I just bought a Denon AVR-X4700H with Polk Signature Elite ES 60 towers, ES 35 center and HTS 10 subwoofer to start a 3.1 system right now. Mainly listening to music and will work my way into more home theater experience going forward. A little over whelmed with Audyssey calibration and getting everything optimized. Appreciate any advice to point me in the right direction to make things more understandable for me and get the most out of my new purchase. Thank you!
Others have given you their favorite practical approach to setting up their system, so I thought I'd try and offer some background what Audyssey or manual set-up methods are trying to accomplish.
Back in the previous century, when all we had was stereo, setting up a system was really simple. Arrange the speakers so that a listening position is more or less equal distance from both speakers. If needed, adjust the balance knob on the receiver's front panel, until the sound from both speakers was equally loud. Done!
With home theater, surround sound, and digitally operated receivers, things get more complicated. Now there are at least 5 speakers, often more. They're almost never all the same distance from a main listening position, and they're rarely ever identical speakers. You still have to balance their output to the same loudness level. But there aren't any balance knobs anymore. With multi-channel surround sound, you also have to adjust each channel so the sound arrives at the listening position at the same time.
With manual adjustment, you first have to measure the distance from each speaker to the listener, and you have to tell the receiver that distance. Sound travels through the air at roughly 1 foot/msec. In my 5-channel system, the front left & right speakers are about 10 feet away, the center speaker is 9 feet away, and the 2 rear channel speakers are, about 4 or 5 feet away. After I tell the AVR (a Denon X4500H) those distances for each channel, it delays the audio signal in each channel so sound from the close-in speakers arrive at the same time as the furthest away speaker. A single musical note coming from all the channels actually sounds like a single note.
Next, I adjust the loudness for each channel, one at a time, with a pink noise test signal, until all channels are at the same loudness. It takes a hand-held loudness or sound pressure level (SPL) meter and some patience. I look for a SPL meter reading of 75 dB because it's louder than the refrigerator in the kitchen or the ventilation system if they're running. I find 70 dB is too low – ambient noise in the room can interfere with the process. Others like to use 80 or 85 dB, but it doesn't really matter. What you're doing is adjusting each speaker to be the same loudness as all the others. Like with a stereo when you rotate that balance knob. I also find that many TV or movie soundtracks benefit if I later increase the volume of the center channel – where all the dialog comes from. You should be able to do that anytime with your remote control.
In earlier days of HT, all AVRs required manual set up as I've described. But the ugly truth was that many people just never bothered with that. They used their AVR straight out of the box with the factory default settings. The AVR manufacturers looked for computer software that could automate that whole process, such as Audyessy. It does all that fairly well, but it's not perfect.
Audyessy also checks to see if you've wired any of your speakers with opposite polarity. Always connect the Red (positive) speaker terminal on the back of the AVR with the Red terminal on the speaker, and Black (negative) to Black. It is easy to do, but you'd be surprised how often it's done wrong. Sometimes Audyessy can be fooled by sound reflected off of nearby walls. So don't worry if you get such a notice when you've double checked all your speaker wires and made sure they all have the same polarity.
And finally, Audyessy attempts to equalize the sound. When it does this well, it's much better than manually adjusting bass & treble tone controls. It makes use of digital notch filters where the operating frequency, width of the filter, and slope of the filter can be assigned digitally by the system. OK, that's sounds like nothing but jargon, but these software systems make a serious attempt to equalize the sound so the overall frequency response of the speakers in your room aren't altered by unwanted by additions or subtractions caused by reflections off of walls, ceiling, and floor. Many people believe Audyssey can correct a speaker's uneven frequency response, but that's not true. It aims to correct a room's frequency response. There is a difference.
But Audyessy doesn't always get this equalization process right. It depends on your speakers, where they're placed in the room, and where you put the test microphone – a whole lot of variables. With some systems (room, locations & speakers), it works well. And with others, it 'sucks the life out of' (to use a highly technical audio term) otherwise good sounding speakers. In my experience, I'd say Audyessy has come a long way, but it's still a work in progress. In my system, I didn't like the sound after Audyessy did it's equalization thing, so I skipped that part. A lot depends on your personal preference.
So give it a try – give it several tries not all on the same day – until you're satisfied with the overall sound. Remember, if you move your speakers or rearrange the furniture, you have to run Audyessy again.
And welcome to Audioholics! Don't be afraid to ask any question no matter how dumb you may think it is. We actually like curious newbies.
