Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Crossover Settings and.. To Audyssey or Not....

I have a Denon 4308 With M80's for my front, a VP150 center, Speakerteck in ceiling's for rear surround and a Sunfire sub - The Denon has been a challenge to configure correctly - I keep playing with turning Audyssey on and off...

Audyssey originally set my front m80's to large and all other speakers to small -I reset the Front M80's to small- Audyssey set my crossovers on the front as 110, center as 110, rear as 120 and my sub as 100 - These settings seem off to me - Is there a "proper" crossover setting? I should notw, the M80's and Vp150 are located in a cabinet - I prefer to send more bass to the sub to prevent any rattles...

Also I keep reading people love Audyssey or hate it.. Should I or shouldn't I use it?

I still find it strange that I'm always watching TV at -18 db.....

Anyway - Any help would be appreciated -

With the M80s in a cabinet the 110 is not so unrealistic as the rear ports are offering nothing to the room. The large setting is weird if the crossover was so high, it should set to small. You can try the usual 80 hz crossovers and small speaker setting.

Just keep playing with the Audyssey on and off after resetting the speakers and go with what ever sounds good to you, there is no right or wrong as long as you like it.

Have you done the latest updates for the 4308? This may help as well.

Scooby - don't worry about the -18 dB either... that varies widely depending on the source and even the individual program.

I agree with Jason's comments... I'd switch the XOs to 80 Hz and turn Audyssey off and compare it to running with Audyssey on. I recently found I do not like it as much on, but others have had better luck after recent recalibration efforts. It definitely comes down to personal preference.

Jason

Jeremy, the most common suggestion for a basic crossover setting is 80Hz, which THX and others found to be a good compromise, being high enough to take a significant load off the speakers and the receiver driving them, while not being so high as to make the sub easily localizable.

If Audyssey is set up properly(note for example the hints in the Audyssey and Onkyo 705 threads on AVS)it appears to be useful for the majority of users.

I like my 3808 better with audyssey turned off, but I have really been thinking about giving it another shot with the $100 upgrade.

I turned Audyssey off on my 3806 after about 4 weeks. The sound is much fuller without it.

I turned Audyssey off on my 3808 after about two weeks. The sound is much fuller without it.

I leave Audyssey on my 3808. The sound is much fuller with it.

I use Odysseys with my Denon 2805, the sound is extra fuller with them.

I also prefer the sound with the Audyssey on.

I don't have Audssey so I can't play.

I have an old receiver with Bass and Treble knobs. I leave them in the middle, but my kids like to tweak them.

It must make for some interesting effects when you forget to check adjstments before playing music.

I don't want my sound "fuller".

You kids and yer fancy calibration jimjams and whoozits.. Why, when I was your age, I was happy to listen to a can on a string attached to a cactus needle that we rubbed against a rock! Good enough for us, should be good enough for you. Carnsarnit! Get off my lawn!





This moment brought to you by a relatively small glass of Unibroue 17.

I prefer the sound with Audssey off.

I just set up a Denon AVR-789 (1909) that has Audyssey MultiEQ,
Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume. When running the MultiEQ setup
the suggestion is to set the sub volume to the mid point and
turn off the LPF. My result was everything sounded flat/ muted
and the bass was very boomy, didn't like it. Now back to good
old manual SPL meter setup. I would like to try the Audyssey
again to get the Dynamic Vol capability, but need to find other
Axiom users who have had good success and how they did it.

I also have it off but I expect it has a lot to do with a particular room and speaker combination. It may solve some nasty troubles for some and create abnormalities for others. Every room is unique and fidgeting is fun. So keep experimenting and let us know what sounds best to you.

You may have had your sub too loud to start. What was trim set for the sub after running Audyssey? Did you use a tripod? Close to the wall? There are a few things that can cause bad results.

I am extremely pleased with my results after running MultEQ XT on my Onkyo 705. I have M60s, VP150, 4 QS8s, and an SVS PB12 Ultra/2. The bass is not boomy, nor is it non existent It is there when it is supposed to be and very powerful when it needs to be.

How many listening positions did you use in your Audyssey calibaration?

I recently did the $100 upgrade and then reran Audyssey with either 5 or 6 listening positions. It worked much better this time than when I first purchased my 3808.

I like the sound with Audyssey turned off fine but the sound in my room is much better with it on, after the latest upgrade and running audyssey again.

After the upgrade you will have new setting you can use.

The Dynamic EQ, you can turn on some music and then turn in On and Off and see how you like it best.

Also the Dynamic Volume is pretty nice. You can turn it off or on using Midnight, Evening or Day. When watching something at night and not wanting to disturb anyone trying to sleep I find this feature very nice.

Oh yeah, I run my crossovers at Fronts - mostly 60 but sometimes 40, center - 90, surrounds 90 and sub 80 because as someone mentioned above, you don't too much coming out of the sub as to notice it's part of the system. Great sounding bass without being able to tell where it is coming from is what you want.

If you think the volume is too low just hit the button on the remote that shows the levels onscreen and bump 'em all up a bit.

When I first upgraded to new speakers, sub, BD and 3808 I agonized over all this stuff until everyone told me to just play with everything until it sounds best to me. If your levels are low and you think -18 is too high to have to run it then just raise the levels If you look through some old posts you'll probably see me driving people crazy with all kinds of questions. They finally got me to take a deep breath and "play" with everything.

If you completely screw everything up you just rerun your Audyssey and start again.

The $100 upgrade did quite a bit for my sound, probably because of upgraded Audyssey stuff, not sure, but doing the FW upgrade that had to be done before you could apply the Feature upgrade hosed my HDMI connection from my Cox cable box, Scientific Atlanta 8300. Been running fine for months but after the upgrade I noticed my 56" Samsung had a small picture, not an edge to edge Hi Def picture I've always had. Cox box showed 480. If I turned off the Denon and cable box, turned on cable box it would aquire a 1080i signal. I then would turn on the Denon and have edge to edge hi def again, until I changed channels then it would bounce back to a small picture and say 480. Denon said "the upgrade had nothing to do with that". Very nicely I explained that my entire system had worked perfectly together for months, even after a previous Denon firmware ugrade and the problem started at the very instance the latest firmware upgrade finished. You know, the old "we'll just say it couldn't be us" and the customer is stuck with it. I finally just removed the HDMI from cable to denon and replaced with component cables. Now I have my high def back 100% of the time. It seems something they did to the HDMI handshaking caused the problem. Actually the first denon rep named 'Paul' tried to argue with me and then when he told me he would transfer me to another rep, he hung up on me. Went back on hold for another 25 minutes and the next rep "Kevin" was respectful but neither was really very good at what they were supposed to be doing. I've enjoyed my denon so far but I'll probably look for a different brand with a better service reputation when I upgrade again.

Great post Wolfman, thanks for the detailed comments.

If you find an AVR manufacturer with good phone support, please let me know. The experience you described sounds pretty much like every one I've ever heard. Sad but true...

Jason

After reading many posts on the AVS/789/Audyssey forum I'm
going to attempt this again. I think my vol level on the
EP500 was too low and I had its xover at 80 instead of bypass
or 150. Also I will spread out my mic placement points.
I used the rectangle type 6 point spread from the doc. Instead
I'll add 2 points a little further to the sides, as I normally have seating positions there, just not too far. Mine is a
difficult room (lots of hard surfaces) and I'm looking to
Audyssey for help.

I'm thinking about trying the setup in my room again as well, but probably won't go through the effort until the new sub arrives from Axiom. At that point tweaking will be a lot more fun.

I've tried Audyssey twice now and each time the bass
is way to heavy/boomy. Its like a constant low presence.
The rest of the channels are fine but with the bass
being so far off I'm going back. I like heavy bass
but only when it should be there.

This seems to be about a 50/50 split as others note the bass to be too light, must be a personal preference thing.

Have you checked the speaker level settings with an SPL meter to see if the sub is set too hot? You could just drop the sub down a couple db and still run Audyssey.

I did try dropping the channel trim on the sub and lowering the volume
on the back of the sub. Both lowered the sub's volume but it was still boomy.
When I turm dynamic eq off the boominess goes away.

The multi-eq process sets the sub's trim at 6.5 and doubles the actual
distance. The sub sits about 5-6 inches from a wall and is angled to
point into the middle of the room.

Not that it's part of your problem but I don't think LFE is directional, so angling your subwoofer into the center of the room would make no difference. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I could chime in on that as I would like to know for sure.

Calling myself more knowledgeable might be a stretch, but I'll try adding to Cam's response. LFE is non-directional, but where your peaks and nulls are depends on how the sound waves reflect off of the walls (and other objects) in the room.

So, while LFE is non-directional, pointing one way versus another might slightly affect the sound in the place where you sit based on where the resulting nulls/peaks are created.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's true to the best of my knowledge.

Jason

JonHan, the DSP circuitry of the EP500/600 causes a touch of a delay so a setting of twice the actual distance is normal.

I believe Dynamic EQ was designed for playback at low volume levels as it boosts the lows and highs, Keep it turned off unless you are listening at low volumes.

Yes, I normally set the EP500 distance at +50% to compensate for the DSP.
I find Audyssey's enhanced bass most annoying with TV and may only use it
for movies where I did found it dd add a lot for "Master and Commander".

Thanks for everyone's help.

I found the opposite in the bass department with Audyssey. Maybe the multiple subs complicates matters. I finally turned Audyssey off a couple weeks ago and have noticed much better impact on action movies.

In general, the sound just feels more lively. I thought the somewhat flat aspect with Audyssey was just my ears not being adjusted to the "balanced" sound and left it on for months and months. It finally began gnawing at me that something wasn't right with it.

Still undecided on buying the update. Many other things to spend my money on with the holidays rapidly approaching. Besides, things seem okay now that it's turned off.

I guess everybody's situation is different with Audyssey. Maybe I just need to tweak it a bit more.

This was my experience when doing the sub-crawl in my room, however the effect wasn’t much as long as the driver’s position remained the same and only the orientation changed.

I'd forgotten about the impact the DSP has on the distance... thanks for the reminder. Does anyone know how much delay the BFD equalizer adds to the mix (i.e. how much further I should set my sub distance when using it)?

I'm guessing it also adds a slight delay, but can't remember having read if/how people have compensated for that in the past...

Jason

Jason, my view on that question is to use the sub distance that Audyssey measures(even if Audyssey EQ itself is later turned off)rather than attempting to set arbitrary numbers to compensate for the delays. Of course, simply adding a few feet is likely to be closer to reality than doing nothing.

Thanks John. Sounds like you were right.

I also managed to find the "official" answer today from Home Theater Shack's Guide to using the BFD:


I seriously doubt adding 1' to the distance makes an audible difference, but I'll probably do it anyway next time I run Audyssey.

Jason

Hey Grunt - I recognise that avatar. You have to be of a certain age

"All those negative waves"

Shane

You’re right Shane! But any age is still good for …drinking wine and eating cheese, and catching some rays, you know.

Cheers,
Dean

I didn't recognize Donald Sutherland without the white hair.

One of my favorite movies of all time and definitely my favorite war movie.

I have been playing around with auddessy lately with all the excellent advice on this forum about it. I have come to the conclusion I prefer the sound with auddessy turned off. However I have changed my front speakers to large and subwoofer settings to LFE+main.

I also concluded I prefer Audyssey off. I also have my front speakers set back to large and LFE+main. (careful some consider this heresy) Good thing I live in an apartment of my poor Denon would probably fry.

Just this week I purchased the new Integra 9.9, which of course has Auddesy. When I set it up as stated in the manual I found the setting very wacky in terms of mostly -12 volume settings for each channel. My M80s set to full range with everything else set to small - not to mention my sub set to 120.
The surrounds and rears were set way to low, they couldn't even be heard. Finally I spoke to a friend I know who is a professional installer and Auddesy tech. He told me to re-do the Auddessy but ingnor the manual. Instead of thinking ovals in terms of seating postions do a diamond. First do your main seating postion, then the other to the right and left. Next do a reading at least 18" IN FRONT of the main postion. Then do another at least 18" BEHIND the main postion. He said this "diamond" configuration balances out the Auddessy giving it more to work with when it calibrates. I haven't tried it yet - hope to today. Maybe he's right and it will turn out better. So far I'm not impressed and wind up just setting it myself. But I will give it another chance.
- Scott

Pair of M80s
VP150
2 Pairs of QS8
EP600
A1400-8
Integra 9.9
Sony BXR4 50" LDC

Ditcin -

If you haven't already, you might want to check this thread re: Audyssey setup. Following the steps in the document referenced there from AVS forum improved my Audyssey results significantly.

Jason

I'd like to put this Audyssey thing to bed. I've rerun the
setup numerous times and I'm just not sure if I like it or not.
It seems to enhance the surrounds, but the boomy over done
bass is just anoying. I understand that the bass problem is due
to bad mixing on some TV and movies. I worry the tweaking done by
Audyssey is artificaly coloring the great sound of my Axioms.
Also Alan seems pretty dead set against it.

I played around with Audyssey a bit more and I have come to the conclusion from my experience that it is EVIL. Audyssey messed up everything so bad that I had to reset my Denon to its manufacturer settings and then re-calibrate.

Nothing beats a simple SPL meter IMO.

The best thing I can suggest to you John is that if you don’t like the sound of it just don’t use it. I think it works fine for most people but it made my speakers sound like crap. By copying the EQ curve to the manual EQ on my Denon I was able to see that Audyssey was setting the frequencies around 150-500Hz to anywhere from about -6dB to -9dB making them all my speakers sound hollow and tinny. Perhaps something in my equipment like the mic is defective because I tried everything including resetting the factory defaults in the receiver and starting from scratch. I finally got tired of wasting my time with it and now just use the auto setup to set speaker distances. I will give it a try again when I move to another room but for now Audyssey is out.

I wish I could be more help but my only solution was to stop using it for now.

P.S What the Doc said!

I wish there was more real-world info on the coming Trinnov system...

Doc/Dean - are your experiences pre- or post feature pack upgrade on the Denon (or both)?

I ask because my experience was exactly the same as yours before the last update. However, with the feature pack upgrade and dynamic EQ enabled, it is night & day different from the way it was before, and clearly an improvement in sound in my room.

Since the upgrade, I've only found one video on which I liked the sound better with Audyssey off, and that was this weekend with the Rush Blu-Ray. On that, the surround mix is just a bit too strong and the echoes of Geddy's voice a bit to "reverbacious." It reminds me a little of what you get when you select the "Wide" or "Concert" DSP mode on a receiver.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but on the balance, I've found it very good since the last upgrade.

Jason

To the best of my knowledge there isn’t an upgrade for the 2807 but thanks for the suggestion as I will check again.

Sure there is, it is the 3808

Good one!

Just can’t see doing that except for Blu-ray (lossless) which I’m putting off for as long as possible.

When I first read about the upgrade, I felt kinda cheated that I has the 3806 and could not upgrade. I turned Audyssey off months ago, preferring the natural, as-recorded sound, but was curious to see if Audyssey's new implementation made that much of a difference.

After thinking about it for a while though, I'm kinda glad I can't upgrade. I've been out of the "tweaking" phase for a while now, and in the "enjoying" phase... I'm a afraid of re-opining Pandora's Box again!

Well, if upgrading your receiver is a requirement to get Dynamic EQ, I would change my advice. It's not _that_ good.

Is it $100 good? Unquestionably. New receiver good? Not yet.

Jason

I do not have the upgraded version of Audyssey.

I'm going to tweak around with Audyssey this weekend, and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced the same sound that I get when Audyssey is on. I find when it is on (stereo mode), it really enunciates the highs, almost sounds "bright" if you will. When I switch Audyssey on and off during playback the difference in sound is very noticeable. I know the sound is up to one's taste, but do you think it's taking away from the natural sound of my M80s?

Also, I'm having some issues with my EP500 (LFE is very localized again) so hopefully I will be able to get someone to take some pictures of its location that I can post with a description of what's going on.

Any input regarding Audyssey would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys and gals

I diabled audyssey b/c I was not happy with the initial results. I am going to try it again b/c I did some things that I shouldn't have at the time. (like place the calibration mic on a loveseat that sat really close to the left m80 but far away from the right)

I noticed this as well, but not just when Audyssey is on. It is fatiguing. I fixed this by adjusting the tone on my Onkyo - I turned the treble down -4. I assume this what folks mean when they say Axioms are bright.

Weird, but I do not notice this at all when I watch movies.

I find it odd too, because neither do I.

Cam - this is exactly how I'd describe my Audyssey results pre-feature pack upgrade. Since I upgraded, I have not noticed the same harsh highs. (and they were harsh and ugly... ouch!)

Jason

C'mon guys it is just your cables causing the problem, you have to buy the right cables to attenuate the highs a little to make the Axioms truly transparent and tame those highs.

I've gone through several setups with Audyssey on my Denon 789 (1909). This last time I ran the first pass and then stopped to check the trim level on my sub(EP500). This was to check for a setting around +-1.0. Last time I had the vol on the sub too high and Audyssey set the level at -12.0 and I had no room to adjust. After verifying the EP500's level I reran all the passes and adjusted the large/small and xover settings.

When playing movies either from TV or DVD/BD dynamic/eq sounds great. The surrounds especially come alive. As I've said before the only problem is the mixing of some TV broadcasts. The bass is not mixed well at all and I get a boomy background rumble on some shows. Somehow a lot of bass on the Food Network dosen't seem quite right.

I have brought this up on the AVS Audyssey forum and Chris from Audyssey said that its a well known problem with some broadcast TV.

I've decided to live with some boomy bass on non essential programming and enjoy the benefits with movies.

John - I agree re: TV broadcasts. Even with Audyssey off, I often had to pull up the sub channel level and dial it down to avoid overwhelming bass in some broadcasts.

Jason