Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Setup / Calibration Help!

Hello all,

I just got my Epic 80/500 system from FedEx today and I am very excited. Everything is unboxed and pictures will come soon...not an ideal room setup, but I think it will be OK.

So anyway, this is my first home theater setup. Before I just had a receiver and 2 floorstanding fronts. So I plugged everything in, ran my cables, and got my denon 3808 all fired up. I ran Audyssey and it tested all of my speakers but couldn't find my sub. I have the sub plugged in, i turned the volume up to about 1/4 the volume on the knob, and i have the SW cable going from the SW out to the line in on the sub itself. Am I missing something?

Also, before running setup, like an idiot, i just tried flipping it to the tv/cable input where i have red yellow and white plugged in, and i got video, but no sound at all

I am pretty sick right now and patience is thin. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks so much!

Greg

Is the light on on your sub amp? Like most amps, red means standby and green means power. Audyssey is specific in stating during set up you want to turn the sub to the "on" position and not "auto."

In addition make sure your Denon in the setup menu has the sub enabled, at least from memory I'm almost sure there is something about the sub in the setup menu on my receiver that I had to enable.

Do you have to sub cable plugged into the sub "preout" and not the "ExtIn"?

Also, if you go into he receiver setup menu where you assign the speakers to small or large (you want small by the way no matter what Audyssey tells you), do you have it set to YES, that your using sub?

Greg,
I'm also not sure how you have your sound and video hooked up, the red, white and yellow cables are connected from what to what?

Does Audyssey work with analog inputs? Or does it require a digital connection? I've had a tough time with my 3808 sending a signal to my sub when I try two-channel via analog. I tried the coax connection and it worked fine, but not with analog.

Good point Sean, particualarly when using a two channel analog connection.

The 3808 has alot of different settings to eneable and disable the sub so make sure it is enabled in all setup possibilities. 2ch and 5-7 channel etc.

Sean I am not sure what you mean about "Does Audyssey work with analog inputs?" Audyssey doesn't need any inputs to make its tests and the 3808 will apply the Audyssey EQ to all or none as you want.

Oops, I meant to ask if Audyssey will recognize the sub in an analog only set-up? I can't seem to get my 3808 to do any kind of bass management in the analog realm--even after hooking my cd player to the Ext In.

If that's the case the problem with the sub probably lies in the receiver setup.

Unfortunately Denon's horrible manual is the least helpful thing that comes with the new receivers.

Greg, ditto on Randy's suggestion: look at the back of the 3808 very carefully to make sure that you've plugged the sub cable into the sub pre-out rather than the sub ext.in multi-channel input a couple inches to the left.

Sean I use analog from my cd player to the 3808 and it works fine for me. Are you talking multi channel analog? If so the ext. in setting in the subwoofer setting is the place for this to be set up for multichannel.

Tell me about it, I've read the 4806's manual from cover to cover at least 5 times and barely have an inkling of what it will do.

Yeah, I tried both the CD input and ext. in and couldn't get either to output any signal to the sub. I figured there is something I'm missing, but I got tired of flipping through the GUI trying to figure it out.

Wow guys thanks for the response! I figured out the problem late last night and I'm pretty sick so I just passed out afterwards. I didn't have the volume on my sub high enough for the audyssey to catch it. Once I turned the volume up (duh...i feel like an idiot) it worked fine. I didn't like the Audyssey at all however. It wanted to turn the sub down 7 or 8 dB's. I think I'm just going to manually set all the speakers to small, put the crossover at 80 and see how it sounds.

I was expecting everything to be much louder. I have red/white/yellow cables going from the cable box to the cable input on the receiver, and to get it to a normal listening volume I have to go up to like -30 to -25 dB. I guess since it starts at -80 I was expecting it to be decently loud at -60...

I have a media PC hooked up to the receiver but no sweet soundcard so I am just using a eigth inch to red/white cable. If I put a DVD in that has 5.1 dolby digital anyone know if that cable going into the DVD red/white/yellow input will keep the 5.1?

I'm sure there will be questions later, and I really appreciate the help!!!

Greg

It is very common for the EP500 and EP600's to be very low on the gain setting on the receiver and/or sub to achieve a calibration with the other speakers.

Most of us have the sub gain very low, around 6-7 o'clock, and the receiver gain in the -6 to -8 ranges.

The literature from Axiom said to put it in the 9 oclock position and mess with it later. Once I moved it up that high the Audyssey finally picked it up. To be honest I only had a chance to watch a little TV last night and it set that to 2 channel stereo automatically. I will mess with it more today.

Unless they have changed things, it has always said to put it at the "midway" point of 9 o'clock, not 9 o'clock. Midway is between MIN (4 o'clock) and 9 o'clock, or 6-7 like most of us use.

Whether you have the receiver at 0dB for the sub, and MIN on the sub, or 9 o'clock on he sub and say -10dB on the receiver, it makes no difference, your still getting the full 500 watts from the sub.

Good news, Greg! Glad you got the problem figured out. Don't worry, we've all done dumb stuff, too--like forgetting to plug something in, or such.

Remember, perceived volume doubles every 10dB. So if it is at well nigh zero at -80dB then -70dB will be twice as loud as well nigh zero, which would be very very quiet, -60dB very quiet, -50dB quiet... If -30dB is normal -20 would be loud and -10 intolerable.

Kinda like compound interest!

You said you set the Denon at -30 to -25. That's less than 1 Watt per channel with that amp and the 80s.

Red/white RCA cables are just analog left and right stereo. I imagine your on-board sound chip would be downmixing the 5.1 to 2.0 to output through those cables. The Rx could then be set to 'DPLII movie' or NEO 6 or whatever to upmix back into a 5.1, but I don't think it would be quite as good as a straight digital signal (toslink/co-ax).

Thanks again!

Just got back from the store. Picked up an DVI -> HDMI for the media PC to the receiver and then picked up a PS3 for blu-ray. It occurs to me I'm putting all of this stuff into the front end, and I don't even have the 1080p projector yet, just a 720p/1080i projector.

So here is my question. My projector has VGA, DVI, RCA, S-Video, and R232 inputs. My media PC has DVI outputs. I want to get the highest possible quality video on the projector (720p or 1080i). To do this which video cables and inputs should I use? I was thinking of going DVI -> HDMI into the denon and then HDMI -> DVI into the projector (man I wish my projector had HDMI). You may be asking yourself 'Greg, why not just run DVI straight from the media PC to the projector?' which is a valid question, except that I want it to run through the receiver so I can switch it without having to use another remote.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also, if I am asking too many questions let me know...I don't know what 'abuse' of the forum is defined as, but I am capable of asking tons of questions (philosophy major).

Thanks!

Greg

you don't need HDMI going to the projector as projectors don't have speakers. DVD and HDMI pass the same digital video so just run your HDMI/DVI cable to the projector, that way you get 720p or 1080i video passed to the projector.

I use HDMI/DVI from my HTPC to my Z2 720projector and HD looks awesome over the air.

Are you saying you run HDMI out of your PC to HDMI in your projector?

If I run DVI -> HDMI from the HTPC to the receiver, then run HDMI -> DVI from the receiver to the Projector then I lose the audio right? The DVI to HDMI from the HTPC to the receiver won't transmit an audio signal, so I would have to run a separate eighth inch to RCA Y-Cable into the receiver on a different input. Can you tell the receiver to get video from HDMI but run audio from a different input?

Correct, DVI does not carry audio signals


On some receivers you can. The 3808 will allow you to set up the input audio and video source for each input.

Does you HTPC not have optical or coax out on the soundcard or mobo? If it does I would use one of those for audio which is the only way to ge 5.1, the 5.1 soundtracks are only carried over digital feeds.

Thanks Jake.

This is turning into a nightmare. I wish I hadn't gotten a horrible head cold right when all this stuff arrived.

So no HDMI works at all. I got the PS3. Ran an HDMI cable from the PS3 to the HDMI 'DVD' input on the denon. I can get sound, but no video...now if I plug the PS3 in using the red/yellow/white cables and put them on the input in the front of the Denon, it works fine with audio and video. I don't know why the HDMI won't work. I went into the PS3 settings and told it to output HDMI, and something must be happening because I get sound...but no video.

Is it because I have no HDMI going out of the receiver, just standard RCA video as an out currently going to the projector (need to go to the store and get LONG DVI/HDMI cable)?

You need to set the input for the DVD on the reciever to HDMI as well. I think the default is component.

You need to take a break. Nurse that cold with a beer, will ya ?

I can see why they have people that get paid to do this.

I'm going to get some sleep and see how i feel about it later. Now the PS3 won't even work through the yellow/white/red...only hdmi, except i can only get audio through hdmi...

I need a hero

OK game on...got some sleep, went to micro center. I got a 30 foot HDMI cable, a HDMI -> DVI converter, and an optical cable. Will be back with results...

I have my optical out (coax) on my HTPC going to the Denon 2805. I also have the HDMI/DVI cable from my Nvidia graphics card on my HTPC going to my Sanyo Z2 projector which only has DVI inputs.

At the present time I could care less about HD audio as I don't have a Bluray player.

How much did you pay for that cable, a 30ft from monoprice costs less than 30bucks.

I paid 70 bucks for the 30 ft. hdmi cable. I know i could have had it cheaper if i ordered...but impatience is costly...

So for you Borat fans out there... GREAT SUCCESS! I ran the dvi to hdmi to the projector and now the rest of the HDMI's work...including the PS3 and the dvi to hdmi from the htpc!

So I turn on the PS3, pop in my new 300 Bluray I bought, and sit back to relax. It comes through in stereo...no surround sound. So I pull up the menu on the Denon thinking I need to somehow switch it to Dolby True HD...but that's not an option. I figured the PS3/Denon would have automatically picked the best audio source to use (the TrueHD) but apparently not. So now I'm watching 300 through a 1.3 HDMI port on Bluray that has TrueHD support, but watching it in Dolby PLII cinema...a format that takes stereo and fakes 5.1...UGH I know the PS3 outputs the multichannel audio...anyone know how to tell the Denon to use it?

Thanks,

Greg

Is your PS3 set to output in multichannel linear PCM through HDMI instead of bitstream? You'll need to set that.

Thanks CV, will check that now!

I just had the TrueHD revelation this week too. I had my PS3 set to Bitstream the whole time and didn't realize it had to be changed for TrueHD.

For Dolby TrueHD, it has to be set to Linear PCM (you can do this in the settings menu from the main PS3 menus, or while watching a movie, you can bring up the on-screen menu (Triangle button) and choose the AV Settings icon. From there, choose Linear PCM. At this point, if you press select, you will see that it is (should be) outputting in Dolby TrueHD.

The confusing thing is that the Denon will NOT say it is receiving TrueHD, but receiving Multichannel in. Remember that if you have a 7.1 setup, you need to set the default surround back mode in the Denon for each different type of audio input (DTS, Dolby, and Multichannel in). I went for a few days listening to TrueHD without my rear surrounds engaged at all because I didn't realize that I had to set up the surround mode separately for Multichannel in.

It is undoubtedly confusing and I'm still learning something new almost every day about either the Denon, PS3, or Axioms.

Finally, if you're looking for an amazing Blu-Ray to hear TrueHD and the Axioms at their best, get the Dave Matthews Band Live Blu-Ray. It is nothing short of amazing and I'm not even a huge DMB fan.

Yah- the denon only says truehd if the signal is passed via bitsream and the denon is allowed to do the decoding. If any sound format is being decoded in the player it just says multi ch in.

Whew! Long weekend, but I got everything set up with the PS3. It now reads "multi channel in" and I had a pretty kickin' 300 bluray experience. I also think it's pretty cool that Guitar Hero 3 plays in surround sound!

Next task will be making sure that if I play a DVD from the HTPC that the 5.1 carries over through the optical audio out. I haven't tried it yet, but hopefully it will work.

I have to say, at this point, I have had the Axioms up fairly loud (no neighbor complaints yet) and during 300 there were a few scenes where I thought the EP500 was re-arranging my insides. I didn't even know subs could go that low or be that clean while doing it. Everything sounds great and I know I need to do more tweaking to get it perfect. I also have less than optimal room conditions. Everything is still a mess and I am having a cable management nightmare (all cables to surrounds and projector are just tacked up partially due to laziness but more due to the fact that i'm on a lease in an apartment and can't really go in the drywall, also can't go along the floor due to puppies) but when I get it a little more organized I will post pics.

Count me in the anti-audyssey club as well. I ran it a few times and never liked any mix it gave. Always too much front, not enough center, sub, or surround.

Thanks again to everyone who provided me with advice!

Greg

I have been trying to decide If I like my audessey results or not as well... for some songs it can get rid of that boomy sound some so thats nice... but overall I can't say it sounds better- just different. You can exdperiment with it further by copying the eq curve and manually adjusting it to your liking.

I liked the Audyssey results well enough for movies, but not for two-channel listening. Yes it evened out the bass response, but it seemed the life was sucked out of the music--seemed flat and with no dynamics or spaciousness to the presentation. Maybe I'll have to experiment some more.

I can tell you only one thing for certain, if you accidentally set your Denon EQ on and to the [Flat] setting.....
It will suck the life out of everything you listen to.

I think I need one of those ignition disabling units on my remote control that shuts off all the calibration buttons unless I can blow a low alcohol reading into it.

You know, I think I had it on the "flat" setting. . .

One might think that flat would mean the same thing as not having it turned on. Definitely not the same.

I love how the Denon manual explains that in detail. . .