Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners room correction (Audyssey & Trinnov) with QS4 QS8

Cam, there's no way to manually "tweak" the many adjustments that Audyssey makes in the frequency and time domains. The one option that the Denons include is to select either the "Audyssey" or "Flat" curve. They're identical except that the "Audyssey" curve includes a small high frequency roll-off(2dB per octave above about 4KHz as best as I can tell)which can be helpful on some material with an over-emphasis in the high frequencies.

I've been very interested in the information of this thread. I've had my Axiom system running for about 4 months now (M22s, VP150, QS4s)...when I first purchased my Denon receiver, I blindly ran the Audyssey Auto Calibration. Ever since then, I have been running with the MultiEQ turned...I never turned it off to hear the difference because I figured "the receiver knows best!" I know, I know...it was a newbie mistake.

Anyway, this morning, I pulled out my RadioShack analog sound meter and tape measure and manually calibrated speaker distance and volume level using the built in receiver test tones. Then I turned off Audyssey. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!

I've been listening to many albums listed in the "Stunning recordings" thread and while many times people describe the musicians as seeming to be in the room with them, I have not experienced this. After turning off Audyssey, I can finally say that I understand now what people are talking about! Vocals are full and rich...and I was amazed that I can hear the subtle sounds of the singers inhalations. Amazing! Like others have said, the Audyssey MultiEQ calibration just sounds flat, thin, and lifeless. I feel like I've lost 4 months of my life

After saying all of this, I do actually have one question for the knowledgeable people on this forum. When I first set up my system, I did check the speaker volume levels with my sound meter, making sure they were all at 75db. This morning when I redid the calibration, I noticed that my right main speaker had become much "quieter"...in other words, I had to turn the channel level up by 2.0db to bring the level back to 75db. Nothing has changed in my setup or room. Is this amount of volume change natural as the speakers "age?" Is there something I should be concerned about or check into? Thanks in advance!

First, in anticipation of those who will assume you didn’t properly set up Audyessy here is the “’Official’Audyessy thread” with a detailed setup guide just in case.

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

Second, about your right main speaker. I’m guessing there’s probably not anything wrong. I’ve had speakers measure up to 2dB-3dB different just by moving the SPL meter a few inches in either direction if the speaker was near a wall or other object that sound waves could reflect off. Moving the speaker or seating or any objects near them could also effect it including adding/deleting a rug literally anything. Just angling the meter a little more toward or away from the speaker could change the reading 2dB. If you really suspect something is up with speaker check each driver to make sure it’s working. It’s possible wires got disconnected or the a driver just failed, but my guess it’s just a measurement anomaly. Also since you just now discovered it with the meter I’m guessing you never noticed it while listening. Meters and test/calibration equipment have driven many an enthusiast insane.

You’re findings about Audyssey sound similar to mine. I just don’t like what it does to my best recorded music. If you do rerun Audyssey I suggest you first tweak your setup to get it sounding the best you can to your ears w/o using EQ and then try Audyssey again to see if it helps. Also if you Denon was like mine it give the option of selecting several Audyssey curves of which I found the “Flat” curve did the least damage to good recordings.

Thanks grunt!

Checked the drivers in my M22, everything seems fine...all connections are okay as well. I will chalk this up to "speaker abnormality" for now...and will check again with the SPL in a few weeks!

Yes, my Denon has the choice of several Audyssey curves. Just curious, I don't understand how the "Flat" curve is any different than having MultiEQ turned off?

Turning EQ off just means your speakers are not using the room correction EQ curve calculated when you ran the setup. The Audyssey reference curve I think Denon just calls it “Audyssey” tries to correct for room speaker interaction to give you a flat frequency response but near the top end it roll off I think John mentioned at -2dB/octave. Not a huge amount but noticeable to me. The “Flat” curve tries to maintain a flat frequency response all the way across.

Some people like the high frequency roll off because some recording have a high frequency boost or are just poorly mastered and this sort of tames them. I don’t like it because much of the music I listen to has a lot of ambience which the roll off ruins for me.

I cut and pasted this from the AVS forum, where a similiar discussion was talking place.

The following is from the VP of director and market for Sherwood Newcastle, pretty encouraging for me...

"While bipole and dipole speakers can be more difficult to locate, our office system and my home system both utilize dipole surround speakers without issue with the current R-972 firmware. Early editions of the firmware were usually but not always successful. I have also successfully calibrated systems using planar magnetic speakers with the R-972 and Curt has similar success with Accoustat type planar electrostats. If we can get an unambiguous signal at 5 kHz, speaker recognition and accurate localization should not be a problem. Jeff"

I expect to be calibrating QS4s in a few days using the MCACC systems in one or two of my Pioneer receivers, and I'll report back if anything special happens. But since I'm not set up to measure the frequency response of my system, it's hard to imagine what I could tell you about calibrating the QS4s specifically.

I wouldn't trust these reports one hears that a calibration failed for certain speakers. What people usually mean is that the speaker distances detected are not the same as what they measure with a tape. Well, who cares about that? If you think your tape measure will give better results for calculating delays than the acoustic distance, you can simply set the distances manually. Measuring distances is not what you need an automatic calibration system for -- it's just a minor convenience.

I really, really like MCACC. I've spent many hours with a Radio Shack sound pressure meter and various calibration DVDs, but never had much confidence that I was actually improving the sound of my system. MCACC relieves you of the drudgery and uncertainty of using an SPM, and lets you do several calibrations, then sit back in your chair and listen to program material, flipping back and forth among your calibrations, to judge which is best. You just can't do that using only an SPM.

I know about Audessey and Trinnov only from reading reviews and user comments. Audessey does not seem to provide much user control, and I'm a fiddler, myself. The Trinnov system sounds very interesting, but the Sherwood Anderson receiver that has it is much too expensive, for me. One of my 7.1 Pioneer receivers with MCACC, the 817, cost me $146 last summer with free shipping from Amazon. There is no way I would ever, ever pay $1800 for a receiver.

The current Pioneer receivers do not handle height or wide speakers, unfortunately, but I'm hoping this year's models will. Now I have enough speakers to add height, but not yet a receiver to power them. More expensive Pioneer receivers than mine do know how to equalize subwoofers, but mine does not, so that's something else I'll be looking for (preferably handling at least two subs) in my next receiver. I might have to get an Onkyo and deal with Audessey.