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Audyssey Room EQ Review

KKoen

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bobbooo

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And once more, that is exactly what I addressed in my posts. There is no misunderstanding on my part whatsoever.

Then I don't understand how unpredictable movement of the mic during recording of each single chirp would not affect the result (I was thinking via slight Doppler frequency shifting due to the relative motion between sound source and mic), unless this effect is very small, or Audyssey accounts for this (not sure how that would be possible).

By the way, maybe you could test a Leslie speaker (which utilises the Doppler effect) using your Klippel system at some point :D
 
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alanca3

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Mathias Johansson, CEO of Dirac Research, offers an informative paper here. It's not about Audyssey in particular, but a good read nonetheless.

From the intro:
In this note I discuss some issues in filter design for equalization of sound systems. The emphasis is on rationale, not on experiments, and I will focus on a few common misunderstandings. I will briefly describe the basic concepts used in sound equalization, such as FIR and IIR filters, minimum and linear phase and present basic mathematical facts as well as give a background to the philosophy behind the Dirac Live approach. To limit the length of the text, I assume some basic familiarity with the topics covered. I will however refrain from the popular trend in some engineering periodicals of hiding bad ideas behind complex-looking equations. As already mentioned, the emphasis is on the logic of different approaches to equalization rather than experiments. Logic can be checked by the reader, whereas experiments carried out by others always leave room for doubt concerning experiment conditions. Furthermore, as probability theory teaches us, one lucky experiment shows nothing about the underlying rationale, but the underlying rationale will be much more indicative of future experimental outcomes.
 

martijn86

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I bought this to solve my microphone attachment issues. A few EURs

View attachment 59696

View attachment 59697

And yes, the USB cable was previously damaged when the stack of books/boxes/whatever I used before collapsed. I have others, it's just there for illustration purposes :):)
You may want to consider mounting your microphone on a shock mount. Even a cheap universal one like this (https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B074V984VY/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_qI.NEbBZE0E3W) can detach the mic from any vibrations in the floor or tripod.
 

martijn86

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By the way, maybe you could test a Leslie speaker (which utilises the Doppler effect) using your Klippel system at some point :D
That would require measuring a time span instead of a moment in time. The complexity of that will definitely give a certain Klippel owner a headache.
 

martijn86

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Quick tip when using the Audyssey app - connect a bluetooth mouse to your phone and use the mouse to set your curves, it's much easier to be precise when your finger isn't in the way.
I still think they should have added the possibility to tap a point an let you manually type in the center-frequency, bandwidth (Q) and level adjustment.
 

Lbstyling

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EQ never boosts dips more than 6-8dB. If your speaker needs 30dB boost you solve it with buying a better speaker, not with EQ.

Yes it does. To be clear, you mean your particular software is set to limit this.

Room modes have no interest in your 6-8db limits. Especially below 200hz. Better sound requires more EQ than this in a good portion of homes, and this would require better SINAD for AVRs than alternatives.

It still doesn't change the fact that most AVRs buzz audiably.

I'm running digital active JBL Everest clones. Was not aware they are considered so poor!
 
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audioBliss

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Audyssey XT32 is a good start for budget AVR:s but Dirac Live is in my opinion just on another level. NAD tried with their budget offering, too bad they failed on the design of the hardware as seen on this site. If Denon were to move to Dirac Live it would disrupt the whole market.

I'm pretty sure they won't for a very long time though since they probably think Dirac Live is too complicated for their intended customers. But then again if you want any descent result at all with any room correction it gets at least a little complicated.
 

QMuse

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Yes it does. To be clear, you mean your particular software is set to limit this.

Room modes have no interest in your 6-8db limits.

I'm using rePhase to mannualy create my filters and while it doesn't impose any limits pushing dips more than 6-8dB is simply counterprorductive and may lead to undesired effects. That is the reason why automated EQ solutions like Acourate, Dirac etc never do it.
 

audioBliss

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Yep, Audysses and ARC don't do time domain corrections, Acourate and Dirac do. But I wouldn't worry too much because of it as frequency domain correction is the thing that really matters while time domain correction is just a cherry on top of the cake. ;)

Do you listen to how music images?
 

Grandzoltar

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Remember he only tested one speaker. How much movement is really going on during one round of whaap whaap whaap whaap. It measures to the .1 foot which is greater then a inch. Move an object in your hand just one inch each direction and notice how much movement that is.

If he measured multiple speakers where measurements can last 20 min and the phase aligning of each speaker is being measured by cumulative distance plots there is more room for error but.

One speaker "come on" unless amrim is a heavy drinker and he forgot to slam a half gallon of vodka prior to testing and has the shakes it will be fine.
 

Francis Vaughan

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Audyssey XT32 is a good start for budget AVR:s but Dirac Live is in my opinion just on another level. NAD tried with their budget offering, too bad they failed on the design of the hardware as seen on this site. If Denon were to move to Dirac Live it would disrupt the whole market.

Dirac would need to offer much more attractive licensing terms. And that brings a huge raft of dangers to Dirac. In the market they are a premium solution at a premium price. Audyssey and Dirac co-exist with clear market differentiation. If Dirac picked a fight with Audyssey, I don't think they would come off well. Audyssey will have deeper pockets, and by dropping licensing costs Dirac would be bleeding themselves of revenue. If they offered cheaper licenses to Denon, all their current customers would demand the same. Picking such a fight would probably end up with Dirac broke. There is no up-side for Dirac here. They would only go this route if they thought they could drive Audyssey out. And that would be a very brave and stupid move.
 

Francis Vaughan

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I'm not sure any human can switch that capabilty off. Can you? :D

Are you trying to say that time domain (phase) corrections improve imaging?
Some people delight in the imaging, it is part of what they listen for. Others, it is just part of the wash.

There is clear evidence that up to about 1kHz the ear/brain can process time differences between the ears, and thus phase information can hold some localisation cues. But it is limited. And apart from binaural dummy head, and pure ORTF and Blumlein pairs recordings, there is scant retained phase information in available recordings. Pan pots are the default imaging device on a mixing desk.

By the time your speaker crossover network has had its effect, phase information is pretty scrambled. But you can unwind it. I suspect Dirac does.

Overall, you might expect there to be a change for the better in imaging. But I would want to see some proper tests.
 

QMuse

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Some people delight in the imaging, it is part of what they listen for. Others, it is just part of the wash.

There is clear evidence that up to about 1kHz the ear/brain can process time differences between the ears, and thus phase information can hold some localisation cues. But it is limited. And apart from binaural dummy head, and pure ORTF and Blumlein pairs recordings, there is scant retained phase information in available recordings. Pan pots are the default imaging device on a mixing desk.

By the time your speaker crossover network has had its effect, phase information is pretty scrambled. But you can unwind it. I suspect Dirac does.

Overall, you might expect there to be a change for the better in imaging. But I would want to see some proper tests.

Oh, I know what he's talking about, I was just kidding. :)

I did time domain correction so the phase looks nice, I'm just not sure I would be able to tell the difference in the blind test.

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audioBliss

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The amount of correction needed in the time domain would depend upon how good the speakers are to begin with. Why I asked is because a lot of people just see music listening as you listen to a wall of sound and spend most of their time thinking about if the bass is good, is the treble neutral etc... It is so much more than that with proper speakers, setup correctly, in a treated room. With good recordings I have music from floor to ceiling and all of front to back of the room. It sounds like surround sound basically- but with stereo.

I have been surprised when people have listened and asked me to turn off the center channel when playing a song with mainly vocals..yeah it's already off, it's the phantom image. These have been people who own proper speakers at home. So sometimes I wonder what people are doing.
 

QMuse

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There is clear evidence that up to about 1kHz the ear/brain can process time differences between the ears, and thus phase information can hold some localisation cues. But it is limited. And apart from binaural dummy head, and pure ORTF and Blumlein pairs recordings, there is scant retained phase information in available recordings. Pan pots are the default imaging device on a mixing desk.

By the time your speaker crossover network has had its effect, phase information is pretty scrambled. But you can unwind it. I suspect Dirac does.

Overall, you might expect there to be a change for the better in imaging. But I would want to see some proper tests.

So, now that I've corrected phase mess that passive crossover was doing (and made some phase alignement betweeen speakers and some adjsutment in phase at HF to bring it to zero) what am I supposed to hear as an improvement?

I can't really localize anything below 150Hz anyway. Are you saying that above 1kHz my phase alignement made no audible improvements and that all that is improved is in the 150-1kHz range?
 

QMuse

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The amount of correction needed in the time domain would depend upon how good the speakers are to begin with. Why I asked is because a lot of people just see music listening as you listen to a wall of sound and spend most of their time thinking about if the bass is good, is the treble neutral etc... It is so much more than that with proper speakers, setup correctly, in a treated room. With good recordings I have music from floor to ceiling and all of front to back of the room. It sounds like surround sound basically- but with stereo.

I have been surprised when people have listened and asked me to turn off the center channel when playing a song with mainly vocals..yeah it's already off, it's the phantom image. These have been people who own proper speakers at home. So sometimes I wonder what people are doing.

Well, in my case the soundstage I'm hearing with good stereo recordings is of a full height and width of app 120 deg. I'm nost really sure how could it even be possible that sound is coming 90 deg aside from me or even behind me? There is no wall behind me but 5 meters of open space and then windows with thick drapery that don't reflect much backwards.
 

QMuse

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The amount of correction needed in the time domain would depend upon how good the speakers are to begin with.

In my case the most mess with phase was due to passive LR24 crossover. Everything else was minor, expect some phase difference at LF between speakers due to difference in their postioning so reflections were causing phase mismatch and thus cancellation in LF response at some frequencies.
 
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