Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)

[chych7]

Hi

After fussing with MSO, I got this response with plenty of headroom..


IME a very good response... I checked it several times and it is consistent .. The results are from MSO entered in to the miniDSP 2x4 HD.
This "subwoofer" is then presented to the AVR...
I assumed that the response measured by Audyssey would be the one as seen aboove... Uh THis is what seems to be "seen " by Audyssey:

That, to me is very strange, It should measure a curve at least vaguely similar to the one from REW, this is after all the response of the sub after MSO.
And Audyssey added this correction:



I am not sure I understand what is going on...
Why would Audyssey, subwoofer measurements be so different from REW's? The "subwoofer" is supposed to be flat, as seen from the REW graph , thus Audyssey should have measured it as such , since the effect of the room are mitigated by MSO... By the way, exact same position from both microphones.



It sounds good to me.. Very similar to my reference the HifiMan HE6SEv2, Harman-Equ-ed.

I will later disable Dynamic EQ and measure to "see" what gives... In the meantime, any explanation? From the collective?

Repeating this. MultEQ-X is a very powerful software, the risks of misuse are considerable, when not fully understood or improperly used.

Peace.

Peace

Personally I've never had good experience running Audyssey after MSO; I always run MSO after Audyssey as it can screw things up. This is especially true if your MSO calibration is across multiple rows, which Audyssey is not capable of accounting for.

 

[FrantzM]

You are right, something is very wrong.. I almost looks like MSO is disabled when you run Audyssey...
Do you also have a REW measurement without MSO?

You may have a point...

I have a Logitech Harmony System and ... I may have an issue of the miniDSP reverting to a different (factorty) setting upon "seeing" some IR command, I remember (vaguely) that I did enter the miniDSP 2x4 in one of the activities... I am at work right now so .. it will have to wait the afternoon but .. this could be it.. I bet this is "it". I will let you know. Thanks again for pointing this out.

Peace.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I seem to have a very different issue:\\For some odd reasons. No filter is applied to my 2x4HD outputs. Mo matter what I input to the SminiDSP in term of Parameters.. At most the output will decrease, else no filter values seems to work...Very strange.

Will contact miniDSP. my 2x4HD was working well, up to yesterday. e,g, I was able to measure the MSO results with the miniDSP. No longer Am I able to ..
Any pointer.. miniDSP gurus?

I use their latest GUI...

 

[sweetchaos]

Factory reset, if you can.
Re-configure.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi


Not sure what was happening. Turned off everyhting including computer then , re-measured through REW after MSO massaging . Here are the measurements:

Responses for 2-SUBS

Green is before MSO... Blue is after...

And finally, as seen by Audyssey...

That makes sense. Microphone was handheld, close to the UMik-1.. Responses are what I expected: similar. There were some car and construction machinery noise in the neighborhood.... Now waiting for the noise to abate.. to calibrate. I expect good things

Thanks all

Peace.

P.S. MultEQ-X is a solid software that Audyssey keeps on improving; now, if they can make it work with multiple subs..

Peace

 

[Hayabusa]

Hi


Not sure what was happening. Turned off everyhting including computer then , re-measured through REW after MSO massaging . Here are the measurements:

Responses for 2-SUBSView attachment 323628

Green is before MSO... Blue is after...

And finally, as seen by Audyssey...

View attachment 323630

That makes sense. Microphone was handheld, close to the UMik-1.. Responses are what I expected: similar. There were some car and construction machinery noise in the neighborhood.... Now waiting for the noise to abate.. to calibrate. I expect good things

Thanks all

Peace.

P.S. MultEQ-X is a solid software that Audyssey keeps on improving; now, if they can make it work with multiple subs..

Peace

and next time: use mic stand

 

[FrantzM]

and next time: use mic stand

I always do, however, I needed a quick check-up to (casually) measure the response from the subs, thus those handheld measurements. BTW, MSO is surprising, response around the in a circle of 50 cm in diameter, is almost the same... Highly recommended but a beast to master and , tedious.. Discipline and order are required with MSO..
Still am befuddled by what was happening, TBH.

Peace.

P.S. It is IMO, close to impossible to obtain good bass response whithout measurements or a DRC. I am at a loss to see people investing ton of money on subs without measuring them or at least using some kind of room correction.. Some subwoofers have built-in EQ.. For the most part these are poor substitute to something like a miniDSP 2x4 or equivalent. A different subject.
Now, I encourage all of you to just to make a contribution to the REW and MSO developers. Worth it. The amount of work, knowledge and time put in these software has to be extraordinary. ... WoW!!!

 

[phn]

Having now upgraded my laptop I was about to pull the trigger on this one. But hey, thanks, I can wait a bit (25% off)!

https://audyssey.com/2023/11/08/2023-black-friday-promo/

 

[Jack B]

Forgive my ignorance, but I need advice before springing for Multeq-X. A couple years ago I downloaded REW and bought a UMIK-1. Hooked it up to my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1700), fired up REW and did some measurements, only to find that the in-room measurement fell off VERY rapidly below 50 Hz. I later tried it with my old desktop machine and it (correctly) goes down to 20 Hz and below. The laptop (HDMI out, USB in), is limiting the frequency response. If I need to buy a better laptop before I buy Audyssey Multeq-X, how can I tell if a prospective laptop will have full frequency response or not, or is there something I can do to the Dell laptop to make it behave?

I'm reasonably technical, but totally computer un-savvy. Thanks for any advice, including where to take my silly-ass question if not here.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Forgive my ignorance, but I need advice before springing for Multeq-X. A couple years ago I downloaded REW and bought a UMIK-1. Hooked it up to my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1700), fired up REW and did some measurements, only to find that the in-room measurement fell off VERY rapidly below 50 Hz. I later tried it with my old desktop machine and it (correctly) goes down to 20 Hz and below. The laptop (HDMI out, USB in), is limiting the frequency response. If I need to buy a better laptop before I buy Audyssey Multeq-X, how can I tell if a prospective laptop will have full frequency response or not, or is there something I can do to the Dell laptop to make it behave?

I'm reasonably technical, but totally computer un-savvy. Thanks for any advice, including where to take my silly-ass question if not here.

In case of MultiEQX the actual frequency sweeps and measurements are not done by your laptop or PC (as in the case of REW) but by the AVR. The PC only triggers the measurements and downloads the results for the compilation of the respective filters/corrections.

 

[Jack B]

Thanks very much! So it wouldn't matter if I used the old desktop machine (that I am presently using with REW), or the damn Dell laptop, to use Multeq-X? That is a relief. Now, if anybody could advise me if I can "fix" the laptop, it would be icing on the cake (though probably off-topic here...apologies.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Thanks very much! So it wouldn't matter if I used the old desktop machine (that I am presently using with REW), or the damn Dell laptop, to use Multeq-X? That is a relief. Now, if anybody could advise me if I can "fix" the laptop, it would be icing on the cake (though probably off-topic here...apologies.

Correct, but check the software compatibility of your old PC as MultiEQX requires at least WIndows10 ( via MS App Store) to my knowledge (but pls double check). I haven’t used mine for a while once Setup was completed.

For REW see the respective threads here, where I am sure someone can help. The programmer of REW is also a forum member.

 

[phn]

It is my understanding that with REW, which is a Java based app, some users have experienced issues with having drivers working to run UMIK-1 properly. It is the app + UMIK that do the measurements. With MultEQ-X, it is the AVR that does the measuements with the supplied mic, then transfers the data to computer app for computations and parameters. MultEQ-X should thus be less dependent on your laptop setup.

Edit Oops already answered, the replies did not load for me first for some reason.

 

[Jack B]

Correct, but check the software compatibility of your old PC as MultiEQX requires at least WIndows10 ( via MS App Store) to my knowledge (but pls double check). I haven’t used mine for a while once Setup was completed.

For REW see the respective threads here, where I am sure someone can help. The programmer of REW is also a forum member.

Thanks!

 

[Jack B]

It is my understanding that with REW, which is a Java based app, some users have experienced issues with having drivers working to run UMIK-1 properly. It is the app + UMIK that do the measurements. With MultEQ-X, it is the AVR that does the measuements with the supplied mic, then transfers the data to computer app for computations and parameters. MultEQ-X should thus be less dependent on your laptop setup.

Edit Oops already answered, the replies did not load for me first for some reason.

Thank you.

 

[phn]

Pulled the trigger, will have the house for myself this Sunday. If you happen at our street, we're the house with lots of plop coming out of it! Do come in and say hi

 

[phn]

Oh but I am liking what I am seeing. And hearing. My listening space is a room next to our living room with double doors at the right side of the listening position. So far I have only ever measured it with a "movie setting", with those double doors closed, side curtains on, and screen down. For some reason I had not bothered to measure it with those double doors open ,right curtain open, and screen up. That is after all how I mostly listen to music, I don't need that immersion as with watching movies.

Acoustics are then very different, and thus perhaps not a suprise but the music setting measurements took me, well, by a surprise. Such improvement, too bad I did not have comparable previous measurements.

That said, the first things I did while playing around was removing the MRC as always, but now adding my own MRC filter with a 5kHz dip per how my Proacs have their crossover. Because I could. More beneficially, I then set Preset 1 with Audyssey Reference and Flat curves, but Preset 2 with Oliver/Toole and Harman curves for some A/B testing.

I recall seeing it discussed here as well in that Toole and Harman curves in a way are "old fashioned" in that for instance with Audyssey we get the Dynamic EQ to compensate for psychoacoustics, so why have a curve that adds bass with that? Well because it does sound "better"? I listen and watch movies with varying volume, so for me DEQ has always been a godsent once I understood, sort of, how it works. Now, with Toole and Harman curves, I also realised that when keeping DEQ yet around I need to adjust the reference level offset properly, to -10db in my case. With that tweak, and after listening to various familiar tunes, I am at least for now sticking with the Toole curve. Harman was too hot for me, but for movie preset I will give it another go. We do love our bass in the movies.

For me, very much worth the cost so far. I love how I am able to have four target curves now with two each per preset for easy A/B testing with multiple options.. Very easy to tweak with filters to try out different things as well.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Oh but I am liking what I am seeing. And hearing. My listening space is a room next to our living room with double doors at the right side of the listening position. So far I have only ever measured it with a "movie setting", with those double doors closed, side curtains on, and screen down. For some reason I had not bothered to measure it with those double doors open ,right curtain open, and screen up. That is after all how I mostly listen to music, I don't need that immersion as with watching movies.

Acoustics are then very different, and thus perhaps not a suprise but the music setting measurements took me, well, by a surprise. Such improvement, too bad I did not have comparable previous measurements.

That said, the first things I did while playing around was removing the MRC as always, but now adding my own MRC filter with a 5kHz dip per how my Proacs have their crossover. Because I could. More beneficially, I then set Preset 1 with Audyssey Reference and Flat curves, but Preset 2 with Oliver/Toole and Harman curves for some A/B testing.

I recall seeing it discussed here as well in that Toole and Harman curves in a way are "old fashioned" in that for instance with Audyssey we get the Dynamic EQ to compensate for psychoacoustics, so why have a curve that adds bass with that? Well because it does sound "better"? I listen and watch movies with varying volume, so for me DEQ has always been a godsent once I understood, sort of, how it works. Now, with Toole and Harman curves, I also realised that when keeping DEQ yet around I need to adjust the reference level offset properly, to -10db in my case. With that tweak, and after listening to various familiar tunes, I am at least for now sticking with the Toole curve. Harman was too hot for me, but for movie preset I will give it another go. We do love our bass in the movies.

For me, very much worth the cost so far. I love how I am able to have four target curves now with two each per preset for easy A/B testing with multiple options.. Very easy to tweak with filters to try out different things as well.

View attachment 327716

Good. Great start.

For Toole your target curve seems too flat from 2kHz on up. Remember an anechoically flat speaker results in a 0.5 to 1dB/octave roll off in a room (depending on room and listener position).

I would look at the non EQed measurements and see how much they roll off and then add the appropriate tilt to your target curve. Or alternatively dont EQ at all past Schroeder which is about 200 to 300 Hz give or take.

Just because your speaker has its crossover at 5kHz. Have you verified that it actually needs that MRC correction by looking at some quasi anechoic measurements of them? Many modern speakers don’t have that flaw (BBC dip) any more and therefore don’t need MRC correction. It is odd that Dennon still keeps it as a default.

 

[phn]

^ Thanks for the tips. I will continue tweaking what is to be my "house curve" for sure. The Proac MRC was for laughs and as a practice run. I very muich doubt it is needed, I have used Audyssey without MRC all along.

 

[phn]

^^ So, trying out your tip for a slight roll-off from 2kHz up, I tried out a 1st order high shelf filter for Ref only, deselected the Harman curve altogther, and ticked Toole for both Ref and Flat. So Ref with the added roll-off at the high end. I have to say I like it better now.

While I realise I have entered the realm of psychoacoustics well and truly, I mean, that is what Toole was about in the first place right. Even with Dynamic EQ in play. Interesting.

Trying out, learning. But man if this did not take Audyssey to a completely another level.