Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Need a <$1200 Receiver recommendation ASAP!

You need to try and have your subs the same distance from the primary seat as possible. Mine are spaced out around the room about 12 ft from the main seat. If you follow the Audyssey setup guide written by a fellow AVS member, it talks about calibrating the subs prior to using Audyssey. They use 80dB, but I found that set my dB levels on my Denon to low. So I used 75dB.

If you have a Radio Shack SPL meter, just run the manual test tones in the Denon found under Speaker Setup. Turn only one of your subs on and calibrate it to 75dB's, phase set to 0, and turn the crossover knob on the subs to their highest setting, since the receiver will be doing the bass management. Then, turn the first sub off, and calibrate the second sub the same way. Then turn them both on, and your ready to calibrate with Audyssey.

Also, you don't want the seat backs of your couch or chairs to get in the way of the mic, they can cause reflections and skew the results. I reclined my seats back, and used a camera tripod to place the mic in the approx ear position for each measurement.

I have two rows of seating, so I ran the first measurement from the primary seat in the front row, 4-6 in the other seats, and the following 2 halfway between the two rows.

One trick I found in the setup guide is after the first measurement, go ahead and calculate and save the data. Then you can check to see where it set your dB levels for the sub channel. Then Denon has a -12 to +12dB swing for the levels, and you don't want to be at the extreem ends of this range, so you may have to adjust your volume(gain) on the subs and rerun until you get say + or - 3dB from the 0 position on the receiver.

After you are all done, for speakers set to Large, you want to change that to small. Also, for those channels set to large, you will have to bump up the crossover from 40hz to 60or80hz. Also the LFE crossover in the Denon (which is actually a low pass filter) this needs to be set to 120hz per Audyssey.

Flip,
Randy described the process well. You may want to consider trying to determine locations for your subs for better LFE at your primary list. pos. before running Audyssey. Not mandatory, if you are anxious to get to hearing your new HT! But it can save some additional Audyssey runs in the (near?) future.

This short two page thread gives a bit of info and you can also search 'sub crawl'. I actually did a reverse sub crawl, which I describe on page 2 of that thread.

Is that where you sit back in your recliner and have the wife crawl around, pushing the sub into different positions?

I still have an MX-700-shaped dent in the back of my head....

My wife actually enjoys moving (the sub) into different positions.

[EXPLETIVE DELETED] Wife [EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED] American Idol [EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED] "calibrate some other time" [EXPLETIVE DELETED][EXPLETIVE DELETED]


Anyway, might able to try it again tonight, but one thing that's been bugging me about the instructions in that AVS post- in Section III. Dual mono (LFE) Subwoofer Setup, line C. states "The above advice applies only to sealed rectangular rooms without any openings." Well, one of my subs sits right along the border of our dining room (11'opening.) In the past, I've matched the phase of both subs to the mains (FR Sub to Right Main, FL to Left Main), using the phase test tones in Avia. Not sure if that's right, but it seemed to make sense to me. Should I still follow all of the AVS instructions for Dual mono Subwoofer Setup in light of my non-sealed rectangular room?

...calibrate later! ? I feel your pain.

Don't take that document on AVS as the Bible for Audyssey. Another user put that togethor from the common questions that come up, it is not set in stone.

Most people do not have a sealed room, I don't either and have 3 subs. Prior to calibrating with Audyssey, I just turn the subs on one by one while the others are off and calibrate them (in my case to 70dB), then run Audyssey. After the first seat scan, you can go ahead and calculate and see what the receiver trim level was set for the sub, if it is to low you can raise the trim knobs on the sub and rerun things.

How about the way I had gone about individually calibrating the phase to each Main? Which method makes more sense to you?

I've got the AVIA II DVD and have tried those tests, but from all that I have read, it is best to just leave them at 0 phase, especially if they are up front near your mains.

Alrighty, I followed everyone's advice and ran through Audyssey per the instructions here and in the AVS thread. One thing that was reassuring was that I double-checked the results for all my speakers against my SPL meter and they were all spot-on. I wasn't happy with the level of my subs so I cranked it +2.5dB on the 3808ci, but other than that, pretty good. FINALLY, I popped in Hellboy II to experience true 7.1 and... wasn't all that impressed. I just think my ears need to adjust to the EQ before I can really appreciate the benefits of calibrated target curve. I'm going to run through a few Blu-ray demos when I get home tonight that I'm pretty familiar with and see how they sound (Batman: Dark Knight, Incredible Hulk, Spider-man 3) and my old U-571 DVD.

Side note- I corrected the LPF to 120hz, but a detail like that still has got me obsessing that there may be something I missed. Not to beat a dead horse, but is there anything else I should double-check in the 3808ci settings?