Audyssey xt32 limited impact

[BullBuchanan]

I originally posted this in my receiver review channel (x3700h), but I think it would be more appropriate here. I'm not finding that xt32 is improving very much from a measurable perspective in my room. From an audible perspective, I don't notice a ton of difference with EQ on or off. The volume seems more even across the spectrum with it on, but that's about it. The biggest improvement I noticed was turning on Dynamic EQ settleing in at a 10db setting and then turning on Dynamic volume to light. Without these settings, voices have too much bass in them making them hard to understand, and loud dynamics like gunshots, broken glass and metal clashing are "cover your ears" painfully loud at movie volumes. With those settings on, we can watch with much less of an issue.

Still, I'm left wanting a better experience with more spaciousness and audible detail over the loud dynamics in the final sound. Is this as good as it gets with the software or could I be doing something better?

Equipment
Tekton Double Impacts
Denon x3700h
umik-1
REW

Nvidia shield (bypassed for below tests)
Spotify (not applicable to below tests)


Room details
My room is about 16x16 but is an odd shape with a back wall that adds a traingular shaped wall leading to the door and a bay window that runs from the left front wall 80% of the way to the right and adds 2 feet of depth. The speakers are 10' apart center to center and toed 45 degrees towards the LP with the tweeter directed at the opposite ear L->R and R->L. Unfortunately the left speaker has a deep window sill behind it so at the bottom of the speaker it's only 12" to 10" from the rear wall, but up above the woofers it's 24"-36" accounting for angling. The right speaker has a flat wall behind it. The room is carpeted with three couches with the main LP against the rear wall. The is a large solid wood coffe table in front of the LP at knee height and a ceiling fan above it. There's no other acoutic treatment

You are aiming for a flat in-room prefernce curve. Is that what you like / prefer?

Either way, I would play with this preference curve. Maybe start with Harman and take it from there until you like the sound.

Of course REW will tell more (maybe cross a bit higher eg 80Hz to have your sub “help” filling the dip of your right channel at around 90Hz). But too early to tell, need to see REW before and after.

Measurements taken with RTA 1/48 periodic pink noise on infinite averaging. I used a moving microphone technique at 0 degrees of head position until the averaging stopped and then went another 60 samples. On average 120 samples per measurement. Dynamic EQ was enabled at 10db and dynamic loudness set to light. Speakers set to small with crossover at 40hz and LFE set to 120hz. I choose those settings while testing for dialogue audibility, removing boominess in bass and limiting sharp unpleasant dynamic loudness. I limited the frequency spectrum to 500hz after trying both that and full band.

Measurements
From the measurements below it seems my listening position has nulls at 40 and 80Hz, but I wouldn't expect either of those things to be a rootcause of my perceived issues with the system, though maybe the hump in 100-200 is to blame. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like xt32 multiEQ is doing a whole lot. It mostly seems like it's smoothing out 20-40hz and otherwise just shifting problem frequencies around or doing nothing at all. For instance, on the all speaker measurement it just pushes the peak from 60hz to 85hz and on the right speaker it just pushes the null from 80hz to 120hz. Other than that it's pretty similar.

All speakers raw measurement

All Speakers smoothed 1/12 (Blue- Direct / Orange Stereo Corrected)

Left speaker smoothed 1/12 (Blue - Direct/ Purple Stereo Corrected)

Right Speaker (Blue - Direct/ Red Stereo Corrected)

Sub (Green - Direct / Purple Stereo Corrected)

 

[lookstoomuch]

Do you have the app to help give finer control? My comments / experience:

1. Disable midrange compensation (app is required for this)
2. Only use Audyssey for EQ'ing the room , i.e. below 400hz (again, app required). I've found if what you are after is open / spacious sound, using Audyssey across the whole range (for me) gives a "tighter" sound.
3. I do prefer dynamic volume / eq used in moderation

 

[Rednaxela]

Would something like this help?

 

[BullBuchanan]

Do you have the app to help give finer control? My comments / experience:

1. Disable midrange compensation (app is required for this)
2. Only use Audyssey for EQ'ing the room , i.e. below 400hz (again, app required). I've found if what you are after is open / spacious sound, using Audyssey across the whole range (for me) gives a "tighter" sound.
3. I do prefer dynamic volume / eq used in moderation

Yes, I have the app.

1. Midrange compensation was off by default. turned it on and off just to be sure.
2. I have it set to 500hz, but i don't imagine there's much difference there

 

[BullBuchanan]

Would something like this help?

Perhaps! I'll give it a look. Thanks!