Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions MCACC

Every time I make a change to my speaker setup I've been running the automatic MCACC equalization setup and just leaving it at that. But lately I've grown dissatisfied with what I was hearing in the music department. Pandora has helped that along because of all the diversity of music I've been exposed to.

MCACC has 6 different preset storage areas, so there were some old setups still there from a year ago, and longer. I happened to be scrolling through those setups and I discovered bass that I had been lacking for a while, but just wasn't aware. Now my current preset sounds worse than ever. I was also aware of the volume difference, so I adjusted volume manually to compensate and the additional bass was still there.

I tried listening with the EQ set to off and with one of them on, but with the EQ all set to zeros for a flat response. This sounded even worse than with MCACC's compensation that I didn't like.

I guess later today, or tomorrow, I'll have to dig out my Rives Test CD 2 and my Rat Shack sound level meter and try setting the EQ with that. It has a section that compensates for the RS meter. I need to attach the meter to my tripod and place it in the center of the room at ear level while sitting, then adjust each speaker to the same sound level with MCACC's built in white/pink noise used for that purpose. It will play a portion of each octive from 20hz thru 20khz where I can write down the meter reading for each one. Then manually adjust the EQ for each speaker until it's as flat as I can get it. (The SW included in all tests.)

That's my idea. I think I've got it right, but feel free to comment if I left something out.

Edit: Also L/C/R set to Small with crossover at 80hz.

One other thing I just thought of is Standing Wave and Reverberation settings that MCACC also sets in the receiver. If there's an option to clear out the previous settings, perhaps I should do that first and not use these options.

Yeah, in my room the MCACC settings seem to suck the life out of my music. I play music in "pure direct" mode.

I haven't had time to understand MCACC but for movies I ran MCACC in full auto, then went in manually and flattened the EQ settings. This left just the delays, standing wave and reverb settings. Seems to be OK for surround sound in movies.

Since my AVR is in a different room, I just let it pick whatever codex it wants to use. With Pioneer Elite, this is much easier, since it's a rotating selection with no on screen display. Also, I don't use stereo mode anymore, since it sounds better with the centers I have now. The VP100 didn't cut it, but the VP150/M2 combo works well. VP150/M3 might be better. I'll have to try this some day.

I'm going to do this setup now. I've been busy today and I can rest a bit while I'm going through this. That is IF the cat can be quiet for a bit.

I think if you rerun MCACC on a setting if will override the previously stored data and save the new data.

When you're running MCACC you can have it store the settings in a different bank if you like.

Though each time it is run all the settings it generates are stored together. You can delete the settings from one bank, it'll just make everything flat or off, or what ever setting has no effect.

Having it clear out all of the settings is what I was looking for and yes there is an option to do that. That way I could adjust the eq without any other settings set.

This is always a frustrating exercise for me. What I did that makes sense to me ends up not sounding good. Using the Rives Test CD 2, I had to narrow it down to just the 8 frequencies used by MCACC, which was, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k. This was tracks 40, 43, 46, 49, 52, 55, 58, 59 on the CD.

When I go back to listening distance, about 8 feet, the meter readings varied widely, depending on where I was standing, or by just moving the meter an inch or so. Getting an accurate reading this way is impossible. The best I could do is to hold the meter out in front of me at about 2 to 2 1/2 feet from the speakers. This way I get a more unvarying reading and the numbers didn't swing as far from each other as before.

For Mains I got
125hz = 82db = -2 in MCACC (80 was average)
250hz = 90db = -10
500hz = 81db = -1
1k = 76db = +4
2k = 72db = +8
4k = 82db = -2
8k = 78db = +2
16k = 80db = 0

Not the same, but similar for Center. This ended up sounding like crap.

I tried taking a current MCACC auto reading on all settings, then set the EQ to Zero like Henry66 suggested, but that was the worst sounding of all. The sound was absolutely drained of life. With the settings retained it sounded marginally better.

I had an old saved setting from a year or so ago and this is the best sounding one over all. I've done some tweaking with it, and it could stand some more, but so far, it's the best. Right now a little too much bass. Listening to a Sting concert in TrueHD. Good stuff.

I thought I'd share my setting with the community, just in case someone would like to try them. Different room, different speakers and different receiver settings may be a big factor in these not working for you, but here it is anyway, for someone that may be having trouble getting the best sound out of their system. You can always start here, then tweak away. If this helps someone, please let me know. If not, please don't throw eggs.

This is for the Pioneer Elite and a 3.1 system.

Under 2.MCACC data check, I have the following:

a. Speaker Setting
Front: Small
Center: Small
Surr: No
SB: No
SW: Yes
Crossover: 80hz

b. Channel Level
L 0.0
C +3.5
R 0.0
SW +2.5

c. Speaker Distance
(Default to Auto setting)

d. Standing Wave
(Default to Auto setting)

e. Acoustic Cal EQ
Left/Right set the same.
125hz -5.0
250hz -6.5
500hz -4.0
1k hz -1.5
2k hz +1.5
4k hz +2.0
8k hz +3.0
16k hz +0.5
Trim +1.5

Center
125hz -8.0
250hz -2.0
500hz -3.0
1k hz -0.5
2k hz +2.0
4k hz -1.0
8k hz +2.5
16k hz +1.5
Trim +0.5

When I was running audio sounds that played certain frequencies, I discovered a buzzing sound coming from one of my tweeters. I tightened the 4 inner screws on the outside of the cabinet that held the plastic piece in front of the tweeter and this helped a lot, but didn't make it totally go away.

You might want to tighten up the screws on your speakers occasionally. It seems that they could work loose.

If your receiver has the option to take readings from 3 different positions and then calculate a flat response overall, that might help to correct this problem. It's referred to as "multi-point" in the MCACC menu on my Pioneer.

It seems someone else suggested this about a year ago. I tried it with out good results. I may try it again, just for grins, though. When I can find it in the menu. It may be under Advanced MCACC settings.

Yeah, it's advanced.

IIRC the 3 point measurement is only for standing wave correction. You can't run the full auto mode - you have to go in and do the standing wave 3 point measurement separately.

For my room and to my ears the standing wave correction is the most useful correction the MCACC does. I always defeat the EQ settings MCACC wants to apply - just my personal preference.

Yeah, it won't work in the full auto mode on my receiver either. It'll only work using the "Acoustic Cal Eq" or "Aco Cal Eq Pro".

At any rate, in should help to flatten the response at more than one seat.

I don't think that my problem is trying to get a flat response. I get the feeling I don't like the sound of flat response when it gets played back using "most" sources. I think most CD's, etc. are designed with lossy format where, in order to get a flat response, you have to attenuate the mid range.

Brian, not quality CDs, classical or otherwise. Many popcrap CDs do have an elevated upper midrange/lower treble roughly from 3-6KHz to sound more impressive on mediocre equipment.