Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater EP500 setup

Having some trouble setting up the EP500 and am hoping you can help. YPAO on the Yamaha Rxv2400 is really having trouble w/ the 500. It is 8.5 feet from my listening position and it is trying to set it as 19 feet away??? At +5.5 db which is blowing the roof off!!

I turn the sub all the way down on the receiver (-10db), still an insane amount of bass. I have the volume on the sub at half position on the volume dial on the sub. I have the boost set to flat, and the crossover at 80hz.

What do I do? Should I leave the settings as YPAO instructs? Why is it saying 18.5feet away?

Did I get TOO MUCH Sub?? This thing is a beast, and I am anxious to get it setup correctly. The other speakers seem amazing so far.

Any suggestions?

I'm new to this stuff as well but first of all, don't give up on it! This thing is awesome. When I first set mine up I followed the directions that came with the sub, which said to put it at the 9 o'clock position. I did this and used denon's auto setup feature. WOW! Way too much. After some fiddling, I finally settled with 1/4 volume, which seems to be workng great. But depending upon the source material, I'll adjust it down from there. Never have gone past the 1/4 mark.

As for the destance, denon set it at 15', which is greater than the actual. Has to do with the the subs internal relay, I think. Should not effect the performance, though.

Anyone home besides yourself? That would have scared the diapers off my little one!

The distance reading is NOT a way to control volume - it's a way to control delay. That is, the Yammie is trying to make sure all sounds reach the sweet spot at the same time - different speaker distances can lead to minute, but noticeable delays otherwise.

Still, I would manually adjust your speaker settings to what the actual distances are. The Yammie seems to be having trouble locating the sub.

I've been doing some investigation into the EP-500 (looking to upgrade) and it seems that most people in less-than-massive rooms have the volume on the sub set to as low as 1/3 or 1/4 volume. You may just want to turn it down.

Also, make sure your receiver doesn't have a Bass Enhance or Bass Doubler option, or that if it does, that you've turned it off.

Also, is it too loud at all frequencies, or is it just that certain ranges are way too loud? It may be that you'll have to do some room management (subwoofer placement, sound absorbtion, etc) because there is some room resonance at certain frequencies. In my room, pitches around 50 Hz just pop out at nearly twice as loud as others. I have had to do some placement adjustments and some EQing of the sub to tame that frequency.

Good luck! Sub calibration can be a tricky task!

DK, as has already been said, the difference in the distance setting may be okay, since an internal delay in the sub amp may make it seem farther away(although the previous distance differences I've seen have been more like 3-4'). It's unknown exactly what effect the EP500 circuitry would have. As to the volume, re-run YPAO with the level control on the sub at, say 1/4 instead of 1/2. This should get the receiver sub level closer to 0 than -10. If the sub level is still too high for you, adjust the sub and/or receiver sub level controls down manually until the level is pleasing.

Okay guys, quite an update on this thing, so any and all thoughts are welcome:
My room is 20x20x9- I realize this is bad to start due to the square factor

The EP500 is outboard of the right M60 in the corner (don't have much room to move due to wife/furniture

My listening position is almost in the dead center of the room, about 8.5 feet from the speakers/tv and 11.5 feet from rear wall.

Never could get the YPAO to identify correct speaker distance on the sub, so I did it manually.

Even though the M60's and EP500 are on the same plane, the sub sounded better at the 180 position.

The EP500 was producing very low frequencies that I could FEEL substantially (more than any sub I've ever heard by far), but couldn't hear them if this makes sense. In my own limited knowledge I figured out that my seating position is in a null.

To remedy this, I turned the Boost setting to half. Does this sound right? This worked PHENOMENAL on the movies. I ended up turning the volume on the sub down to about 1/3 on the dial and -4 on the receiver.

For 2 channel music- The sub boost being at half was way too much even at -10, so I change it back to flat and -4 on the receiver.


So with all this said, do you have any other suggestions? I have found a setting for both music and movies that is superb; however, the only disadvantage is having to switch the boost control between flat and half for music and movies.


Is my room causing these anomalies? I know this is a ton of info/questions, and I LOVE my Axioms so far, but the EP500 is proving to be tricky in my particular room.

DK, try changing the crossover setting. Mine was at 80 but I thought it was producing too much bass, stepping on the M80's toes. I moved it to 60 and this helped a bunch. Now I get full potential out of the 80s and LFEs from the sub.

As for changint the Boost dial, you should not have to do it. From what I understand, and that's not saying very much, setting it to flat keeps it from boosting signals above the crossover setting; half boosts them a little; full boosts them alot. My quess it that your situation has more to do with placement than anything else. Know any good bone benders 'cause moving that thing around ain't fun.


Good luck and keep us informed.