Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Is there any way to tame bass localization X 1

So I have one sub, I did a sub crawl, and found the best spot on the side of the room, and all of the seats on the couch have mucho bass, but you can tell that the bass is coming from the left side of the room, which is annoying.

I need to rerun Audyssey, I suspect one issue is that Audyssey has set the surrounds to 90 and 100 hz, so I need to set the crossover on the sub to 100 hz, no? I think a high crossover setting may add to the localization effect. I realize I should have two subs but I don't know where the second one would go because there are all these doors in my room and the with the present WAF, or lack thereof, with the first sub (she appeared quite relieved when the first sub arrived damaged and stopped working, ouch) we might be looking at 5 years or so before she lets me off the leash, at least that's what she would like to believe.

I believe I can improve the setup with the advice already given, e.g., to set the db from the avr menu rather than cranking up the volume knob on the back of the sub itself, which seems too crude of a method to tweak the calibration; however, I suspect the issue may persist given my room size and that I will benefit from all of the tweaks I can eventually muster, short of smuggling a second sub in somehow, so I thought I would see if there were any obvious tricks I might consider, to tame the localization issue.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
SK

If the highest XO is 100 then you will indeed need to have the sub XO in the avr at 100 and the XO on the sub should be set to max. You should try using the LFE+Mains setting with the M80s set to large in the avr to add more bass to the M80s, which would act as a second source for now, especially since you have the power to run them this way.

Sat, first, although this wouldn't affect the localization issue, since your receiver is doing the crossover function the internal sub "crossover"(actually not a full crossover, just a low-pass filter)would just be in the way, so it should be set to bypass.

Localization does increase with the higher crossover settings, so you could try manually setting the surround crossovers to 80Hz.

Next, is the "mucho" bass simply too mucho? Are you using the sub level that Audyssey set or you set with an SPL meter or did you set it higher so that the bass was more prominent? If so, turn the level down. The impression should be that the sub isn't working but that the speakers are putting out more bass.

Then, despite the position chosen by the sub crawl, consider moving the sub farther away from the seats, say in a corner behind one of the mains.

The surrounds at 90 or 100 Hz should not matter. Not much bass there anyway.

I will second the idea to put the sub a corner behind the mains. Then let Audyssey do its thing.

Also, when using Audyssey, check out the guide over at AVS forums. There are many things you can do to get poor results. The manual that comes with the AVR is to basic.

Hey thanks for the ideas guys, I will experiment based on these suggestions, JohnK I think you are right, I am currently running the sub a little too hot because I want to get a feel for what a sub can do, never having had one, when I first got the QS8s I did the same thing and ran them too loud to get a sense of what surrounds can offer. At the moment I have the surrounds perfectly balanced in the mix and love the way they provide ambiance and then peek through with directional info the way they are meant to at just the right moment. The QS8s with appropriate calibration truly are quite forgiving because they are not exactly where I would want them, especially the left surround, but they sound so great/perfect that the feeling is I would not change anything. The only modification by ear I made that Audyssey agreed with was to taste back the center speaker (-1 db?) because it was just too forceful in my setting. I love the balance and the eq so much that I no longer even feel the need to overemphasize the M80s, which I love for their presentation of musical content, especially HT music to support narrative.

When I ran Audyssey following a rough approximation of the avr forum recipe I made one mistake, or so I guess, rather than set the sub volume to half, I set it to a quarter as per the Axiom manual recommendation. Audyssey then set the sub to +7.5 db, and I have this feeling the the EQ of the system may have been subtly shifted from what it would be if I had set the volume to half.

Well it's been a long journey even learning a few minimal ideas, honestly I don't mind tweaking yet seldom have time, I'm hoping somewhat hoping that the heavy lifting phase of the troubleshooting days are over, i.e., the steep learning curve phase, although yes I know with modern electronics, the learning curve never ends (I'm sure my network fiasco has become legend, at least it should have, it reminds me of my dad, who is quite intellectual but to this day can't get begin to get the concept of input versus output, and how simple it is to figure out how to connect a source to an amp, different generation), point is I'm hoping when I next have time to crank up a bluray I'm hoping nothing blows up, Audyssey likes the M80s at crossover of 40 hz, even with Directv which generally seems pretty compressed I heard a couple of electrical pops not even at reference sound.

On "vacation" now, performed 2-3 normal weeks work in the last 3 days so I could have a "paid" vacation with no interruption of income to cause me to worry that much about finances, after that I was so Type A on the way to the airport, we head out with plenty of time and after 20 minutes my wife says "Oh I forgot my cellphone" of course I insist we head back home because she can't live without that but it was so hard to just get to the airport just barely on time when I have let myself become hypnotized recently to believe so much in the validity of time pressure.

I do love the 800 and before when I had the ridiculous setting of everything at 40 hz the bass was seamless, I feel pretty sure with experimentation I can make it work with regard to integration of the entire HT system, which would be good because I've been forced to swear off major HT purchases for the next 5 years (yeah let's see how long that lasts but probably at least two years as long as nothing breaks).

I don't want to hijack the topic here, but what is Audyssey?

Is that like Yamaha's YPAO ?

Yes it is like YPAO, but I believe considered to be better at the upper end XT and higher variations.

Thanks. So is it used by multiple AVR manufacturers like Pioneer and Denon?

Onkyo, Denon are the only 2 I know of, well their associated cousins as well. Yamaha and Pioneer use their own simialar versions.

Marantz and NAD also use Audyssey.

Pioneer calls their version MCACC.