So... the arrival of the EP800 has brought out the nasty tweaker in me again. After taking all of the measurements
I posted the other night, I've again found myself playing with my BFD equalizer more than is probably healthy, but I have pulled out some interesting curves that I thought I'd share.
The first curve shows the natural in-room response of the EP800 with no equalization applied versus the corrected curve using the BFD equalizer. This is all pre-Audyssey.
I was quite happy with the corrected curve, 13-80 hz at +/- 3dB.
Note that in systems using equalization, Audyssey recommends that you first equalize the system and then run Audyssey, so I was doing it in that order here as well.
Now that I had a relatively flat curve to work with, I re-ran the Audyssey room calibration with multiple readings and checked the results using REW. They were fairly disappointing.
It introduced a significant dip in response at 20 Hz and then also implemented a steep roll off around 80 Hz. I have a question specifically about the crossover rolloff. When I ran these frequency sweeps, I do them in stereo mode with the subwoofer running as I want to measure a flat response with all running (since that is how I will listen to anything in my HT). Given that it's a Mains + L&R test, I would want as flat a response as possible, correct? I would not want a rolloff at the XO point, as the sound should blend seamlessly from sub to mains around the XO point. Right?
At first I was trying to give Audyssey the benefit of the doubt that this was a crossover-related rolloff, but I don't think that makes sense given the explanation above.
In any case, what I ended up doing was retuning the curve with Audyssey ON, which I know you're not supposed to do (it messes with Audyssey not knowing what you've changed after you've run the initial measurements), but I would much rather do that than deal with a curve like the one above.
So, after much more screwing around, I came to the plot below showing Audyssey's "corrected" results and my "corrected-Audyssey" results.
The goal was to get it back to as flat as possible without a rolloff at the sub's XO point... I've definitely accomplished that goal, and in fact now have the sub playing 12
(TWELVE) to 85 Hz at slightly better than +/- 3 dB, so no complaints there, but after doing it this way, I'm fairly certain I've screwed up any benefit Audyssey could possibly offer me by changing the subwoofer's tuning so much after it ran its measurements. That seems to make the best option turning Audyssey off completely (negating the $100 I spent on the feature pack upgrade which until this point I did find useful)... I guess I'm ok with that if I have to, but it seems sub-optimal. Other ideas? Or should I just scrap Audyssey for now and enjoy things without it?
Jason
