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Audyssey EQ
#249966 03/03/09 07:31 AM
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Well I have yet to delve into the new feature set of the 3808, but I must admit that preliminary results with the auto Audyssey set up have been impressive, on one hand there's the fact that it agrees with my ear, e.g., it sets the center channel lower in dbs even though it's a foot or so recessed, which perhaps makes sense because it's directly right in your face whereas the rest of the speaks, including even the M80s, get a bit lost or diffused in a big room; perhaps more importantly the EQ makes the VP150 more intelligible, and overall the sound is even that much more compelling and seemingly accurate (than Axiom speaks are to begin with) due to seamless integration, center/fronts/enveloping surrounds, that I feel no immediate need to adjust anything other than to crank up or down overall volume given program content and mood, whereas before I would sense apparent defects in balance or presentation at times depending upon program content.

Definitely glad I made the leap! \:\)


"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
Re: Audyssey EQ
SatKartr #249975 03/03/09 01:24 PM
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Oh great, now I'm going to have to get a new receiver. \:\) Glad your enjoying Audyssey. Have you tried the Dynamic Volume or Dynamic EQ stuff yet?


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Re: Audyssey EQ
SirQuack #250110 03/04/09 03:41 AM
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Just got the feature pack and I am performing the Audyssey set up as we speak, looking forward to the Dynamic EQ, as well as trying the Dynamic Volume for TV, what Jason says make sense to my listening habits (i.e., try Dynamic EQ for movies or bluray, add Dynamic Volume as well for TV which is compressed anyway and avoid the annoying bump in volume when the commercials come on). Not for sure it's going to take though, I had to get a new sub (shipping problem, the first one was damaged) and there is a slight hum coming from the M80s with the sub in play, and any extraneous noise can interfere with autosetup, hopefully there's a quick fix for that, they talk about removing a ground screw or something if the sub is making a 60 Hz hum, however, the sub is not making the hum, the M80s are when the sub is plugged in, not sure what it says or doesn't say about my setup or electrical connections.


"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
Re: Audyssey EQ
SatKartr #250111 03/04/09 03:47 AM
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I still am putting off getting the feature pack upgrade... not sure why though. I think I will finally give in and bite the bullet when I get back in town in april and buy it


-David
Re: Audyssey EQ
terzaghi #250113 03/04/09 03:55 AM
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Well it came free for me because I just purchased the 3808, however, I would have gotten it anyway because one of the reasons I feel I will be satisfied with the 3808 for the foreseeable future is the feature upgrade includes enough of what for me is cutting edge functionality that I will actually use, although perhaps not bleeding edge like the Trinnov, as well as the promise of easy future upgradability. The network music function is really cool.


"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
Re: Audyssey EQ
SirQuack #250123 03/04/09 05:07 AM
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Yes the benefits of Audyssey are so subjective and vary with user, mic placement technique, and individual room, as we've all continue to read. I went wild tonight with the Audyssey set up and did 8 positions as recommended in the avs forum rather than the initial setup when I did only 3, after all we have only 3 seating positions but the idea is to create and enveloping sound experience. Funny I liked the EQ a bit better before, even though the sub was missing, Audyssey set the M80s at 60 hz crossover, the center at 80 hz, and the surrounds at 90 hz. Now tonight with a sub and the more extensive input as well as whatever the impact of the feature upgrade, it sets the M80s at no crossover, the center at 80 hz, side surrounds at 90 hz, and rear surrounds as 100 hz. As before M80s are large, everything else is small.

So far I don't like the dynamic eq or the dynamic volume, I mean not really at all. With Audyssey lots of people seem to shift their impressions though, so of course I will continue to experiment.

I definitely love the sound of the Audyssey itself (without the Dynamic modifications) for HT content, I mean it is way cool, even if it was a little bit better to my ear before with only 3 positions being measured. I mean, I am hooked on the sound, it is very rich, amazingly textured, focused, yet enveloping.

I agree with Mark, once you have it the network music thing is basically a must have feature, so I would recommend the feature upgrade to anyone, will follow up with a post if I flip flop as so many have with regard to the Dynamic EQ and begin to find it enjoyable as so many others have found. At this point I find it quite doubtful I will ever be a fan of the Dynamic Volume, I mean compression is the enemy of musical as well as HT excitement so I doubt the tradeoff will ever float my boat. When watching TV we have to listen at lower volumes of course so the commercials don't blast us out, but not that much lower, we fast forward through all commercials so we really don't need to compensate all that much.

Well initial impressions of course are bound to be superseded but the overall impression is one of excitement, the 3808 is a great unit and I feel I made a good choice that will stand me in good stead for a long time to come.


"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
Re: Audyssey EQ
SatKartr #250471 03/06/09 05:42 AM
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Still completely loving the Audyssey on the 3808, sorry for mixing up the internet music feature with Rhapsody in previous posts, new to the 3808 so it took me a minute to recognize which features were new and which were new only to me. Just wanted to share my impressions again, inchoate as they may be, the word that definitely has stuck in my mind is "shimmering" which I suppose is a visual metaphor for sound, the point being that what Audyssey seems to add in my room is more transparency and clarity to the HFs, not sure exactly which frequency range as looking at the graphs a number are boosted depending upon speaker, e.g., 1k, 5k, 10k. Even though I spend more time listening to HT, mostly it's the sheer musicality that floats my boat about the sound, didn't BoB say, "hey where are the cymbals" and I sort of wondered the same thing when I first plugged in the M80s (cymbals decay too fast?), even though on balance I loved them without reservation, and personally recall complaining about wind sounding insufficient; tonight listening to the raindrops in CSI and all kinds of wind, bells, and sounds in the same range were just delicious.

Needless to say Audyssey as configured also solves the sometimes cited problem of the VP150 seeming subtly muffled and therefore helps with dialogue, but the real gain to me is in the greater seeming authenticity to actual sound, it's by no means a cheesy effect, and is increasing the joy I receive from the Axioms to a considerable degree, the best sound I have ever been priveleged to experience in my home is even that much better. It's also cool that the right M80 sounds better even with the vent behind it and has a considerably different EQ curve.

As per the feature upgrade, it was free for me but I would have purchased it anyway, having been a Rhapsody subscriber since 2005, hey I love renting music, after all the money I've poured down the drain on LPs that were stolen by my college roommate's younger brother, cassette tapes, and scratched/misplaced/ill purchased (one good song) CDs, but of course there may be few in my boat with regard to the benefit of that particular feature, make up playlists online and play them back at leisure.

I find it fascinating that Dean doesn't like standard Audyssey despite multiple tries whereas to me it is a genius feature, which surprised me because I never expected with wood floors that I would need a series of HF boosts, somewhere they get lost and perhaps someone will inform me about the overall reflective process, anyhow there appear to be a number of subjective or situational variables at play.

Jason clearly has been incredibly diligent and a lot more diligent than me with regard to audio calibration and that may be the reason he is making good use of the Dynamic EQ, as appear to be a majority (?) of others, as well as Dynamic Volume; however, for me both features squash or compress the sound, and remind me of the way back version, a Loudness control, that sort of sounds good when you turn it on but is artificial sounding and seems to interfere with authentic reproduction, so I always turn such effects off, because they are too limiting and unidmensional in implementation, if you will.

The other possibility is that in my medium to large room I can increase the overall volume to the extent that I don't require any form of compression to mimic a larger volume so it may be less useful to me, the tradeoff tilts to an overall loss on balance rather than a gain. So there are two main possibilities so far in my mind: 1) I don't have the expertise at this stage to get the basic Audyssey curve up to speed to support the new features, or 2) it's just not a benefit in my room given my listening habits (moderate to loud).

It's intriguing to me as to what's actually going on with Audyssey because it seems to actually work, and work well, however, the main thing is I am experiencing a quantum leap in sound reproduction with 3808/Audyssey just by following a simple recipe known as auto setup, and that's a very good thing, because time is at a premium, and there's no guarantee I would figure this out anyway, or as JohnK always likes to say, to paraphrase wildly, it's more likely that I would bungle it by ear than accidentally get it right.

Oh, and Audyssey is definitely not about fullness (or loudness) for me, it’s about clarity: the soundtrack becomes crystal clear with excellent dynamic range even at moderate volumes, and I don’t have to crank up the volume just to make the dialogue more discernable or the background sounds more impactful or vivid.

Last edited by SatKartr; 03/06/09 06:21 AM. Reason: One last thought

"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
Re: Audyssey EQ
SatKartr #250474 03/06/09 06:07 AM
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It's nice to hear of someone getting that much satisfaction out of Audyssey. Nice write-up.

Re: Audyssey EQ
SatKartr #250476 03/06/09 06:38 AM
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Sat, it's good to read that you're getting such good results. One point on the Dynamic EQ, however, is in what sense are you using the term "compression"? As long as Dynamic Volume is left off, no compression should be applied. The effects of Dynamic EQ are to boost the highest and lowest frequencies for all the speakers at lower volume levels and to increase the surround level with respect to the mains, again at lower volume levels.


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Re: Audyssey EQ
JohnK #250672 03/07/09 05:38 AM
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I'm glad you brought that up, I've been trying to answer that question myself, and I think it goes something like this: the term "Dynamic" in both cases is somewhat 1984esque, in that it implies the opposite, e.g., Dynamic Volume means that dynamics are intentionally counteracted by processing that removes differences between high and low volume across time, thus by definition reducing the dynamic range, whereas Dynamic EQ appears to work cross sectionally (at least that was the metaphorical term in my field in graduate school to describe simultaneous differences versus differences across time, I think it may be a metaphor from cellular biology, i.e., cross sectional analysis of stained frozen cell slices), to reduce differences in loudness across different frequencies at the same point in time. The problem with Dynamic EQ seems to be that any given sonic signature, e.g., that of a bell, is distinctive due to the precise pattern of peaks and valleys across the frequency spectrum that defines that particular sound, so if you elevate certain valleys as you do when you shift the instantaneous curve of soft sounds to mimic loudness, you may inadvertently kill the distinctiveness of particular sounds that stem from transient fluctuations, the momentary peaks and valleys that make a sound instantly recognizable.

So to summarize my view, whereas DV compresses the volume of different sounds across time, DE compresses volume across the frequency spectrum with regard to specific sounds at a particular point in time. Both, in my experience, squash sound and result in flattening of perception.

My daughter and I were watching a movie tonight and I was wondering why it seemed pretty tame so I checked Audyssey and sure enough it had defaulted to Dynamic EQ (or perhaps after playing with it last night I mistakenly left it on); once I turned it off, we both went, "Whoa," both the helicopters (loud primarily LF sounds) and bells or other musical notes (soft primarily HF sounds) were much clearer and distinctive/dramatic due to the uniqueness of their respective sonic signatures; interestingly even the dialogue (primarily midrange) sounded clearer due in my estimation to allowing the momentary frequency of the highs and lows to breathe.

Finally, it seemed to me that DE interfered with sovereignty of respective frequency ranges; i.e., when DE was turned off, different sounds appeared to exist in their own "space", i.e., they were extremely clear and could co-exist side by side with no interference from other sonic signatures especially when simultaneous sounds existed in different frequency ranges. With DE on, there was an audible smearing that resulted in fuzziness when two sounds occurred at the same point in time, even if the sounds primarily emerged in different frequency ranges, and even when sounds were emitted by different physical speakers, situations in which sonic interference might be expected to be minimal, given modern digital processing.

As I am gradually becoming less of an ideologue (even less so due to the spectacular success of Audyssey EQ to do what EQ has always been meant to do) I can easily imagine an implementation of Dynamic EQ that would work incredibly (obviously low volume representations of music/HT remain weak) and anxiously await its emergence (I was really hoping we were there).

Aside from the above thought process and the dramatic shift in quality I experienced tonight when I turned off DE, I must confess I have noticed that every time I turn on Dynamic EQ I find myself in the way back machine and flashback to 1974 when our hifi had a Loudness button, you turned it on and it sounded cool but 5 seconds later you noticed that everything sounded the same and realized that this was a form of numbness/desensitization rather than sensory enhancement.

Well hopefully this makes some sense, I find the topic quite intriuging, now that we are technologically getting somewhere, finally . . .


"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."
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