ to Manual. This everybody knows. But, although not visible, when you copy that, you are also copying the FIR filters, which are not editable. And this has a huge effect. After copying Natural to Manual, even if you flatten all frequencies/Q/gains to Zero and get a flat EQ line, the FIR are there and they make a difference. I have run REW with an UMIK mic, and I have measured it against the Through mode, which is also flat, and I get a much better curve with the one copied from Natural. If in addition, you then edit that Manual flat EQ curve, you can get a superb EQ
 
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sakete

Audioholic
Hello to everyone

First message here.

One thing not many people know regarding the “inferior” YPAO: you can copy the YPAO Natural EQ to Manual. This everybody knows. But, although not visible, when you copy that, you are also copying the FIR filters, which are not editable. And this has a huge effect. After copying Natural to Manual, even if you flatten all frequencies/Q/gains to Zero and get a flat EQ line, the FIR are there and they make a difference. I have run REW with an UMIK mic, and I have measured it against the Through mode, which is also flat, and I get a much better curve with the one copied from Natural. If in addition, you then edit that Manual flat EQ curve, you can get a superb EQ
What is FIR?
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I get a much better curve with the one copied from Natural...then edit that Manual flat EQ curve, you can get a superb EQ
So apply YPAO first. Then copy YPAO Natural to Manual PEQ. Then change all EQ points to 0.0dB, but leave the Q-values alone? And this keeps all the benefits of the FIR — no phase shift across the frequencies?

And this method gives better FR than using Through mode, which is no EQ at all?

I will have to try it out when I get some time - compare THROUGH vs NATURAL + 0.0 dB EQ.
 
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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
What is FIR?
I don’t know either, but here is a link. :D

https://www.minidsp.com/applications/dsp-basics/fir-vs-iir-filtering

Infinite impulse response (IIR) filters
IIR filters are the most efficient type of filter to implement in DSP (digital signal processing). They are usually provided as "biquad" filters. For example, in the parametric EQ block of a miniDSP plugin, each peak/notch or shelving filter is a single biquad. In the crossover blocks, each crossover uses up to 4 biquads. Each band of a graphic EQ is a single biquad, so a full 31-band graphic EQ uses 31 biquads per channel.

The amount of processing that is required to compute a biquad is relatively small. This is what enables the low-cost miniDSP products to implement a full active crossover with parametric EQ on all input and output channels. The DSP (digital signal processor) on each board can compute a certain number of biquads, and this is the primary thing that determines how many filters are available in each plugin.

The miniDSP biquads can be programmed using the crossover parameters (slope and frequency),the parametric filter parameters (center frequency, gain, and Q),and so on. They can also be programmed with custom filter shapes by directly entering the biquad coefficients - five numbers that are used to compute the biquad output from its input. You can generate these coefficients by using the community-contributed custom biquad programming spreadsheet.

Finite impulse response (FIR) filters
An FIR filter requires more computation time on the DSP and more memory. The DSP chip therefore needs to be more powerful. miniDSP products that support FIR filtering include the OpenDRC and the miniSHARC kit.

FIR filters are specified using a large array of numbers. In the case of the OpenDRC, there are 6144 coefficients (or "taps") per channel. In the case of the miniSHARC, there are a total of 10240 taps assignable to all input and output channels. Generation of this large array of numbers must be done in a separate program, such as rephase, Acourate, and others.

FIR filtering has these advantages over IIR filtering:
  1. It can implement linear-phase filtering. This means that the filter has no phase shift across the frequency band. Alternately, the phase can be corrected independently of the amplitude. See examples below.
  2. It can be used to correct frequency-response errors in a loudspeaker to a finer degree of precision than using IIRs.
However, FIRs can be limited in resolution at low frequencies, and the success of applying FIR filters depends greatly on the program that is used to generate the filter coefficients. Usage is generally more complicated and time-consuming than IIR filters.
 
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Deckard71

Junior Audioholic
So apply YPAO first. Then copy YPAO Natural to Manual PEQ. Then change all EQ points to 0.0dB, but leave the Q-values alone? And this keeps all the benefits of the FIR — no phase shift across the frequencies?

And this method gives better FR than using Through mode, which is no EQ at all?

I will have to try it out when I get some time - compare THROUGH vs NATURAL + 0.0 dB EQ.
Yes. You flatten all frequencies to 0DB. You can leave the Q values as it will not have any impact, since gains are zero

By doing this I get a better curve in REW, especially below 100hz. Then, with a lot of patience, you tweak the EQ until you get a better curve. The filters generated by REW give you a hint on what to change in Yamaha PEQ

I have the same EQ in Pattern 1 and Pattern 2. The only difference is that Pattern 1 EQ has the IFR from Natural, Pattern 2 does not (I did not copy from Natural here). Pattern 1 sounds smooth, Pattern 2 is boomier, has more punch. I switch between 1 and 2, depending on what I want to listen
 

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