Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners room correction (Audyssey & Trinnov) with QS4 QS8

Often the people that downplay Audyssey have never tested it, so their comments are useless or hearsay. I can say with my Axiom speakers which are not inferior, switching Audyssey off/on it is clear winner what sounds better to "my ears", which is what is important. Also, the graphs don't lie either on a flatter FR.

That goes for everything, and unfortunately it easily outweighs empiricism IMO.

When I say tinny I usually say it as “hollow and tinny” the way it sounds when you string to tin cans together and try to talk between them. On my Denon I could get a snapshot of what was causing this by copying over the Audyssey curve to the manual EQ and was seeing a -6dB to -9dB cut in the 125Hz -500Hz ranges. I came to believe it was a defect in the equipment, however I’ve heard of enough other people describing the same thing that I’m not sure about that.

So if someone wants to simulate what I was hearing from Audyssey on my Denon just use manual EQ to lower that those frequency bands 6-9dB and have a listen. Then try to tell me that it sounds right better with a straight face.

OTOH I’m not have that problem with my new Onkyo, however because that problem is gone I can now easily hear the high frequency roll off of the Audyssey curve. It kills the ambience in most of my music.

I think it is definitly more room dependent than we are led to believe. I liked my system with Audyssey on but I also liked it with it off. I found the system sounded more open and airy with Audyssey running than with it off, but by no means did it ever sound bad without it.

Just too many vairables involved IMHO for blanket statements (for or against Audyssey) to be made. It's subjective as well; two people can react differntly to the same result just based on personal preferences. Basically, I say if you have it then try it, and if you don't like the results then leave it off. Personally I like what it does for me, but that may change once I try it with the Axiom's.

Randy is right the graphs don’t lie. The Audyssey curve has a high frequency roll off which is exactly the design feature exhibited by many speakers which I bought Axiom’s to avoid. Now if your processor allows the selection of the “Flat” curve then you won’t have that problem however not all manufactures allow that choice.

I downplay Audyssey because I have tested it dozens of times and found it is not the end all and be all of home audio. It’s a tool and like any other piece of equipment it has it’s plusses and minuses. If it was ideal in it’s standard implementation they wouldn’t be selling a “pro” version for those who want more or something different out of it than what Audyssey has decided is best for the masses.

As I’ve mentioned before in my system the benefit is tighter smoother sounding bass from the LFE channel at the expense of less ambience from the rest of my speakers. This fits perfectly with how Audyssey describes their system working. It has a finer filter applied to the LFE channel and the Audyssey curve rolls off the highs. So for me the choice is easy to use Audyssey for movies but not for music.

I would also reiterate that besides being room and listener dependent as just mentioned Audyssey is also speaker dependent as mentioned earlier which is why Audyssey recommends only using direct radiating speakers. IMO selecting speakers based on the EQ program your planning to use is a little backwards as I’d prefer to select the speakers I want and then use EQ if it benefits.

Can you choose different curves on the 3808? If so, how do you go about it?

Thanks

Yes, go into the menu audio parameters section.

Audyssey works out well for me, but I don't have any QS series speakers yet.

Like grunt, I'm finding that I like the sound better using the Flat curve on my Denon 590 than the Audyssey curve. I'd imagine that you would be able to select between the different curves on the 3808 with just a push of a button. I can go between Audyssey, Flat, Manual, and Off by pressing the MultEQ button on my remote.

Thanks guys. I took a look at the manual on my computer, and surprise surprise, I couldn't find anything illustrating how to choose different curves.