Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Audyssey

Yeah. not only did I recognize it, but my neighbor, who is a drummer and has his own studio, instantly recognized how much more full, and smooth the dialogue and overall sound was. My surrounds are Yamaha NS-AP4400S and my sub is YST-SW015. I know they are bringing the Axioms and probably the receiver down as well. Way down. My room is 13Wx21Lx11H. The ceiling is cathedral with 11ft. being the point. The m60's are 10 ft. for the left channel and 11.5ft. for the right channel from the listening area. I was going to get the sub next, might be sooner than later as I can't stand not having my HT sound as good as it looks. Alan, do you suggest I try to manually adjust my EQ or just leave it off? What db level should I start with when adjusting my speakers with SPL meter? Should they all be calibrated around 0db? Really, really appreciate all of your help everyone!

There was an instructional video from Ian on using multiple subs wherein he cautions on using room EQ programs to flatten FR and minimize ringing. It should probably be a last resort, but Audyssey and similar room EQ programs seem to have evolved into being a first order of business in setting up a receiver or processor.

My m60s are set to full band right now as the sub is not capable at all of matching up with them. Sounds like thunder coming from the sub when watching BluRays! It's almost funny hearing it try to produce deep LFE. I imagine that when I get the new sub and can set the 60's to 80hz they will not have to produce lower sounds and can instead be more efficient in their proper regions-will be able to produce cleaner, even louder sound. Is this correct thinking?

Hi MCL,

Yes, that is correct thinking. When you set the M60s to Small and the crossover to 80 Hz, your M60s will still produce some bass, but as frequencies get lower below 80 Hz, the suwoofer will gradually take over the low bass duties that it's better equipped to handle. Given the size of the room, I'd suggest the Axiom EP350 which will deliver really deep powerful high-impact bass in that size of room. If you're not budget-restricted, the EP500 goes a bit deeper and plays even louder, but the differences between the two are not dramatic.

You can experiment with the crossover frequency for the sub--try 60 Hz as well--as well as the Small or Large setting for the mains. Some listeners like the "double-bass" effect of setting the fronts to Large and routing bass to the sub as well. In my room, I get too much bass using that setting.

Regards,

Hi MCL,

Leave the EQ off for all the initial calibration.

Use about 80 dB SPL (use the "C" weighting scale on the sound level meter) at your listening seat to manually calibrate all the speakers, if that's a comfortable level of loudness. Some use 75 dB SPL; others 85 dB, which is quite loud.

And yes, adjust the individual speaker levels to 0 dB, then you can make minor adjustments once everything is set. I run my center channel about +4 dB for better dialog clarity and I adjust the subwoofer upwards or downwards depending on the content of the program. You'll find deep bass content varies quite a lot on Dolby Digital TV soundtracks, movie soundtracks and especially from one recording to another.

If you seem to have a pronounced hump in the bass at a couple of frequencies, where the bass seems too boomy, you can use the manual EQ to reduce the bass level in that frequency region. But trying to boost bass with EQ where there is a cancellation happening in the room never works.

Regards,

Wow, thanks a lot Alan! Really fantastic to have so much input from someone so knowledgeable as yourself. Can't thank you enough.

Matt, the fact that you specifically mentioned explosions and similar dynamic sounds as causing a problem would lead me to propose that the poor sub is the most likely suspect, far more likely than the 805, which has a quite powerful amplifier. As has been suggested, you might at least temporarily set the sub to "No" so that the M60s would run full-range and would be handling the LFE plus redirected low bass from center and surrounds. Putting all of this burden on the M60s wouldn't be ideal, but you might at least try and see if the absence of the sub would lead to a net improvement.

As to your concern whether the Audyssey equalization is being affected by the poor HTIB speakers and resulting in a poorer adjustment for the M60s to try to compensate, you might try setting Audyssey so that it doesn't affect the front speakers, but equalizes the surrounds to more closely match them. With adequate setup and experimentation the majority of users indicate satisfaction with the improvements that have resulted with Audyssey.

As usual John nice catch. I forgot you can do that with Audyssey.

Thanks John, I just learned something new.

I must say that my system is sounding MUCH better now. I still have Audyssey off and finally used a sound meter to set the speakers to 80dbs. I thought surely my receiver wasn't the culprit, at least I hoped so, as it is pretty powerful. I will try that with Audyssey, good suggestion.