Power Ratings in Modern AVR's

[KEW]

I do plan to upgrade to either the Prime or Ultra 5.1 system at some point, when cash allows, but that will be some time.

Save some money!
If I was you, when the time comes, look at it as a phased transition, but not one that ever needs to be completed. You did not mention (that I recall) what your ratio of music to HT is (I am 90/10 music/HT, for example).

1) I would buy a pair of Ultra bookshelf speakers as mains first. This will give you the full benefit of great speakers for music! (skip the Primes, they are probably nice, but if you care enough to invest this much time getting your current situation corrected-even though not by choice, I think it is safe to say that the Primes would end up being a "stepping stone" to better speakers).

2) Now pay attention when someone is walking across the front sound stage and talking, or when a hover car skims across the front 3 speakers. Do you hear a change when it passes through the SCS? Typically a company will voice their speakers roughly the same, but since you are talking their entry level speaker vs their premier speaker, I would not be surprised if you noted a distracting transition.

3) If so, remove your center and go though setup/Audyssey without the center (aka phantom center). With good speakers, this can work amazingly well, but you can take your time and save up for another BS (or the center, but an identical BS is always better if you can fit it vertically under your TV).

4) Last, you can buy the new surrounds, but I would implore you to disconnect the mains (and center, if you decide to get one) from the AVR and listen to one of your favorite movies on the surrounds only...do you really need to replace your surrounds? Don't they do fine for what they are being asked to do? Al least you will have an idea of what you are spending money on!

IME, replacing the mains will get you 80-95% of the improvement from upgrading speakers. It varies depending on how well your mains image (how effective the phantom center is), but the center might get around 5-15%, and the surrounds 1-5%.

 

[Halon451]

I suspect that the power rating of your receiver is too low. When Audyssey boosts some frequencies, let's say 10 dB, the power amp has to output 10 times more power and it may go into a clipping state.
I doubt that distortion would be caused in the Audyssey software. It most likely is caused by an overloaded amplifier (overloaded by Audyssey however) .
If your receiver has pre-outs, and you have access to external power amps, it might be worthwhile to try this avenue and compare the results.

Yes on the pre-outs, not so much on external amp availability. At least without great difficulty. I could theoretically yank my guitarist's two channel crown amplifier from his rig but that would be more trouble than it's worth when I believe the checks I plan to run tonight will tell me if it's an AVR or speaker issue.

 

[Halon451]

PS I'm the drummer of the band so thank god I don't have to deal with amps there too, lol

 

[Halon451]

Save some money!
If I was you, when the time comes, look at it as a phased transition, but not one that ever needs to be completed. You did not mention (that I recall) what your ratio of music to HT is (I am 90/10 music/HT, for example).

1) I would buy a pair of Ultra bookshelf speakers as mains first. This will give you the full benefit of great speakers for music! (skip the Primes, they are probably nice, but if you care enough to invest this much time getting your current situation corrected-even though not by choice, I think it is safe to say that the Primes would end up being a "stepping stone" to better speakers).

2) Now pay attention when someone is walking across the front sound stage and talking, or when a hover car skims across the front 3 speakers. Do you hear a change when it passes through the SCS? Typically a company will voice their speakers roughly the same, but since you are talking their entry level speaker vs their premier speaker, I would not be surprised if you noted a distracting transition.

3) If so, remove your center and go though setup/Audyssey without the center (aka phantom center). With good speakers, this can work amazingly well, but you can take your time and save up for another BS (or the center, but an identical BS is always better if you can fit it vertically under your TV).

4) Last, you can buy the new surrounds, but I would implore you to disconnect the mains (and center, if you decide to get one) from the AVR and listen to one of your favorite movies on the surrounds only...do you really need to replace your surrounds? Don't they do fine for what they are being asked to do? Al least you will have an idea of what you are spending money on!

IME, replacing the mains will get you 80-95% of the improvement from upgrading speakers. It varies depending on how well your mains image (how effective the phantom center is), but the center might get around 5-15%, and the surrounds 1-5%.

Kurt the mains are identical in every respect to the center. They are the exact same speaker across the front. Just the center is horizontally mounted. Entry level yes but for this reason I have never had any panning issues. Very consistent.

Again this isn't a matter of speaker performance under normal conditions but rather if something in the speaker has gone wonky or I've flubbed a connection loose or something. They've always given me great sound before and for years.

Agree with you on going the ultra route but right now I don't even have that much cash on hand to spring for two or their ultra bookshelves. But I'll likely go with those first, use them as my mains then center, towers and move the smaller ones to the rear. That's how I put together my current system. I didn't buy them all at once

 

[Verdinut]

Thanks PENG about the info on Audyssey which Marantz doesn't provide.

You say that the speaker is the culprit but it worked well with the Pioneer AVR. Couldn't there be an incompatibility between the SR6011 and the speakers for some reason?

 

[Halon451]

I suspect that the power rating of your receiver is too low. When Audyssey boosts some frequencies, let's say 10 dB, the power amp has to output 10 times more power and it may go into a clipping state.
I doubt that distortion would be caused in the Audyssey software. It most likely is caused by an overloaded amplifier (overloaded by Audyssey however) .
If your receiver has pre-outs, and you have access to external power amps, it might be worthwhile to try this avenue and compare the results.

With the SR6011, you can let Audyssey off and adjust EQ manually. With my SR5010, I can do it and doubt that you shouldn't be able to. Did you read all your manual? I know it's 300 pages but it's very useful.

Yes I can adjust EQ manually with Audyssey off and I've tried this but it's a very basic EQ adjust at best and from what I understand Audyssey has several other tweaks under its hood that aren't available to the user even with it off. I haven't been able to get a decent sound trying to EQ it myself.

 

[PENG]

Thanks PENG about the info on Audyssey which Marantz doesn't provide.

You say that the speaker is the culprit but it worked well with the Pioneer AVR. Couldn't there be an incompatibility between the SR6011 and the speakers for some reason?

I guess the speaker might have been good back then, but gone bad after.

 

[Halon451]

Alright fellas. Home and tools at the ready. I'm about to go ham on this system so I'll be out of pocket for a bit. I'll post later once I've brought everything back up, ran Audyssey again and put it through some paces. Cheers!

 

[Verdinut]

I guess the speaker might have been good back then, but gone bad after.

According to the review on Halon's speakers by Sound and Vision, their impedance goes down to 2.5 ohms at some point which might be too low for the SR6011 to handle. Unfortunately, SaV don't show any precision as to which frequencies the lowest impedance figures occur.

If it's in the lower frequencies range below 250 Hz, I think we would have the answer to his problems.

What say you?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

PS I'm the drummer of the band so thank god I don't have to deal with amps there too, lol

Nice! I was gonna drop some bass player jokes earlier when I suggested borrowing a pro amp, but didn't know what you played.

 

[PENG]

According to the review on Halon's speakers by Sound and Vision, their impedance goes down to 2.5 ohms at some point which might be too low for the SR6011 to handle. Unfortunately, SaV don't show any precision as to which frequencies the lowest impedance figures occur.

If it's in the lower frequencies range below 250 Hz, I think we would have the answer to his problems.

What say you?

Excellent point, in fact I did notice that earlier on but another source had the impedance much higher. If I can find that source I will post a link. For now, let's think in terms of logic, and consider the facts below for a moment.

- His room is small.
- He sits 9 ft or less from any of the speakers.
- Getting the distortion even at 65-70 dB SPL. He checked with his spl meter, c scale.
- Sorry for repeating so many time, Halon did too lol, that he had only upgraded his TV, so if not enough is the culprit, why now?

Even at 2 ohm, he should get at least 85 dB when the amp is pushing 4WPC. The loss from being 9 ft way is likely offset by room gain and reinforcement from the other speakers. So if he listens at say even 75 dB average, the amp would be cruising at 0.4W average, less than 10WPC for 12 dB peaks commonly found in music. So you can see that his AVR is hardly the limiting factor. The example I used is quite extreme too. In reality, that 2.5 ohm dip even if true, will likely be taken care of by the subwoofer anyway.

Regardless, it is partially because of the concerns about the low impedance reported by one source, that I suggested he email the V.P. of SVS, who happens to be one of their engineer too. I generally trust engineers more than just anyone in the customer service department. Example, if I were to get an answer from Marantz, I would insist on getting it from their technical staff, not just anyone who answer the phone in the customer service department. I am sure Mr. Mullen know exactly how hard those speakers are to drive and probably has their impedance curves in archive.

By the way, I think people sometime worry too much about the impedance dips often found in small satellite speakers. Surely maths don't lie, lower impedance means higher current, but those tiny 2.5 ohm satellites can't handle much current anyway right? The bottom line is, they just aren't design to play loud and need help from a sub crossover at 150 Hz or higher. Halon's so called satellites are different, to me they may as well be bookshelves.

 

[Halon451]

Nice! I was gonna drop some bass player jokes earlier when I suggested borrowing a pro amp, but didn't know what you played.

Plenty of drummer jokes out there

 

[PENG]

Hey Verdinut, as promised, here's the link to the other review that consider the SBS-01 8 ohms nominal.

http://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_12_4/svs-sbs-01-speaker-system-11-2005-part-1.html
http://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_12_4/svs-sbs-01-speaker-system-11-2005-part-3.html

"The impedance curve shows that the SBS-01 is nominally 8 ohms. The electrical phase stays primarily within ± 45 degrees."

Not that S&V had the SBS-01 listed at 2.5/4 ohm and the SCS-01 a little higher so it is a safe bet that the SCS-01(M) would have been considered 8 ohms nominal too.

Hopefully Halon will get the right number directly from their creator.

 

[PENG]

Wow, didn't realize even Steve Guttenberg (my impression is that he is one of those with golden ears) had nice things to say about those speakers.

https://www.cnet.com/news/size-still-matters-sv-sound-sbs-01-system-satellites-review/

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks PENG about the info on Audyssey which Marantz doesn't provide.

You say that the speaker is the culprit but it worked well with the Pioneer AVR. Couldn't there be an incompatibility between the SR6011 and the speakers for some reason?

How could one avr be compatible and the other not? That makes no sense.

 

[Verdinut]

How could one avr be compatible and the other not? That makes no sense.

If the driven speaker's impedance goes down to 2.5 ohms at some point, as reported in a Sound and Vision review, depending on which frequency range it occurs, if it's a low frequency just above that of the connected subwoofer, there is a strong possibility that the Marantz SR6011 will not be able to handle it. It is not designed to drive that low an impedance at a low frequency where a good portion of the audio power is required.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Plenty of drummer jokes out there

Yep. Been on the wrong end of those my whole life.

 

[lovinthehd]

If the driven speaker's impedance goes down to 2.5 ohms at some point, as reported in a Sound and Vision review, depending on which frequency range it occurs, if it's a low frequency just above that of the connected subwoofer, there is a strong possibility that the Marantz SR6011 will not be able to handle it. It is not designed to drive that low an impedance at a low frequency where most of the audio power is required.

The spl level and the frequencies of irritation reported don't match up to such a scenario...and impedance dips don't have that drastic an effect either.

 

[Halon451]

Wow, didn't realize even Steve Guttenberg (my impression is that he is one of those with golden ears) had nice things to say about those speakers.

https://www.cnet.com/news/size-still-matters-sv-sound-sbs-01-system-satellites-review/

He probably didn't pair them with a Marantz receiver

 

[Halon451]

Well everything points to the AVR just not delivering as expected. For whatever reasons, be them impedance dips, Audyssey or maybe just the amp design itself it just doesn't want to play nice with these speakers.

I swapped out tweeters re-ran Audyssey and there's still some noticeable cracking apart of the sound but I took it even a step further and did a close ear test on all my channels. They're all exhibiting this in those higher frequency sound effects.

I took off the banana plugs, stripped everything down to bare wire, ensured snug fits. I tested several movies and even tried going bitstream out from the Xbox, to no avail. I didn't expect this to have a measurable impact on SQ anyway.

I then pulled my bd player from the bedroom and connected it to the Marantz. No real improvements in SQ there but it was at least satisfying somewhat to finally see Dolby True HD come up on the Marantz info screen. However even true HD didn't really solve the issue of the weak performance.

So I'm out of ideas. I believe the speakers are not the problem. I will still wait to see what Ed Mullen has to say but it honestly looks like I'm going to end up taking this thing back and getting one of the slightly bigger boys, be it the Yamaha or the Pioneer.

I don't know if I missed any other checks you guys may have mentioned in this thread that I haven't already done or tried, but I feel like I've done pretty much everything I can do.