Marantz AV10 calibrated by Audyssey lacks bass

[Paul McNeil]

The specs on his original Marantz 8802A look pretty good. Curious his comparison overall with the new one.

You must be addressing me! The AV10 provides superior clarity, sound staging, Dolby, Audyssey, Neural X and Auto-3D processing. The bass is far better defined. The soundstage is immense. Dialogue clarity is f'ing amazing. I have turned up the volume, by at least 6 dB, and my wife does not complain. Plus, I have 13 channels, the 8802A only did 11. So now I have front wides and rear surrounds. Maybe I could have got this for much less, for example with a Marantz or Denton AVR. Any comments on this possibility, it goes back to the old question of whether separates really sound better.

 

[PENG]

You must be addressing me! The AV10 provides superior clarity, sound staging, Dolby, Audyssey, Neural X and Auto-3D processing. The bass is far better defined. The soundstage is immense. Dialogue clarity is f'ing amazing. I have turned up the volume, by at least 6 dB, and my wife does not complain. Plus, I have 13 channels, the 8802A only did 11. So now I have front wides and rear surrounds. Maybe I could have got this for much less, for example with a Marantz or Denton AVR. Any comments on this possibility, it goes back to the old question of whether separates really sound better.

Have you tried both DAC filters yet?

 

[panteragstk]

OK, take a look at the unadulterated AV10 implementation of Audyssey (I did this with the AV10, not the iPhone app) USING ONLY TWO SUBWOOFER OUTPUTS. The problem is fixed! YAHOO!

I will still adjust the bass up a bit, but not 12 dB.

Now who's going to explain this?

Glad you found the issue, but that annoys me. I have 4 subs in my room. One in each corner, but they're identical. I'm curious to see how my 4800 will handle that once I get it installed.

 

[Paul McNeil]

Have you tried both DAC filters yet?

Yes, but because my hearing does not extend beyond 10 khtz, I, predictably, heard no difference. But I'm sure REW could measure one...

 

[Paul McNeil]

Glad you found the issue, but that annoys me. I have 4 subs in my room. One in each corner, but they're identical. I'm curious to see how my 4800 will handle that once I get it installed.

There is a selection, in the speaker layout menu that precedes an Audyssey calibration. Normal (or some such) or Directed Bass. I selected 'Normal' because I didn't want Directed Bass, which sounds like a paradox. But if you select 'Directed', you get the choice of 'Front Corners' or 'Four Corners'. Would all have been better if I had selected 'Front Corners', and established 'Directed Bass'?

 

[PENG]

There is a selection, in the speaker layout menu that precedes an Audyssey calibration. Normal (or some such) or Directed Bass. I selected 'Normal' because I didn't want Directed Bass, which sounds like a paradox. But if you select 'Directed', you get the choice of 'Front Corners' or 'Four Corners'. Would all have been better if I had selected 'Front Corners', and established 'Directed Bass'?

If you have your crossovers at or below 80 Hz, directional bass is probably not a good idea. For higher crossovers, it may do better but it is still hard to see. I don't have a Denon anymore, if I do I would likely ignore that feature.

What is Directional Bass and Do We Need It? – Simple Home Cinema

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

If you have your crossovers at or below 80 Hz, directional bass is probably not a good idea. For higher crossovers, it may do better but it is still hard to see. I don't have a Denon anymore, if I do I would likely ignore that feature.

What is Directional Bass and Do We Need It? – Simple Home Cinema

I believe the directional bass feature works for subs in four corners. Basically the bass below XO of each corresponding speaker goes to that sub. IE: left surround speaker crosses to the left corner sub, right front speaker crosses to the right front sub and so on. Someone tested it on avs. Iirc it was only meh.

 

[lovinthehd]

OK, take a look at the unadulterated AV10 implementation of Audyssey (I did this with the AV10, not the iPhone app) USING ONLY TWO SUBWOOFER OUTPUTS. The problem is fixed! YAHOO!

I will still adjust the bass up a bit, but not 12 dB.

Now who's going to explain this?

I don't know, could be just re-running Audyssey but possibly has more to do with treating two sub locations as two subs....or maybe your iphone app

ps glad you got it sorted better....

 

[snakeeyes]

I believe the directional bass feature works for subs in four corners. Basically the bass below XO of each corresponding speaker goes to that sub. IE: left surround speaker crosses to the left corner sub, right front speaker crosses to the right front sub and so on. Someone tested it on avs. Iirc it was only meh.

A quadraphonic bass, eh? LOL

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

A quadraphonic bass, eh? LOL

 

[PENG]

I believe the directional bass feature works for subs in four corners. Basically the bass below XO of each corresponding speaker goes to that sub. IE: left surround speaker crosses to the left corner sub, right front speaker crosses to the right front sub and so on. Someone tested it on avs. Iirc it was only meh.

I know, that's why I actually do not prefer directional bass, below 80 Hz is not that directional at all so it doesn't matter that much where the originates from.

If XO < 80 Hz, non directional should sound better, to me for sure. As always, ommv, so it is good for D+M to have this new feature, especially when others brands don't have.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I know, that's why I actually do not prefer directional bass, below 80 Hz is not that directional at all so it doesn't matter that much where the originates from.

If XO < 80 Hz, non directional should sound better, to me for sure. As always, ommv, so it is good for D+M to have this new feature, especially when others brands don't have.

I agree. I think it’s a cool idea that might work in some applications. But I don’t think it would be better than a normal setup. Yamaha has something(that I can’t remember the name of) that does a kind of front and back bass, where the rear subs only come in when the surrounds or rear surrounds are on. Can’t remember exactly. My friend has it in his AVR. It was NOT successful IMO. Typical Yamaha weirdness lol.

 

[Paul McNeil]

It's the phone app. I redid the calibration this morning with the phone app, Audyssey MultiEQ editor, and got with the TWO sub arrangement the same -10-12 dB deficit in the subwoofer bass output.

But after adjusting the bass output upwards 12 dB, I get this curve measured by REW. It's a start. Please feel free to comment on the curve, especially how to improve. Is there a standard for the amount of smoothing?

And many thanks for all of your comments and help with this.

 

[Paul McNeil]

I don't know, could be just re-running Audyssey but possibly has more to do with treating two sub locations as two subs....or maybe your iphone app

ps glad you got it sorted better....

Yeah, it was the phone app, I'm a retired scientist and should have know not to change two variables!

 

[PENG]

I agree. I think it’s a cool idea that might work in some applications. But I don’t think it would be better than a normal setup. Yamaha has something(that I can’t remember the name of) that does a kind of front and back bass, where the rear subs only come in when the surrounds or rear surrounds are on. Can’t remember exactly. My friend has it in his AVR. It was NOT successful IMO. Typical Yamaha weirdness lol.

I had REW sweep results to show that when I use directional, not the new feature, but by connecting the speaker binding posts for my surround and surround back speakers with subs that have speaker level inputs and LF filters. The results were okay but I got some humps in the upper mid bass that I didn't like. So I left them connected this way, but set XO back to 80 Hz. It helps in this case because those speakers don't extend much below 80 Hz. If they were towers, then I wouldn't have bother pairing them with their own subs.

 

[PENG]

It's the phone app. I redid the calibration this morning with the phone app, Audyssey MultiEQ editor, and got with the TWO sub arrangement the same -10-12 dB deficit in the subwoofer bass output.

But after adjusting the bass output upwards 12 dB, I get this curve measured by REW. It's a start. Please feel free to comment on the curve, especially how to improve. Is there a standard for the amount of smoothing?

And many thanks for all of your comments and help with this.

View attachment 66191

Looks fine, not that it means much but I wonder why it dropped precipitously at around 22 Hz and still have no idea why you need to bump the bass level (trim level?) up by 12 dB. I could even understand 6 dB to get that tilt, but 12 dB seems more than necessary that still indicate without that there would be the unexplainable low shelf that should not be there in your large room and very capable subwoofers.

Regardless, assuming smoothing is not more than 1/12, you now have a fantastically "flat" and smooth response from 20 to 200 Hz that are not seen too often without post calibration tweaks. The fact is, that +12 dB works good for you, what causes it is only important for crazy people like me, who would not stop until I found the cause(s).

My only slight concern is that without knowing how much boost Audyssey might have done at some points within that range, the pre out (ie the subouts) may be in the clipping zone at times, as preamp voltage of a 12 dB extra gain means the voltage will quadruple. If it is at say 1 V level without the boost, with 12 dB boost it would reach 4 V. That's find, but at higher listening level when you get a 20 dB peak, you could be talking upwards of 8 or even 16 V (XLR outputs) depending on the gain of your power amps. Having said that, humans are much less sensitive to very high distortion levels in the below 200 Hz range.

What's REW showing for distortions?

An random example I picked from my sweep inventory, that's a sweep at low level, I imagined it would have been worst if I had cranked the volume up.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

It's the phone app. I redid the calibration this morning with the phone app, Audyssey MultiEQ editor, and got with the TWO sub arrangement the same -10-12 dB deficit in the subwoofer bass output.

But after adjusting the bass output upwards 12 dB, I get this curve measured by REW. It's a start. Please feel free to comment on the curve, especially how to improve. Is there a standard for the amount of smoothing?

And many thanks for all of your comments and help with this.

View attachment 66191

Well that looks pretty damn good! Smoothing imo is usually set to none while doing adjustments, and whatever you feel like after that to show how pretty it is lol. I normally don’t use any. FWIW.
Yeah, looks pretty. Good. As with @PENG, I’d be concerned with distortion. +12 is a hell of a lot. So curious, where audy set it initially. In the sweep it looks like about 82db. That’s not much compared to a big 115db movie hit. Of course if you never get the MV above -20 or whatever, it wouldn’t much matter. Except that if the LFE trim value is in the + you can have distortion in the signal. That’s a whole different problem.
So A) we want to figure out why the initial setting is so low. Or B) just roll with it. lol
I’m assuming you’ve done some listening? I would expect at least some improvement over when you started this thread.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Looks fine, not that it means much but I wonder why it dropped precipitously at around 22 Hz and still have no idea why you need to bump the bass level (trim level?) up by 12 dB. I could even understand 6 dB to get that tilt, but 12 dB seems more than necessary that still indicate without that there would be the unexplainable low shelf that should not be there in your large room and very capable subwoofers.

Regardless, assuming smoothing is not more than 1/12, you now have a fantastically "flat" and smooth response from 20 to 200 Hz that are not seen too often without post calibration tweaks. The fact is, that +12 dB works good for you, what causes it is only important for crazy people like me, who would not stop until I found the cause(s).

My only slight concern is that without knowing how much boost Audyssey might have done at some points within that range, the pre out (ie the subouts) may be in the clipping zone at times, as preamp voltage of a 12 dB extra gain means the voltage will quadruple. If it is at say 1 V level without the boost, with 12 dB boost it would reach 4 V. That's find, but at higher listening level when you get a 20 dB peak, you could be talking upwards of 8 or even 16 V (XLR outputs) depending on the gain of your power amps. Having said that, humans are much less sensitive to very high distortion levels in the below 200 Hz range.

What's REW showing for distortions?

An random example I picked from my sweep inventory, that's a sweep at low level, I imagined it would have been worst if I had cranked the volume up.View attachment 66197

So I’m not sure what you mean by the 22hz drop. I can see it there clearly, but just checking for what you mean. The Klipsch subs were measured by sound and vision to have f3 of 22hz and f6 at 20. The svs are probably in the native 20hz(with bungs available to tune to 16 and 12 iirc). I suspect some anomalies here due to to that.
If it were me. I might consider lowering the tune of the SVS’s to 16(and 12 for fun) to see if that improves the sub 22hz range. They have a lot of capability and it could improve extension while possibly cleaning up that low 20’s area. I’m still working on coffee so it’s possible too, that I should not be typing yet. lol

 

[Paul McNeil]

and still have no idea why you need to bump the bass level (trim level?) up by 12 dB.

Yes, that's the unresolved question, it's the phone app, but why is it so grossly misadjusting the bass?

 

[Paul McNeil]

Well that looks pretty damn good! Smoothing imo is usually set to none while doing adjustments, and whatever you feel like after that to show how pretty it is lol. I normally don’t use any. FWIW.
Yeah, looks pretty. Good. As with @PENG, I’d be concerned with distortion. +12 is a hell of a lot. So curious, where audy set it initially. In the sweep it looks like about 82db. That’s not much compared to a big 115db movie hit. Of course if you never get the MV above -20 or whatever, it wouldn’t much matter. Except that if the LFE trim value is in the + you can have distortion in the signal. That’s a whole different problem.
So A) we want to figure out why the initial setting is so low. Or B) just roll with it. lol
I’m assuming you’ve done some listening? I would expect at least some improvement over when you started this thread.

Initially it was set at -9 dB by Audyssey phone app and it is now +1dB, so there should be plenty of head room from the AV10, or no? This is exactly the question I asked in the original post, how best to adjust the bass. At the AV10 level or subwoofer level. The AV10 has the SVS set to -35 dB. Well, after all they are two together (+ 6dB gain) in a corner (+ 3adB gain), and are those additive or multiplicative, in either case a huge gain factor.