Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Audessey/ Sub setup

Just picked up a new sub, and curious about setup with audessey. I was trying to follow another thread,but was not doing so well. To get the most possible bass after calibration, where should I set the crossover on the sub for the cal. Fronts Freq. low at 60hz. Possible crossover (low pass filter) on sub is 40-150hz. I think I understood from the other thread, that the volume knob on sub should be set in the middle.

If I understand you correctly, you don't want to use the crossover knob on the back of the sub, your receivers bass management will control the crossover of all speakers, and route the LFE below the crossover frequency to the sub.

So, on the subs crossover knob you want to put it at the highest setting if there is no "bypass" option like some of the Axiom subs. Then you will set your speakers to small in the receiver, or Audyssey should do that, with an 80hz crossover for most situations. Audyssey may change some of those settings based on the speakers it senses.

What sub did you get?

This would mean that I would set it to 150 (being the highest). I just needed a sub,hope I didn't make to big of a mistake, but I got the Energy ESW8.It's for a small room hopefully the 50watt continuous will be enough for a starter sub. With six kids a wife and three dogs you take what you can get. One day its sure to change.

I don't have a receiver with Audyssey yet, so can't help much on using it, yet. Depending on what your other speakers are in the setup, you may be able to get away with setting the mains to large to help with the low end, but most often small is the best setting.

The subwoofer you have should do just fine but before running Audyssey make sure you have you subwoofer placed where you want it. If you have leeway in placing it, try the following.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/tips_subwoofer_placement.html

As Randy (sirquack) said turn up the crossover on the sub to 150 if that’s the highest setting. Your receiver should auto detect what speakers channels are hooked up if not make sure to tell it you now have a subwoofer hooked up in the setup menu. Then run the auto calibration and Audyssey on your receiver. As Randy said the receiver will try to make settings based on what it’s detecting.

I have a Denon 2807 and find that the performance of the autocal/Audyssey on it are very room and speaker location dependent. So it may get things just right or could be way off so at least review the settings it made and if for example it sets a small speaker that doesn’t go very low to “large” you should probably change it to small and 80Hz as Randy suggests.

From here it doesn’t hurt to use a test disk and SPL meter if you have them to verify the settings. But if you’re like many of us those settings will go out the window when you start tweaking everything to fit your personal tastes.

Cheers,
Dean

Way off according to what? The advertised specs? Remember, Audyssey is measuring the response of the speaker in your room, which has very little to do with the mfg specs.

Set the volume in the middle to start. If Audyssey sets your trim -12 or lower, your volume is too high and you need to start over. Same thing if the trim is set to +12 (sub volume too low).

Just a few quick tips.

Always use a tripod with the supplied mic.
The mic should be above the back of your seat
The mic should not be too close to a wall

In my larger (20x20x8) room the speaker sizes got set randomly even if nothing changed. In the smaller (10x13x8) room it always sets each speaker the same unless it‘s corner loaded. In the larger room the speaker distances were often off by as much as a foot while in the smaller room they’ve always been to the inch. In the larger room crossover setting changed each time I ran it even if nothing changed. In the smaller room same settings each time unless I corner loaded a speaker. In the larger room the channel levels were often up to +/-3dB from each other when compared to the calibration disk/SPL meter. In the smaller room there always within +/- .5dB of each other. So poor choice of words on my part I should have said that it was being inconsistent depending on the room.

Some examples of what it would do in the larger room are M80s to small 80Hz crossover while QS8 to large. Next time without moving anything the M80s set to large crossover and QS8s to small w/90 crossover. I once ran it 5 times in a row w/o moving anything and only got the same results back-to-back once. And this was following the guide posted over at AVS.

Also in the larger room it EQed the 125Hz to 250Hz range by -3dB to -9dB depending on the speaker. While adjusting for the room is what it’s designed to do this made the front speakers sound hollow and tinny making male voices very nasal with no noticeable upside.

In the smaller room it only EQed the 125Hz to 250Hz range by -1dB to -4bB which still made the center speaker sound hollow, it sounded perfect without EQ. However, in the smaller room there was a noticeable improvement in the directional imaging of sounds (which I believe it’s suppose to do, and didn’t seem to in the larger room). The downside was the not only did it make the center speaker sound hollow all the front speakers seemed to have a gap between the bass and higher frequencies causing a disconnect between the higher frequency and the perceived directionality of the bass. In other words without the EQ the bass seemed to come from the same direction as the any higher frequencies associated with it whereas with the EQ the higher frequencies were better imaged but the bass just seemed to hang there in space.

I’ve followed the guide that was posted and even reset the receiver to factory defaults with no improvement so maybe the equipment is defective.

What I'm learning from this is that I think I'm glad I have a small room!

Was this with the same AVR in both rooms?

The settings can vary depending on mic location. Also, the more locations you test, the more data it uses for the settings.

The distance should be spot on each time regardless. The only exception is the sub if it has a filter enabled. Then you should expect it be set further than it actually is.

Yes, the same Denon 2807 and microphone in both rooms.

I’ve used the same process in both rooms including 6 readings (the max locations for mine) each time. In the 20x20 room the settings changed almost every time I ran it. On the 5 back-to-back runs all 6 readings were taken at the primary listening position each time so nothing was changed and it still configured the speakers differently all but two of the times. Also when I did this test on a couple of the runs it re-pinged the surrounds at a louder volume to get a reading, but it didn’t do it every time and there was virtually no background noise. In the 13x10 room it’s configured the sizes the same every time and only changed the crossovers higher on the QS8 when they were corner loaded (which I would expected it to do).

In the 20x20 room as long as the speakers and primary listening position locations were the same then the distance were always the same but often off by as much as a foot. In the 13x10 room the speaker distances have always been down to the inch every time.

I’ve lost count but probably run autocal/Audyssey on this receiver close to 75 times. The auto-calibration never seemed to get the speaker size, crossover and distance all the same in the 20x20 room. In the 13x10 room it seems to set them the same every time unless I change something and it adjusts as expected.

Regardless of the speaker settings it makes, the EQ it's applying makes my speakers sound hollow in both rooms with the 20x20 room being worst. And only in the 13x10 room does it noticeably improve the imaging. I‘ve Googled the hell out of this and I‘m not the only one with Audyssey issues. That’s how I found the how-to and made sure I was doing everything by the book.

Also some people have posted that the Audyssey on the Denon 3808 only seemed to work well after the firmware upgrade. I couldn’t find a firmware upgrade for the 2807 though someone here kindly pointed out that there is one. It’s called the Denon 3808. So for now I’ll stick to using the tape measurer, SPL meter and calibration disk. It’s faster and I can still listen to music while I’m doing it.

Cheers,
Dean

I have heard/read that those that have done the max number of positions had issues with distances etc., a possible glitch in the program. Maybe try just 4 locations to see what that brings up? Even on the 3808, some are still mentioning calibration issues and it appears to me, many have done the full 8 poisitions allowed.

Hard to say what is going on there. I've only used Audyssey in a smaller room (11x17x8) and always with an Onkyo.

Have you posted this in the Audyssey thread on AVS? Chris (one of the Audyssey founders) helps folks with their setups.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=795421

So it sounds like you followed the Audyssey configuration guide on AVS, correct?

Also, when the speaker distances are measured, do you get impossible numbers like 0.1 feet? That would most likely indicate a FW corruption issue.

For what it's worth, my MultEQ on Marantz 8001 didn't sound too good. I resorted to manual/spl method. But the MultEQ XT on the Denon made a big difference.

I'm no audiophile here, but with the onkyo 3 position auto-cal, so far seems pretty good. Still playing with sub, though. Also did the sub crawl, with a Chris Brown cd (not my music of choice but worked for the bass), and it sounded pretty much the same all through-out the room except for being right by the sub. I also don't have a small or large setting with the 606, or I haven't seen it. But I am able to change the low freq. settings. ? is do I do this on both the fronts and the center?

Onkyo doesn't use "small/large". They use Full Range (large). Anything other than Full Range is small.