Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

OK. So I've inserted my Digital Video Essentials (DVE) Blu-Ray and ran a 15Hz to 22kHz frequency sweep and I believe that the tweeters kicked in on the higher pitched frequencies.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hey Chris,

I really appreciate your lightning quick responses and all your help. It certainly appears that the Audyssey process in not engaging the tweeters on my mains.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hi Shawn,

That's what seems strange here. There is nothing for Audyssey to "engage". It simply measures what it "hears". So, if it's working for the other speakers you connected and not these it must have something to do with this setup. Did you verify both the left and right tweeters as working? Sometimes it takes putting your ear up against them to make sure (keep the levels low).

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hey Chris, I've got really bad news. I put in a music CD and listened in stereo. I connected one of my older Mission speakers that works with Audyssey and left one of my Paradigm main speakers connected, the one that's not detected by Audyssey. The sound coming from the Paradigm was muffled, whereas sound coming from my Mission speaker was open with the correct highs.

How could both my main Paradigm Reference 100's have faulty tweeters ? Something seems quire bizarre. Nonetheless, this is quite disappointing.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hi Shawn,

Blown tweeters are not that unusual. It can happen in shipping with connectors falling off in the speaker. Or the tweeters could just be damaged during testing at the factory. I suggest you contact Paradigm and let them know. I'm sure they will quickly address this.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hello,

Firstly I would like to apologise, I know it is extremely rude to join a forum specifically to ask a question. I discovered this thread after Googling my problem and there seems to be an awful lot of knowledge and good advice and I would be extremely grateful if any of you could take the time to help me out.

Originally my set-up consisted of:

• Denon 3808
  PS3 for BluRay
  2 X Floor standing Canton Vento 870DC
  2 X Canton InCeiling 800 rears

I have been running this set-up in 4.0 until I could afford to add the centre and the sub and was very very happy with the sound for both music & movies.

Last week I finally took delivery of a Canton Vento 856 Centre & Canton AS 225 SC active sub. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the 3808 to Audyssey Dynamic EQ & Dynamic Volume.

My problem is that I have not been able to make my new 5.1 configuration sound anywhere near as good as it did in 4.0.

I have carefully read and followed all the good advice in this thread, including David Willow's excellent post rounding up all the best knowledge on the subject, including taking 8 readings at precisely the suggested distances but unfortunately I just can't get it to sound good.

The rears seem far far to loud and the bass thin and unrefined. On my Rush concert BluRay the bass in practically no existent. It also detects all the speakers as small, which I'm pretty sure can't be right and the sub as much further away, which I understand is quite common and not necessarily a problem.

If you don't mind I would like to list out my set-up in greater detail in order for you to better understand my situation.

• Vento 870 DC Floorstanding speaker
  2 1/2-Way, bass reflex
  Freq resp - 26...40,000 Hz
  Crossover Freq - 300/3.000 Hz
  Woofer - 180 mm
  Midrange - 180 mm
  Tweeter - 25 mm
  
  Vento 856 Centre speaker
  2 1/2-Way, bass reflex
  Freq resp - 32...40,000 Hz
  Crossover Freq - 350/3.000 Hz
  Woofer - 160 mm
  Midrange - 160 mm
  Tweeter - 25 mm
  
  AS 225 SC
  Active Subwoofer with Active distortion correction
  Freq resp 22...200 Hz
  Crossover Freq - 50...200 HZ (adjustable)
  Woofer - 250 mm
  
  InCeiling 800
  2-Way
  Freq Resp - 42...30,000 Hz
  Crossover Freq - 3,3000 Hz

And this is how I have them positioned.

Front
Rear
Sub settings

As you can see being up against the back wall with the inCeilings above isn't ideal but they have directional tweeters and did sound great in my previous 4.0 configuration.

The sub position is the only place it can go and the settings displayed in the photo are the settings I've been using for the Audyssey auto set-up. I'm not sure about Room Compensation, the instructions says that it alters the low-frequency crossover function on the subwoofer, in effect in places where room resonance is especially distinct.

The Switch influences the subwoofer's crossover frequency band and impluse responses. Changing the setting from NORMAL to WIDE gives the subwoofer a deeper lower cut-off frequency with a gently falling frequency response curve at low frequencies.

NARROW reduces the subwoofer bandwidth with a gently rising frequency response curve at low frequencies.

I have no idea what this means or on which setting it should be.

I have it connected to the 3808 via the R/MONO phono I/P

Finally on the 3808 I'm not sure whether I should have the LFE assigned to just the sub or Main+sub.

Once again apologies to intrude on you like this and thank you in advance for any help you might be able to offer.

David.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hey Chris, I imagine you are flat worn out answering all of these questions. I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I have a Marantz SR8002 and I'm still trying to wrap my head around Audyssey's functionality.

I have been a Audio enthusiast for many years and have just dived in the Audyssey feature a few months ago with the purchase of my Marantz SR8002. Years ago I predicted that there would be an internal processor that would do exactly what you guys (Audyssey) are doing now but I always thought THX would be the one to do it first. With that said I wouldn't be surprised if THX came out with its own version of this.

First off, the MultiEQ is pretty cool but I can't say its a night and day difference in my system. I have to fish through the settings to really tell a difference in movies but its not much. It was to the point where I was doubting it was doing anything at all until I made a drastic preset setting with the mids cranked just to see if it was working and it was. What I have yet to try is playing some pink/white noise and go through the settings. That may result in a bigger difference. I actually use the flat setting 99% of the time with THX engaged for movies.

Again I'm still trying to comprehend all of this and my basis is from what I see in the Audyssey setup and the shown graphic eq. Personally I think there's not enough bands of EQ to get an accurate flat response but its better than nothing at all I guess. Also, I don't see any manual adjustment or anything at all for that matter for the sub response but yet I'm seeing room graphs on the net that supposedly Audyssey has altered below 63hz. Is this just done automatically and Audyssey chooses to not let the user see what was actually adjusted? I'm not understanding the type of EQ being used here. All I see is limited 9 band graphic EQ for each channel. 63hz, 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, 1khz, 2khz, 4khz, 8khz and 16khz. I assume you chose those particular frequencies probably because those are usually the problem areas but what if you have a spike/dip at 10khz 70hz 350hz?

Unfortunately, at least with the 8002 I can't use the MultiEQ nor can I use THX processing while watching bluray disc when using Dolby TruHD and DTS MA. All the other audio formats (DD, DDex, DTS, DTSes etc.) work fine and I'm able to use the MultiEQ with it. This is only when I'm bitstreaming from my player and the Marantz is decoding. The fix to this is letting my bluray player decode the new formats via PCM only then am I able to use the MultiEQ/THX with TruHD and MA. Strange but I think thats more of a Marantz issue than Audyssey's.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Detecting the speakers as Small is the best possible choice for two reasons:
1) bass is redirected to your sub when speaker are set to Small (that's what Small means). This improves the headroom of your amp for the remaining content above the crossover frequency.
2) The MultEQ filter in the subwoofer has 8x more resolution so you get much better room correction in the area that needs it the most: low frequencies

Dynamic EQ (I assume you have it on) adjusts the frequency response to match human hearing at lower listening levels. It also adjusts the level of the surrounds to maintain surround impression. However, if the surrounds are direct radiating (not dipoles) and they are pointing away from the mic it is possible that there may be errors in their estimated playback level. Where are they pointing? Many in ceiling speakers have adjustable tweeters that you can point to the listening area.

The only content that is mixed to any sort of standards is film content. They have very strict frequency response and monitoring level standards that all films are mixed to. Music is another story. There are no such standards in the music industry and as a result the content is all over the map. I would suggest listening to some movie content on BD first before making adjustments based on music content.



The subwoofer "distance" measurement that MultEQ makes includes the tape measure distance and the delay to the signal that is introduced by internal subwoofer processing and filters. In your case there is significant delay in the sub signal because of the processing. So you should definitely use the delay number reported by MultEQ that is longer than the physical distance.

Also, try to turn off the crossover filter on the sub. It's actually not even a crossover. It's just a lowpass filter that is there to accommodate legacy 2-channel products that don't have digital bass management. It gets in the way of the measurements and proper operation so if you can't turn it off then turn it up to the highest frequency (200 Hz in your case) and leave it there even after the measurements are finished.


Just the sub. Main+sub is a very bad idea and should never be used because it duplicates bass to the sub and main speakers.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

All internal settings are ignored when you run MultEQ so any presets will also be ignored. So I am not quite sure what you did unless you used an external equalizer to make this change.



Don't be fooled by the silly on screen display. It has little to do with the filters used by MultEQ and is a crude attempt by the primitive OSD to show what is going on. The filters used by Audyssey have nothing to do with bands. The entire core of the technology is built on several years of research (at the university where I teach and have a lab) that showed that parametric EQ is the wrong approach for room correction. There are many reasons for that including the way data is captured, the requirement for capturing multiple points in the room to get an accurate picture, the way multiple measurements are combined, and the type of filters that are generated. MultEQ uses FIR filters that have hundreds of points to shape the response to what it needs to be based on the measurements in the room. The OSD display doesn't show that and it doesn't even show what happens at lower frequencies. The numbers on that display should also be ignored because 9 numbers can't possibly show what hundreds of frequency point adjustments are doing. Most of our licensees are improving their OSD capabilities and are now showing better graphs.



Every manufacturer has to make some decisions on what DSP chips to use. With the increase in processing requirements from all these digital processes, there are some that chose lower cost chips and therefore can't run all processes at the same time. Unfortunately, Marantz chose to turn off Audyssey for the new HD formats. We hope that will change in their future products. In the meantime, I think you can still enjoy your system by decoding in the BD player and getting the benefits of room correction.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Thank you so much. You have cleared it up for me.

When I say preset and fishing through the settings I'm talking about the settings in the menu for Audyssey......Front, User Preset, Flat and Audyssey. Maybe thats a Marantz thing I don't know. But anyways, for the preset the user is able to make its own limted eq curve with the whopping 9 bands of eq and I adjusted them in such a way that I would hear a difference right off when set to that setting. When using the Audyssey setting, I think I was just expecting a......"oh my god that is unbelieveable" when setting it to the audyssey setting or even the flat but I really wasn't hearing much. Again this was when watching different passages of movies so maybe thats not an accurate presentation......I don't know. Maybe I need to go through the Audyssey auto setup again. I did change the x/o setting from 60hz to 80hz and changed all the speakers from large to small and also resetted the distance and levels myself. None of it was correct after using the auto setup. I mean it was close but not on the dot with my readings.

As for the Marantz chip, thats to bad. Is there any sound quality difference going from the Marantz chip to my Panasonic BD55 chip and letting it decode the formats? I notice even with letting the Panny decode the new formats, if it happens to be a true 7.1 signal then again Marantz doesn't have the processing power to use the eq/thx with it. New formats with 5.1 are fine. Strange.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

OK, I see what you meant. The User Preset setting has nothing to do with Audyssey. MultEQ is turned off when you use that. It's a simple 9 band parametric that doesn't do any room correction based on measurements. Think of it as a tone control


The amount of correction depends on the room. If there is a great deal of treatment in the room then the A/B will be smaller, but still provide an improvement. I am wondering how you determined that none of the crossover settings were "correct" after MultEQ. Are you basing that on the spec sheet of the speakers? The placement of the speaker in the room and the proximity to walls and other surfaces has a huge influence on the low frequency performance and, therefore, the crossover. Having said that, going from 60 to 80 Hz is not a bad thing. How are you determining the SPL readings? Most consumer SPL meters are accurate to within ±2-3 dB so unless you have a calibrated meter you may be using the wrong reference to determine what is correct. Furthermore, setting the subwoofer level with an SPL meter is not really possible because of the huge variations as you move the meter even slightly. That is best done with a spectrum analyzer--a similar approach is used by MultEQ to set the sub level.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Brent,

Have a look at Chris's partner, Audyssey's chief scientist. Tomlinson Holman (X)

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Chris I re-calibrated my setup with the Audyssey tonight and I checked the levels with both my RS meter and my IPhone SPL meter (the IPhone app is supposedly more accurate than the RS). Audyssey has set all channel levels around 65-67db. I know the RS is not the most accurate but 10db difference?

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

The IPhone app is supposedly more accurate than the RS? Could you cite some sources for this statement? What is this based on?

Thanks for any clarification that you could provide.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hi Brent,

The levels set by MultEQ in the Marantz are relative levels. That means that the speakers should be very close to each other, but not necessarily at reference level (75 dB SPL for –30 dBFS). Only products that have Dynamic EQ require reference level to be set so that Dynamic EQ knows where to operate. If you want to have reference level in the Marantz with the master volume at "0" then you will have to adjust the levels manually to 75 dB using the internal test noise.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

I know, I'm not saying I believe it either but from what I've read on the app its claiming to be more accurate than the RS. I don't see how the little ole Iphone mic is flat across frequency band but it does seem be pretty decent. With that said I mainly use my RS. SPL Meter | Andrew Smith

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Ahhh ok, good to know. I'd imagine you recommend the THX internal test noise over the DVE or Avia setup disc since the internal noise calibrates absolute level? Warren Mansfield definitely does. I used to own a Onkyo 906 and I have to say the dynamic EQ was amazing, wish I had it on the Marantz. It'll probably be 2010 before they add it I'm sure.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

First I want to say that I love the Audyssey product and in my setup, there is an obvious night/day difference, that even my wife noticed. Thanks Chris and everyone that has contributed to this thread, it saved me a lot of time in my initial setup.

I'm running into two issues with Audyssey on my Onkyo 876.

The first is probably something simple that I'm just missing. My RF speaker (only that speaker) intermittently comes up with a distance of 1'. All of my other speakers always come up with reasonable distances. 2/3 times that I run the calibration the RF comes up with this 1' distance. I have done everything to reduce all ambient noise. Turned off the small fridge in the HT, killed the HVAC. Any other noise would be present in the setting of the other speakers also. I am using a tripod with the mic pointing up and raised a bit above the back of the headrest. Both front speakers have the exact same wiring and are relatively the same distance from the primary seat (about 11.5'). First any ideas what could be causing the reading? Second, Can I just correct the distance without messing anything else up? I read somewhere that you have to re run the setup to correct the distance, but is that really necessary?

The second is more complicated, and may not be strictly an Audyssey issue, but dynamic EQ seems to definitely aggravate the issue. Since moving to the 876, I am having a lot of issues with my sub. At first it only happened in a couple of scenes only on Blu-Ray discs. The sub made a noise that made me think the amp was clipping or something. It's an Adire Dharman that is tuned down to 20 hz. I have only clipped it a couple of times when I first got it and was playing around with it, or VERY few times when playing a movie loud that has very deep base, like The Haunting. I have been using it with the prior receiver for at least 4 years with no issues. When it did it again, I decided to make some adjustments and see if I could diagnose it. It seems the same at any volume level. I decided to check the trim Audyssey set for the sub and make sure it wasn't too large in either direction. It was at -8, so I lowered the gain on the sub, and ran the calibration again. It was still there in that scene, so I tried things like adjusting the sub level and moving the phase and LPF on the sub, since those were the only things I had changed on it when going to the new receiver, to let Audyssey do it's thing. Nothing seemed to eliminate the loud popping cellophane noise it was making, so I called it a night. This was all within a few weeks of installing the new receiver, so of course I was still playing around with things. The next time we watched some Dish, I decided to try out the Dynamic EQ settings. Everything was fine watching TV, but we weren't watching anything loud or with much action to push the speakers. That same evening, my son and I were playing the X-Box and the sub was making the same sounds much more often during the video game. I put in a couple of different DVD's and it was making the sound fairly constantly, and at varying levels of bass. I tried all of the stuff I had tried before, different volumes, different gains on the sub, but it was fairly constant. I really thought that my driver was failing and that I had aggravated it and made it worse with all of my fiddling. I decided to replace the driver, and with the help of our resident sub guru, found a suitable replacement. I put in the new driver and got the exact same results. After thinking about it for several days, I realized that I had engaged the Dynamic EQ, among other adjustments when it got much worse. I turned it off, and I was back to only having the issue on the particular scenes where I had started. I tried completely disabling Audyssey to see if it eliminated the issue completely and it does not. So, my conclussion is that it is not necessarily caused by Audyssey, but for some reason, Dynamic EQ makes it MUCH worse. Sorry for the long post, and there may not be resolved on here, but I thought I would throw it out and see if anyone has any other suggestions I might try. Things have been very busy, and I haven't really had much time to play around with it, but if anyone sees something obvious, please tell me. Sorry for the long post.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

You are not alone. There have been a few people with the same problem on the AVS forums. For my setup I've been able to find a workaround solution. My sub only freaks out on HD audio with hot LFE scenes (Dark Knight, Incredible Hulk, Horton Hears a Who, etc...).

So I don't use Dynamic EQ with my Bluray or HDVD connections. Also, I turned the LFE down -10, but bumped the Sub level (in the AVR) up some. For TV I can leave Dynamic EQ on and have no problems. I still can't crank it to reference with the HD Audio or it will have issues, but I don't listen to movies this loud anyways. It gives me little headroom and I'm not overjoyed, but for now it works.

I think the culprit is really MultiEQ (boosting the low frequencies), but I'm just having issues with DyanmicEQ on because I don't listen to movies with the volume at reference. DynamicEQ is increasing levels like it should, but with the lower frequencies already boosted too high I have the issues with my sub.

At first I thought I needed a Sub upgrade, but there is a guy with dual SVS Ultra 13's with the same issue. He is convinced (even has REW graphs demonstrating) that MultEQ is boosting the frequencies <20 Hz. Just like you I still have some limits with Audyssey off all together if I crank it, but I think that is due to not having a big enough Sub.

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Actually helped me out a LOT thanks a lot

Re: Audyssey MultEQ: Questions and Answers - Onkyo, Denon, et. al.

Hi everyone: I am considering buying the Onkyo TXSR 307 because of price and wondering if anyone here is familiar with it.
I'm pretty green at all this stuff and there seems to be a lot to consider, but what I do want is to be able to hear Bass guitar fairly clear and drums fairly clear from my CDs and MP3s.
Any suggestions much appreciated.
Roland.

My new Itegra 7.8 arrived and I've been trying to get Audyssey to run since. I have Mirage i90 mains, Mirage MMC center, Polk surrounds and a Klipsch subwoofer. When it first ran, it would not find the center. Found a blow tweeter on the center and replaced it. Ausyssey found the now-fixed center on the first try but hasn't since. After several more attempts, it stopped finding the left main. I checked the woofer and tweeter and both worked so I swapped the mains. This lead to it not finding either main. A few attempts later and all it was finding was the left rear and subwoofer. Checked polarity and they're all correct. I can move the mic around and it will occasionally find something else but at most, I can get it to find no more than four at any one time.

I run out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

How about the manual test tone, is it loud & even, moves through all speakers?

How do you have the microphone mounted, do you have it on a tripod, pointed towards the ceiling?

What is the error message you are getting?

If by manual test tone you mean the white noise(?) in what Integra calls Level Calibration, then yes, the tone sounds even through all speakers. The microphone is mounted on a tripod and pointed towards the ceiling. The only way the systems recognizes the center speaker is if the microphone is positioned a foot in front of it.

The error message is a flashing "ERROR" for each speaker not found and "SPEAKER DETECT ERROR" across the top.

I know when a speaker will fail as the system only emits one series of tones through it. If it emits two or three series, that speaker will pass.




Edited by atomichead - 8/8/2009 at 04:09 pm GMT

I don't know.  Defective microphone perhaps?  Contact your dealer or Onkyo, I guess.