Do you allow your AVR to tune your speakers flat ? Or do you prefer to hear your speakers "personality" ?

[t-man]

I am able to view my Audyssey EQ curve on my Denon and it's amazing what it looks like. Tons of attenuation on both ends of the spectrum, We are talking 5-6 db type attenuation. I'd say it does a lot of EQing as well as time/delay stuff. Think of the things that we CAN override such as speaker size and crossover frequency that we all know whole hartedly that Audyssey configures incorrectly. If it get's that basic of stuff wrong, what else is it doing wrong???

[dtel]

I don't have a choice, my Yamaha was out just before the auto eq stuff came out, it does have DTS and all that kind of stuff so I don't miss it. I just use a Db meter and adjust all the volumes from the listening position and let it rip.

[Panacea Engineering]

Bottom line is:

When you close your eyes, the artist, group, instrument should sound like they are in the room with you, I. E. LIVE...

How you get there is optional and YOUR milage may vary. Whatever you do, rather than rely on the equipment to tell you what you are hearing, you should adjust your system by whatever means necessary, to have that sound, sound good to you!

[DTLongo]

Trust your ears! It is no venial much less a mortal sin to use tone and/or EQ controls to adjust the sound to your liking. Even with Klipschorns "flat" can sound pretty listless at low to medium volumes because of the way the low- and high-frequencies fall off to our human ears at less than quite high volumes. Plus, we all do hear differently depending on age, genetics and other uncontrollable factors. Have fun, don't overdo it on the bass and treble and, again, trust your own ears.

[98_1LE_2]

I did my best by hand/ears, saved off the config, and ran the Audessey program. Other than bumping the sub several db's I have changed nothing and prefer the Audessey derived sound to what I was able to do.

[Cal Blacksmith]

I use the YAPO to get things in the ball park. We have wall to wall carpet, acoustic ceiling treatment and curtains on one wall with a brick fireplace on the other side wall and about 8 feet behind the listening position to a refelcitive wall. Not the simplest room to set up and the YAPO does a pretty darn good job of getting it close. I then go in and tweak the settings I don't like but, honestly, the autosetup is pretty darn good in my room. Your ears may varry!

[cablebandit]

I use the audysee on my Onkyo tx nr-3007. I flip it on/off while listening to music and it always sounds better with the audysee on. it seems it brings out more sounds. I still have the Klipsch sound but you can hear that the frequency response is flatter with it on.

[Rudy81]

I have been using Audyssey for several years now and can't imangine not using for either two channel listening or Home Theater.

One of my frustrations had always been that I didn't know what Audyssey was doing. I now use Audyssey Pro with my Integra and can plot the results as well as taylor what changes Audyssey makes.

Some misconceptions noted here that need correction.

First, Audyssey does not set the EQ to 'make' your speakers flat. In fact it has an attenuation factor at the high frequencies. How much will depend on your Audyssey software and hardware. Audyssey should NOT be attenuating your low frequencies. In fact, if you have Dynamic EQ, the system will boost bass frequencies at lower volume to compensate for the differences in perception by the human ear.

Like anything else, Audyssey does have limitations in its ability to make changes. If your room is way too live or too dead, there is only so much the system can do to compensate for those anomalies.

The goal with Audyssey is to make EQ adjustments so that the sound at the 'listening position' is minimally affected by your space. For that reason, if you make changes in your room, you should run Audyssey again. If you add or remove furniture, add or remove carpeting or drapes, move your sitting position etc, will have a great effect in what you hear.

One thing I found when using Audyssey with my Khorns is that microphone placement is very sensitive to height. The height of the tweeters vis a vis your sitting position had the effect of boosting the highs and reducing bass. Took me a while to figure that out and it was the folks at Audyssey that helped me solve the problem. If your Audyssey results makes the sound 'worse', something went wrong during the run.

After using Audyssey this long, I know I would not live without it again. The difference in sound is noticeable.

I will say that my room is heavily treated with absorbers, bass traps and a large diffuser along the back wall. Audyssey just adds that final touch to provide me with great sound in my sweet spot.

I have the timing set between drivers by my active crossover. Audyssey handles the timing for the 7.1 movie stuff.

I beleive that Audyssey, or similar EQ products, are very worthwhile if properly setup. Otherwise, it can sound pretty bad.....I know from personal experience. There are certain things you must do to get valid data into the processor in order to achieve results. Microphone placement is critically important as well as extraneous noise during testing.

Count me as a beleiver. I am including the graphic results of my last 7.1 Audyssey run in my listening room. This might give you a better idea of what Audyssey can do in a room. I am partial to a 'house curve', so I boosted my lows 3dB from what Audyssey does.

The speakers measured in the plots are as follows: Mains are JC's DBB in two way configuration, Center is a modified La Scala also in two way configuration, the side and rear effects are Klipsch Pro Cinema speakers and the sub is my SVS. The SVS is currently the weak link in my system. I am looking at either an HT Tuba or the Danley SPUD or some other solution. I would love to find the behemoth Epik Conquest, but have yet to find one.

FinalAudyssey.pdf

FinalAudyssey.pdf

[Rudy81]

This MultiEQ tour will really help in understanding what it is the Audyssey does. http://www.audyssey.com/technology/multeq/graphs/graph1.html

If you have Audyssey and are having trouble with the measurements, this guide created by a member of the AVSForum is very helpful.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14456895#post14456895

If you have Khorns and are having trouble, try setting the microphone at tweeter height, no the recommended ear height. Due to the directional nature of the tweeters, placing the mic at ear level causes Audyssey to read 'low' highs relative to your bass performance. The result is a a highly attenuated bass response with an obnoxious boost in highs.

[CECAA850]

Good posts Rudy.

[t-man]

WRONG - Audyssey DOES attentuate your bass frequencies or any other frequencies it feels necessary. Maybe not in your case, but I have visual proof of the the EQ curve on my Denon that says it did it to my system, and heavily. I also placed my microphone on a tripod in the correct positions and did everything carefully/right.

[Rudy81]

WRONG - Audyssey DOES attentuate your bass frequencies or any other frequencies it feels necessary. Maybe not in your case, but I have visual proof of the the EQ curve on my Denon that says it did it to my system, and heavily. I also placed my microphone on a tripod in the correct positions and did everything carefully/right.

Ok, I'm wrong.....happy? You are missing the point, but no use in discussing the issue.

[Chris A]

Just making sure that we are addressing the original questions...

Do you allow your AVR to tune your speakers flat? Or do you prefer to hear your speakers "personality"?

I believe that the answer is "both" but a lot more toward a flat performance in order to hear something like what the mastering engineer heard--assuming that the mastering engineer is trying to achieve something like a faithful reproduction of the original performance. That assumption often doesn't hold up for popular music--and especially multi-tracked recordings where I sometimes don't have any clue what the mastering engineer is trying to achieve.Typically, though, this is a valid assumption when listening to audiophile recordings. Note that this is an "bottomless pit" discussion that I do not care to slide into, but I think you will follow what I'm trying to say.

...I've let it auto equalize each channel to allow for a flat frequency response...isn't this defeating the purpose of quality speakers...?

This could be argued, if you are using quality speakers. I personally do not allow an automatic EQing unit to "correct" for room EQ imbalances. I use several techniques to minimize the effects of room acoustics that persistently color the sound reproduction over what the engineer heard when s/he mastered the recording. I've found that this approach results in outstanding results with great recordings and not so great results when listening to poor recordings--poor being defined in terms of poor recording, mixing, mastering, or production to physical media--throughout the whole chain of sound production.

I find that many non-audiophile listeners often listen to poor recordings that together make up the relatively small set of recordings that they "like", and are very dissatisfied with their sound reproduction systems when they don't sound "the way they want it to sound", whatever that means (and it varies from recording to recording).

The folks that I look up to on this subject seem to prefer to get speakers, amplifiers, preamps and input sources (including turntables) that are relatively flat in FR to begin with. In particular, I can attest to the effect of EQing high-quality speakers to be relatively flat in an anechoic chamber, then use the speakers relatively unaltered in their living rooms. I've found that the answer for me is somewhere in between and is a function of frequency. I personally do not change speaker EQ settings above about 200-250 Hz, preferring instead to use the anechoic settings (assuming quality speakers). The effects of doing this are dramatic, IMHO.

However, it gets a lot more complicated below about 250 Hz where small room acoustic modes dominate and color the sound reproduction in undesirable ways. I've found that the combination of room acoustic treatment, good room speaker positioning and judicious use of EQ help to overcome room problems. This is particularly true below about 100 Hz, where I've found good EQ work usually pays off. I personally EQ for rising response below 100 Hz, and there is some documentation justifying this in the JAES articles.

Chris

[odysseyrevolver]

I don't allow my receiver to automatically configure anything. It's a slipperly slope. First freq levels, next Skynet.

[t-man]

I don't allow my receiver to automatically configure anything. It's a slipperly slope. First freq levels, next Skynet.

LOL!!!

[garyrc]

I don't have Audyssey (but may soon) and know very little about it, but I have a few questions:

1. How many frequency zones are sampled and corrected for? One person said 10, but I think I remember reading an advertizement for an Audyssey equiped preamp that used many times this many points.
2. Whenever I've heard objections to room EQ over the last few decades they usually fall into the following categories: a) the correct EQ for one listening position will be wrong for another (including nearby locations), so, through multiple sampling through what some people refer to as a "broad family sweetspot," the goal is to provide EQ that is a little wrong for all listening positions, but, with luck, better than no EQ for most or all the frequency response should NOT be flat at the listening position (particularly in a large room like a Great Room or a Home Theater), but should be flat near the speaker, usually on tweeter axis. This notion is reflected in the curve professional movie houses use.

If the contentions in 2, above, are true, then what would be wrong with placing the microphone on tweeter axis at a fairly close distance, but far away enough for the sound from the separate drivers to merge, (I think Stereophile uses about 50"), allowing Audyssey to EQ for that position (chiefly for speaker freuency response), then backing off to the broad group listening positions which could be 6 to 15 or more feet away, then seeing what the previously smoothed out speakers + room sound like together? Some rooms sound good, or can be made to sound good. If the result does not sound both realistic and pleasing, then couldn't the tone controls be used? I've seen pictures of a 9 band equalizer on Marantz gear that might be hand adjusted in a "user" position. Then wouldn't one have 4 EQs to chose from, i.e., the automatically set Audyssey EQ, Audyssey EQ + tweaking with tone controls, hand (ear) adjusted EQ with the graphic equalizer, and no EQ at all?

On a slightly different topic within this thread, if two speakers of different designs were made to have identical frequency response, they would probably still sound different due to differences in distortion. An extreme case would be a fully equalized (if that's possible) fully horn loaded speaker v.s. a fully equalized speaker with an acoustic suspension woofer, cone midrange, and dome tweeter. IMO, the horn loaded speaker would sound a little clearer and more precise because of lower frequency modulation distortion and probably better transient response.

[garyrc]

Rudy81 (and others),

Since you have been using Audyssey for so long, you seem to be the one to ask these questions:

1. If Audyssey produces a nice flat room curve from the sweet seats, and you get a CD, SACD, DVD, or BD that sounds unbalanced to you, can you still use the tone controls to touch up the frequency balance without removing the Audyssey corected curve? I don't know what Audyssey using AV processor (AV preamp) I'll be getting, but I'm looking at Marantz at the moment.
2. Similarly, can you turn up or down the subwoofer level without removing the rest of the Audyssey curve?

[Rudy81]

Gary:

Since you are still looking for a processor, take care to look at all the Audyssey implementations of various units. Some allow you to do things others don't. Some have selectable Audyssey curves and others don't. My Integra only has one curve in the basic OEM setup. However, with my Pro Kit, I can do whatever I wish.

But, to answer your questions. Yes, you should be able to use your tone controls to modify balance issues.

You can easily change the subwoofer level at will by using the sensitivity control on the sub amp. Some folks call it the gain control.

I no longer modify what Audyssey does, but when I was struggling with my Khorn setup, I modified the sound I heard by making changes in my active crossover output. However, I eventually figured out how to properly mic the system with my Khorns so that I didn't end up with questionable sound.

In your AV preamp search you might visit the Audyssey thread here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=795421&page=800 if you want to ask users about the capabilities of different units. This is a huge thread concerning all things Audyssey. The gent that runs Audyssey participates in the discussions and can directly answer your questions. There are also various business owners and installers that frequent that forum and are extremely knowledgeable. Good luck.

Also, remember that if you don't like Audyssey, you can always turn it off and not use it.

[forum_crawler]

I have the same pioneer receiver and I find that my speakers also tend to clip or distort at high volumes. Some movies do at -15db while some of the newer ones like ironman 2 can do it at -22db reference. I find this odd since I am sure that my rc62, rf82 and rs42 should be able to handle reference volume without breaking sweat yet I am nowhere near there.

I am no expert by any means but I have read the pioneer drops power like crazy when pushing high volumes and speakers like the klipsch capable of variable impedance just make matters worse. So is it the speakers? The cable (14gauge)? Or the receiver? Thanks!

[Rudy81]

I believe the impedance of a speaker varies depending on frequency in most speakers. I suspect something is not right in your system if you are distorting as you describe as levels well below reference.

I would suggest you first try to find out if it is all the speakers or just one of them or perhaps just the subwoofer. You may have a bad driver if just one of them is doing it. Otherwise, try an outboard amplifier and see if the problem goes away.

I would certainly look into this issue until you can find the problem. I doubt the speaker wire has anything to do with it.