Audyssey MultEQ XT Digital Room Correction

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costs

Ok.. that's about what I thought.

Cost for the Denon 3808 was $1190.00 shipped, and I get 7 x 140 watts of pretty good amplification, along with really crappy remote controls (I think non-engineering types need to devise user interfaces, sigh :bawling: ), more options than a chinese take out menu, minimization of WAF frustration using the whole setup, etc. etc.

So I've got probably 3 more weekends just figuring out how to setup 3 zone multi-house listening with 7.1 channel surround, multi-eq'd, internet radio, software upgrades via DNS, etc. etc.

That should keep me busy...:D ;)

John L.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2004
Re: $$$?

auplater said:


And how much moola is involved in this quest for nirvana?

Looks like an interesting project... don't have time to do this.


I guess another question is how much time and money do you have in your speakers? How much in the crossovers(acourate can do the crossovers too). But I agree when time and/or money is an issue then its diverted to the area's you think provide the most worthwhile gains. In that case the Audyssey is likely better than nothing in an average room.
 
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Joined 2004
m0tion said:
Acourate is ~$500 (ridiculous if you ask me)

"Ya pay bananas, you get monkeys". :)

Its all relative but $500 isn't a whole lot for its capabilities. Its easy to pay 6 times that for the DEQX and still be left wanting.

I think because its software its easy to assume that your $500 has bought you nothing of physical worth. After all we're happy to put down $500, without thinking, on drivers and some would even spend that on expensive passive crossover components.

When you buy Acourate you have a program that generates linear phase or min phase crossover transfer functions, linearises driver native amplitude/phase performance and provides true acoustic slopes, time aligns and also does room correction with psychoacoustic adaptations.

Uli(creator of Acourate) provides support and updates to the program that are well beyond the norm. How many developers would specifically engineer a tool or feature into their software because of a single user request? Then add in the initial and ongoing development time and last but not least, the performance of the filters the program generates.

I have no problem with handing over $500 for all that. The value is high IMO.
 
Its a nive giveaway that comes for free after all. Having a denon receiver myself i can support auplaters statement that it does do... something. However if your room is really bad dont expect the built in system to do magics. If you got a reverb which is really bad and whatnot... *btw i am glaring at my wifeys glass table and cupboards right now* well then... :mad:

Cheers
 
Re: Re: $$$?

ShinOBIWAN said:


I guess another question is how much time and money do you have in your speakers? How much in the crossovers(acourate can do the crossovers too). But I agree when time and/or money is an issue then its diverted to the area's you think provide the most worthwhile gains. In that case the Audyssey is likely better than nothing in an average room.


maybe $850 each(including xover) for the dipoles and $150 each for the 2 12" sonosubs; probably 20 hrs. each building each dipole (mostly woodworking, built from solid cherry rough boards) and 2 hrs. each on the sonosubs. However, I'd have built them with or without room eq.

Don't get me wrong, if I had time (I have plenty of $$$) I'd play around with higher power room eq., don't doubt in the least that there are more powerful solutions out there.

John L.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2004
This looks like something else:

http://www.trinnov.com/product_Optimizer.php

The 3 dimensional deconvolution sound interesting but I'd imagine it to be fraught with potential problems. The interaction between the wave fronts propagating throughout the room, after they've left the drivers, would have to be thoroughly mapped. I assume the unit uses purely math based predication models to calculate when to fire the inverse cancellation signals from the loudspeaker drivers in order to cancel the secondary reflection that's already travelling through the room. If the timing's off for the cancellation signal then you might hear that as a very very shortly spaced echo effect or equally worse - some cancellation of direct sound.

There's a slimmed down version that will make its way into AV receivers too.

I'd love to hear it in action though. The price for the full fat version isn't to be found easily and the fact its marketed towards studios and such like makes me think its mid four figures plus.
 
The pro version Trinnov is $13K.

The latest ETA for the Sherwood R-972 receiver which will have it is May; $1800 MSRP.

The fact that it measures the 3D soundfield by using a 4-mike array would seem to give it a lot of potential.

What makes it much more desirable than Audyssey, presuming its general performance lives up to the advance press, is that it has multiple memories to store setups for different listening positions, and has several user selectable target curves.

A neat trick of particular interest to me is that it can rotate the entire soundstage (make the side speakers the fronts etc); I have audio and video in the same room but on adjacent walls.
 
idle speculation

Seems to be alot of speculation about what "does or does not" sound good wrt room comp. and personal experience here.

Since the entire listening experience relies on more than just the compensating algorithmn... (i.e., the filters, delays, all the dsp)
that is, type of speaker(s) used, room characteristics, audio source, it's not inconceivable that minimal dsp (aka audyssey, etc.) might be all that's needed for an optimal setup.

hence, I don't necessarily buy the argument of "if you think [fill in your favorite dsp] is great, "things can only get better if you use [something better]".

Be interesting to hear some more real live listening experiences as well as the "expert" opinion about what should or should not occur (and be heard), especially comparison studies.

John L.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2004
Re: idle speculation

auplater said:
Seems to be alot of speculation about what "does or does not" sound good wrt room comp. and personal experience here.

Since the entire listening experience relies on more than just the compensating algorithmn... (i.e., the filters, delays, all the dsp)
that is, type of speaker(s) used, room characteristics, audio source, it's not inconceivable that minimal dsp (aka audyssey, etc.) might be all that's needed for an optimal setup.

hence, I don't necessarily buy the argument of "if you think [fill in your favorite dsp] is great, "things can only get better if you use [something better]".

Be interesting to hear some more real live listening experiences as well as the "expert" opinion about what should or should not occur (and be heard), especially comparison studies.

John L.

In a larger context, yes its idle speculation. Every case its unique so you can't really state EQ or no EQ is best but logically if your getting improvements with EQ in your room and system then the better methods of EQ will lead to further improvements. I also think you took my opening contribution to this thread a little too seriously. Those comments were meant to be light hearted, I guess that didn't come across despite the use of smilies.

There are some universals for digital correction. Too much is always worse than not at all. It has an upper limit of around 30% removal of problems in best case scenarios. The more transparent the processing the better. Aside from these the rest is dependant of other factors so your right, basic EQ might be all that's needed.

Despite the idea of basic EQ, the question still remains on overall transparency and flexibility. Audyssey is virtually non-tweakable, you have to rely on the wits of the software to achieve the desired and optimum effect - you know the answer to that one already.

I think tweaking, for all the reasons you state such as different rooms and speakers etc., is essential for the best and transparent results. For example one powerful tool in Acourate will let you adjust the width of the window the time domain signal is looked at. The width is given as a factor of cycles(ms) and the window is applied around the measured impulse peak. Smaller parameters for the width define a window which is more concentrated on the direct signal and larger values allow to take more and more room influences into account.
Acourate can also provide non linear window width over the frequency range ie. A larger window with low frequencies and interpolate to smaller for high ones. This gives the possibility to correct low frequencies but become more gentle as you move through the ranges.

What if you've got one speaker that's close to the wall and the other is out in the room? Well you can compensate for that by using differing amounts of correction for each channel and targeting only problem frequencies.

Another useful tuning tool are drawable target curves used to effectively shape the response curve at the listening position.

This is partly why I called Audyssey toy EQ. Its assumes it knows best about your listening room, speakers and habits. It doesn't have the first clue about those things so its of limited value IMO, its free of course so you can't expect too much. However given a tool such as Acourate you can bash a filter into shape that works the way you want it to sound in your room. Its like the difference between an interior designer coming into your home and decorating the place with what he considers good, and you picking through what you want and then having the professionals come in to apply whatever you've chosen.

The problem with Acourate is that its definitely more hands on and you need to identify what the problems are in order to effectively target them. In cases where the user has no interest in such things then set-and-forget EQ solutions such Audyssey will have to do. Things will get better with time though and programs such as Acourate will be considered the stuff of the dark ages.
 
eq. pics

here's some screen shots of the (admittedly lowtech) 1/3 octave corrections after swapping out the rear speakers with Advent 6003's

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


For what it's worth


John L.
 
Robh3606 said:
Hello John

I have a question on the Audussey screen shots. I am reading them right?? Is that a 30db range with +10 0 -10 -20 shown??

What's the frequency scale??

Thanks Rob:)


yes, so far it's come up +10, - 20dB for the ordinate and 20 Hz - 20Khz for the abcissa as freq. range.

Sorry for the poor qual. scn shots. I'll try when less is going on aroiund here for better quality if anyone is interested.

There is a second calc. supplied called Audyssey flat that is quite a bit less pronounced in the corrections. I've got more work to do...;)

John L.
 
Wow, I didn't realize it had a GUI. Thats neat. Just to clarify, the graph shown is of the correction filter, not the measured response of the speakers, right? How many positions did you measure from? What sort of measurement equipment did you use? I know that it probably comes with a pretty horrible mic, can you use an external mic/preamp?
 
m0tion said:
Wow, I didn't realize it had a GUI. Thats neat. Just to clarify, the graph shown is of the correction filter, not the measured response of the speakers, right? How many positions did you measure from? What sort of measurement equipment did you use? I know that it probably comes with a pretty horrible mic, can you use an external mic/preamp?

Yes, it's a plot of the appled correction filter. As for the mic, I haven't gotten that far, but it presumably is calibrated to some std. (the somewhat cryptic manual says it's"calibrated", that's all.:rolleyes:

Yes you can connect an external mic. here's the press stuff..

"Is the microphone calibrated?
Yes, the microphone is calibrated to a 1/4" industry-standard measurement microphone. The correction is applied to the measurements as they are being taken. It is important to use ONLY the designated microphone that comes with the product as the calibration curve built-in to the product is specific to that microphone. It is also critical to point the microphone upwards and to place it at ear height. Any other microphone will have different characteristics and thus will not produce the right results."

I measured 6 locations, in a roughly 15' arc ~ 15' from the main speakers. It's interesting listening to the gated chirp used while testing... it really highlites slap echo in the room...

btw: I'm using the side speakers in the teevee as the center channel... naybe why the results look so wild :D

Currently building 2 more side dipoles to reach 7.1 surround.

John L.
 
Thanks John

I have an Integra 9.8 preprocessor I just got set-up. I have not ran the Audessy yet. I was curious about the range of tuning on the + side. I have analog Urie 539 cut only EQ's in my HT set-up. It doesn't use much EQ and am very curious to see what kind of a curve Audussey comes up with.

I am sure that the intgrated version is not the same but I will keep an eye on the EQ curve. I am old school as far as adding + where room modes are and like to use as little EQ as possible. Kind of like the last resort.

Rob:)
 
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