Audyssey

[dblue]

Howdy, long time no post.

I just thought I'd pass along some helpful info regarding the Audyssey system. I bought an AVR 2808Ci a few months ago (Denon) and was excited to set up with the Audyssey system I'd been reading so much about. I have an odd room, and have some serious bass dips that I have been unable to correct.

So, I ran through the instructions, and set it up. I placed the mic in 8 positions around the couch. The first thing I noticed was that my low end problems were solved! I now had a nice, even bass response. It also smoothed out the midrange quite well...and my imaging was better than ever.

BUT, I noticed that the highs seemed to be out of control, even more so with stereo listening. Looking at the EQ curves it generated, I could see why. It boosted some pretty harsh frequencies pretty high. I messed with it for a while, to no avail.

Then I started reading some forum posts made by Audyssey engineers. They stated that if you have speakers that are directional, such as horns, you do NOT want to place the mic in any seating areas outside a 30 degree angle from the direction that the speaks are firing, or it will overcompensate for those seating positions by boosting the frequencies that they were missing by being outside the tweeter's effectve area....so I followed their instructions, and took 8 readings from within this range. One in the 'main' listening position or sweet spot, one in the seat on each side, then one in fron of each of those positions about 3 feet. All of these are within the tweeter's influence.

Then I did 2 more right beside the main position between it and the other two. This put 8 readings, all around the man position, for about 3-4 seating areas.

The results were FANTASTIC. I never dreamed my system was capable of such clarity and imaging. Pans sound amazingly coherent, and imaging from all is crazy, even in stereo. And my low end is SUPER tight, lots more detail...I highly recommend this receiver (or any with the Audyssey system).

Here is my setup for reference, 7.1:
Denon 2808Ci
RC3-II
2 RF3-II
2 RS3-II
2 RB35
SVS 25-31 PCi

[CECAA850]

That's interesting. I've been thinking about getting Anthems ARC (Automatic Room Correction) for my D2. I believe both systems are similar in function. I'd be curious if the same principal applies.