Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Harshness question and break-in w/new receiver?

When you play CDs is it automatically selecting a DLP mode? CD's are stereo. I find a big difference with my Denon between a true stereo mode and a DLP mode where it simulates surround sound to the other speakers from your CD.

I enjoy the fullness of a DLP mode for classical music but I have started to prefer the sound of true stereo for rock, jazz, blues, etc. Maybe I just need to recalibrate things again but the additional processing on stereo sources seems to be lacking and less pleasurable to me these days. JohnK will be here shortly to tell me to re-calibrate, I'm sure.

I've never been happy with what Audyssey produces in my room with my Onk 809, so...

Perhaps you have Audyssey set to Flat instead on just Audyssey. For movies you should use just Audyssey, it does a high frequency roll off which is better for movies. If you have selected Audyssey Flat, no roll off is provided and this is better for music. Even though I like my music to have strong highs (treble), it's not good for movie listening hence I make sure to not use Audyssey Flat.

I use the Denon (4311) Quick Select feature to handle this, I have two modes Movies and Music (Flat).

You should also turn off any equalization, bass, treble setting your gear may have. Once you calibrate with Audyssey, keep everything flat. I found Axioms produce great sound without any EQ required. All you need is Audyssey to do room acoustics compensation.

some AVR's also have "HT-EQ";
when you switch it to ON, it rolls off some high frequencies that are in the movie audio for large rooms (cinemas).

in the cinemas, the excess high frequencies are attenuated by the long distance the sounds have to travel through the air;
this does not happen in HT rooms because the distances are short.

so, if you have this setting in your AVR, switch it to ON.

When you say CD's.. It would help if you told everyone which CD's.. if you included a link to Amazon to these specific CD's, that would help even more.. If you happen to be listening to CD's that are known to be poorly recorded, then people here with that knowledge could tell you such... There are often several recording's of a specific CD, some are EXCELLENT, others are crap....

Also, what CD player or transport are you using? Is it the same disc player you are using for BD movies?

Peter, it's hard too figure out exactly what's the cause of the problem, but well-recorded CDs should certainly not be harsh on the equipment you have if it's in good operating condition. Checking with the 818 supplying the power alone is still a good suggestion.

One point to note on Audyssey is that the "Movie" setting is in fact the "Audyssey" curve, although the manual doesn't explain this(surprise), and rolls off the treble at about 2dB per octave above 4KHz. The Movie setting can also be used on music for particular discs which have the treble too hot. The regular "Music" Audyssey setting is the "Flat" setting with no treble roll-off.

Andrew, I think I've spotted the problem: you're using a DLP mode(which is just for TV screens)instead of DPL. I always use DPLII and it makes even popcrap discs sound better. There's nothing "simulated" about it; it just extracts the surround ambience which is already mixed into the front channels and sends it to the surrounds where it belongs.