Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater receivers? Sherwood, Denon, Yamaha?

Hi aspicer1,

As SirQuack well knows, I'd be remiss if I didn't fulfill my role as official Audyssey naysayer. Don't expect Audyssey multi-EQ to be an electronic band-aid to compensate for poor setup.

It may help smooth out problems with standing waves (bass boom) but in the case of already neutral speakers like Axioms it has the potential to degrade sound quality. A measurement microphone in a room is like a single ear with no brain and all rooms are different. I'll acknowledge that Audyssey may help in some situations or with poor quality speakers.

So try and do your speaker setup and crossover settings as well as possible and then you can experiment with turning Audyssey on and off to see if there is an audible improvement. Keep in mind that sometimes our ears and brain may perceive a difference in sound quality as an "improvement", just because there is a difference.

Regards,
Alan

I have a much older Pioneer receiver (VSX-45) with a 5 band MCACC. I would say that in my room with my Axiom speakers; my ears and brain perceive the sound to be an improvement with the equalization from the MCACC on. Just my perception of course.
Bill

I have one of the newer Marantz AVR's with Audyssey multi-Eq and I have to concur with Alan on his assessment of this set-up method. At best, it his somewhat hit and miss and in being able to compare the differences on and off, to my ears in my environment anyway, the difference is negligible. Among the drawbacks that I have noticed in pretty well ALL these EQ systems is that with the final result, sometimes crossover settings are not the optimum and bass response is cutback way too much. I ended up doing a manual calibration.

It is also interesting to note in a recent interview with one of the heads of Marantz, with their newer AVR's(including mine), it was made quite clear that they made the philosophical decision to make Audyssey multi-eq calibration "unavailable" when playing back ALL the lossless audio tracks on Blu-Ray. In this particular case, they wanted the sound coming out of the AVR as pure as possible. Interesting.

Was it is philosophical decision, or is that just the way marketing spun the issue of their DSP not having enough power to both decode the HD codec, and then process it with Audyssey?

When I was shoping around for receivers, I chose Denon (AVR-590)for great features at the price point and that it came with Audyssey (MultEQ, DynamicEQ and Dynamic Vol).

For me, Audyssey really made an improvement in sound quality as I have an extremely sub-optimal setup and listening area. I did end up changing crossover points (personal preference), bumping up my center channel level, and am running the sub about 4dB hotter to suit my ears.

For watching movies at night, with little kids in the house, DynamicEQ and Dynamic Vol are great!

I have to agree with Alan and the others though and say that it will not compensate for a poor setup.

Alan,

The measurements are taken at multiple locations (up to 8 with the built in Audyssey and 32 with the stand alone product). It all well and good to have nice flat speakers in an anechoic chamber, but little good that does in the family room with glass windows and hardwood floors. Even with my limited ability to test (REW and a cheap microphone), I can see that Axioms speaker are NOT flat in MY ROOM. Want better testing? Check out the reviews in Stereophile magazine.

I'll say this for the 99th time... I still do not understand what you have against Audyssey. At least with this post I think it may be that you may not actually know how it works....

Needless to say, my M60's sound much better with that without.

I got the info from an interview done late in 2008 by Audioholics during one of the shows just prior to the release of the new design AVR's. This seems to be their philosophy since it spans the entire range of product regardless of price. Since others such as Onkyo and Denon(Marantz's sister company) seem to apply Audyssey in all cases, I doubt there would be much more in design cost, if any, to do it. Ironically enough, in recent years, despite the connection, I found reviewers generally prefered the sound of the Marantz over the Denon.

Dave, I have to say I'm on your side will Audyssey. I agree with Alan when talking about receivers from the past and taking one measurement from a single position. Audyssey is a totally different animal whos whole purpase is to account for rooms being different, taking multiple measurements, etc. It is not a parametric routine. I think if Alan would read up on the topic, and maybe visit with Tomlinson Holman (founder of THX), and Chris K. the creators of this product, he might find a different outcome.

So, what is it you like better about the sound of your fathers system and on what program material?

Its hard for us to help you 'fix' your sound if we don't know what you don't like.

Actually JC from Axiom in looking at my photos said I had several problems with speaker placement that might be the real issue. my center speaker is so close to the ceiling that it should be slightly angled downward. My side surrounds are way to low and too far behind my first row. My rear surrounds are also too low and too close together. Basically he said that my chairs being high backs are blocking out much of my surround sound and my center is reflecting off of the ceiling which is distorting the sound. That makes sense because i have had to increase the channel levels of my center and my surrounds to get a balanced sound. I set my fathers up and his center is below the screen. The surrounds are placed differently and the sound is much more precise.