Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Automatic Receiver Setup

I have a question that may get very technical. That is, what does the automatic receiver setup do and how does it operate?

When I setup my Onkyo last Saturday, it only took a couple of minutes. There was a series of two bursts of either "white" or "pink" noise for each speaker. Started at the front left and then went around a circle, twice.

These bursts were noise not stepped tones or swept tones. So what did the receiver do with this data? Did this $600 receiver do a spectral analysis on each speaker and calculate equalization coefficients? If not, what did it do?

For example, for my M80s, it determined the following:

Left:
60Hz -4 dB
200Hz -6 dB
800Hz +6 dB
1.6KHz +6 dB
3.15KHz +4db

Right:
200Hz -5dB
630Hz +6dB
2KHz +6dB
4KHz +5dB
8KHz +6dB

Obviously the right and left are different, somehow. What is this really telling me? Do I want to use the receiver settings or just set everything flat to 0dB?

My old Kenwood was not anywhere near this sophisticated.

Comments and discussion appreciated.

I can't answer your questions Rat, but I can tell you I don't use the EQ part of my Setup on my Denon. I found it to make my speakers sound worse. Alan, from Axiom has said numerous times to turn that part off. It is ok to use the Auto Setup part that sets delay(distance), dB levels, and checks polarity. I think a few others have stated they turn off the Room EQ part, which should be seperate on the Onkyo as well.

At some point I plan to use Real Traps or other cd to chart out my room response and check for holes, then I can manually adjust those frequencies you mention to get a flat graph.

I appreciate your comments. I thought that I remembered something by Alan about the equalization but I could not remember what he said or where he said it. Maybe he will see thread and make a few comments.

This is something new for me and I would like to learn about it before I disable it. Of course, that is just me.

Bernard, the main point is that the auto-equalization is attempting to analyse and correct for the effect that the room acoustics have on each speaker's output, not the speaker itself. So the correction for the same model speaker can vary along with its location in the room. Equalization is a developing technology and results have varied, with some users being pleased with an improvement(e.g. a colleague I assisted setting up a Yamaha 2400)while others have reported that the sound was worse. As always, experiment.

John: you do have any links that describe the equalization process? I'm interested in learning about it.

I have found that it is difficult to experiment when you don't know anything about the process itself.

TIA.

Bernard, nothing that really discusses the topic in much technical detail, but Analog Devices has a paper which discusses their system(used on the Denon 3805)and Gene DellaSala had some discussion and results on the Audyssey system(an older version of the present one on the Denon 3806)when he reviewed the Denon 5805. Denon has a rather interesting discussion of the modified Audyssey system on their site.

Maybe instead of "experiment" it would have been more realistic if I said "fool around" by trying different microphone positions to see how much that changes the results, etc. One thing from your numbers is that the manual, which shows only five specific equalization frequencies, apparently doesn't mean that the five adjustments can only be at those frequencies, since some of yours are different. Despite the almost total lack of information, the 703 is parametric at least as to frequencies. Presumably the manual equalizations discussed later would have to be at the specific fixed frequencies listed.

Another case of "developing technology" catching up with consumer expectations.

In the not too distant future; wireless will eliminate our fun "speaker wire" threads.

Digital amplification will eliminate our large and bulky electronics packages.

Evolving speaker technology and EQing will give us smaller speaker cabinets with the same sonic signatures.

Sophisticated EQing with the "Mic" will give us perfect "Tweek-free" set-ups; meaning that we won't have to interupt our wives TV shows incessantly to fine tune our systems.

In the end, we won't have as much to discuss in these forums.

We won't have the fun of "tweaking"

Our wives won't have bulky audio stuff to complain about and will look at other areas in our lives to attack.

This is progress!!

Thanks folks. John, I will read those articles.

I ran across this link which doesn't really answer my question but does give some interesting information.

http://www.timefordvd.com/hardware/receiver/pf/HomeTheaterReceiverBuyingGuide.shtml

I was cleaning up my desk and threw away the key strokes on how to make "hot links." If someone could PM me, I would appreciate it. I don't use them often enough and did not memorize the process.

Link

Bernard you just do the following without the spaces I must leave in the url tags so that you can see the code and not an actual link. [ url=http://whatevertheurlis]text you want the link to show[/url ]

You CAN leave spaces in the text section, just not in anything between the [brackets]. So a link to your profile would look like this EXCEPT for the spaces I must leave so you can see the code.

[ url=http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showprofile.php?Cat=&User=ratpack&Number=126757&Board=HT&what=showflat&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1]Bernard's Profile[/url ]

Eliminate those two spaces, and you get Bernard's Profile.

You can, if you prefer just put url tags around the url itself. In that case,

[ url]http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showprofile.php?Cat=&User=ratpack&Number=126757&Board=HT&what=showflat&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1[/url ],

with the spaces removed would become:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showprofile.php?Cat=&User=ratpack&Number=126757&Board=HT&what=showflat&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1.

Doesn't look as nice, but it is easier.

Thanks Ajax! That is exactly what I was looking for. I think that Bug gave it to me months ago, but, like I said, I was cleaning up my desk and threw it away.

I have put it in a better place, now. LOL!!!

Anyone look at that information link? If so, how do you like it?

I spent most of the day working on income taxes. UGH!!! Have the Federal done, now to do the State. It is pretty easy with Turbo Tax after you do the Federal. It imports the data. I think that will wait until tomorrow. Good thing is that it currently appears that I will get a nice refund. Maybe it will go for a seperate amp, that is, if I can figure out which one I want.

You're welcome, Bernard.

Bookmarked the web site. Lots of tutorials. Cool.

Bernard, I took a look at that Buying Guide you linked. Most of it is good basic information although not totally up-to-date(e.g. no DPLIIx discussion)and with some audio mythology and paranoia(e.g. analog connection "degradation" or the power rating whining)thrown in which can be misleading.

Now, as I do when I discuss investments and taxes on other boards or personally, I also have to smack you for saying that a "nice refund" is a "good thing". All it means is that you didn't do your withholding allowances on your W4 or your estimates correctly and you gave the federal government an interest-free loan of your money.

LOL, not exactly John!!!!!!

I re-adjusted my stock portfolio late Q4 and decided to take a loss and average on a few "dogs" to free up some money for some better investments. Had I not done that, I would have come out pretty close to even or even had to pay a bit.

Normally, I would agree with your analysis, but not in my case.

Understood; you offset some capital gains and/or took off up to $3,000 from ordinary income.

John: as usual, you are correct!!!!

Hope to get everything finalized and electronically submitted today before the Super Bowl.

Rat,

It's fine to explore these EQ facilities if you want, but if you are using speakers like M80s, M60s, etc., and you leave the auto-EQ engaged, you are essentially undoing all the careful design and balancing that went into the integration of the respective M60's and M80's crossovers with their drivers.

So long as we continue to live in rooms and listen to speakers in rooms, there will always be room interactions and standing waves that will change the relative spectral balance of each speaker. Even sliding to another spot on your couch will alter the bass response, sometimes dramatically. If you put the auto-EQ mike in that position, then the system will adjust spectral balance for that position. Slide back to the other spot and it may sound awful!

With linear speakers like the Axioms, try placement to get the two speakers tonally alike. Putting one near a corner and the other away from corners will produce a big difference in the bass tonal balance of the two speakers, for example; moving both away from the corners will be far more effective than trying to EQ the speaker in the corner.

Auto-EQ systems may improve the sound of inferior non-linear speakers that have intrinsic gross deviations in frequency response, but in most cases, disabling the auto-EQ is advisable with neutral, linear speakers like Axioms.

Regards,

Thanks Alan!!! I was thinking about disabling all that equalization. I am going to disable it, set everything to flat, zero dB. I thought that I remembered a post that you had made sometime in the past about equalization, but I couldn't remember where or exactly what you said.

Got all the income taxes finished and electronically submitted. Glad that is over!!!! Just finished programming a new Harmony 880 remote. That is one pretty slick device! So far, so good, it works.

After lunch, I'm going to read the Onkyo manual and see what I have to do to disable the equalization without screwing up everything else. LOL!!!!!

Turning off the equalization was easier than I thought. 4-5 keystrokes on the Onkyo remote and off it is.

Once again, Thanks Alan!!!

John: I read those articles in the links that you provided above. When they talk about both time and frequency domain corrections, they must have some fairly robust algorithms that they are using. Even thought they do not give any specifics, they sound very complex by the very nature of what they are trying to do.

If we are to believe what is claimed, I don't know how you would realistically correct for anything calculated/ compensated by the receiver unless you had a room full of test gear. It just doesn't seem that it can be done. I'd either use it as calculated or turn it off. Mine is off.

I think that I now have my new receiver set up fairly well with one exception. I don't have my subwoofer woof'n exactly right. I went through the setup menus to make sure that it was turned on. I also double checked the connection to the Onkyo to make sure that I didn't do something stupid like connecting the subwoofer cable to the wrong preout. Guess that I'm going to have to do some more look'n, check'n and test'n this weekend.