Excluding a speaker from Audyssey Correction

[Bimbleton]

Hello,

Recently got a Revel C208 Center and a second HSU VTF2. Spent much time correcting all the speakers to something that looked good (see pic). Surprise! The center sounded horrible -- way too much bass in dialogue, everyone sounded like they had a cold.

When I disabled Audyssey altogether (and bumped up the volume to compensate), dialogue was clear, crisp, and non-muddy. However, now my subs were untamed and all over the place. I tried limiting the center speaker's correction to 80Hz, but I think it still sounded less good than if everything was off (unsure if Dynamic EQ or Dynamic Volume were still on at this point).

So here's the dilemma -- I'd like to just correct the subwoofers for now, and have Audyssey MultEQ-X through Denon X3700H. Is there any way to perhaps exclude the Center from correction? Or should limiting the Center's correction to 80Hz do the trick? Or do I need a miniDSP HD? Thanks!

 

[Sputnik]

Limiting the center's correction in the Audyssey app should do the trick. Not sure how well dynamic eq will work after that, probably not great.

 

[Bimbleton]

The issue is, the lowest limit I can set for Audyssey correction is 80Hz; cannot go lower than that. Annoying! Wish I could just exclude a speaker.

 

[Macfox]

The issue is, the lowest limit I can set for Audyssey correction is 80Hz; cannot go lower than that. Annoying! Wish I could just exclude a speaker.

Is 80Hz the selected crossover frequency? If so, it makes sense, because no corrections above the crossover frequency would result in no corrections at all.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

View attachment 240609Hello,

Recently got a Revel C208 Center and a second HSU VTF2. Spent much time correcting all the speakers to something that looked good (see pic). Surprise! The center sounded horrible -- way too much bass in dialogue, everyone sounded like they had a cold.

When I disabled Audyssey altogether (and bumped up the volume to compensate), dialogue was clear, crisp, and non-muddy. However, now my subs were untamed and all over the place. I tried limiting the center speaker's correction to 80Hz, but I think it still sounded less good than if everything was off (unsure if Dynamic EQ or Dynamic Volume were still on at this point).

So here's the dilemma -- I'd like to just correct the subwoofers for now, and have Audyssey MultEQ-X through Denon X3700H. Is there any way to perhaps exclude the Center from correction? Or should limiting the Center's correction to 80Hz do the trick? Or do I need a miniDSP HD? Thanks!

There is a hack for Audyssey I use myself, to prevent it from applying it's own automatic correction. That way you can fully determine filter curves for each speaker individually without any additional auto-EQing by Audyssey.

 

[Dobbyisfree]

You can add custom eq to channels individually. Have you tried just lowering the bass frequencies in the centre channel? Then switch off auto levelling for that channel too.

If you are using dynamic eq then it boosts bass frequencies for all channels (including centre). Do you find if you watch something loud with deq switched off the centre sounds better?

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

You can add custom eq to channels individually. Have you tried just lowering the bass frequencies in the centre channel? Then switch off auto levelling for that channel too.

If you are using dynamic eq then it boosts bass frequencies for all channels (including centre). Do you find if you watch something loud with deq switched off the centre sounds better?

The custom EQ curve is only imposing a target curve upon Audyssey's automatic "correction". Something completely different.

 

[Dobbyisfree]

The custom EQ curve is only imposing a target curve upon Audyssey's automatic "correction". Something completely different.

OK, I view it as MultEQ-X gives the opportunity to input the exact response you want from any of the channels. It then adds filters to as closely represent that response that you want. If you want less bass from your centre channel, then you input that to your demanded response, that's why the feature is there.

As long as auto-levelling is switched off, that will then give a lower bass response to the centre relative to all the other channels.

If you have REW, you could even measure the centre without EQ, which indicates the bass response you want in the centre, then you can input that into MultEQ-X (it accept REW data) and get what you want.

Although, as I said, you weren't sure if DEQ or DV were on or not. And, my exact experience with DEQ is that it can boost low frequencies too much for voice.

There was talk of Audyssey enabling DEQ to be switched off in certain channels (most people's moan is the boost it gives to surround channels) but this was before the February update so not sure if that will happen anymore.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Did I write about MultEQ-X?

 

[Dobbyisfree]

Did I write about MultEQ-X?

No, but @Bimbleton is the one who asked the question and he/she has MultEQ-X, as they say in their post.

Apologies, that is who I was trying to help, as that is who asked the question. I assume you are trying to help them too with the application that they are using.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Does MultEQ-X allow to switch off correction, as was asked?

 

[Dobbyisfree]

Does MultEQ-X allow to switch off correction, as was asked?

Initial answer is no. I'm not aware of any standard way of turning off filter.

BUT, just had a little play!

I thought to have a go a the filter frequency range in the "filter settings" tab. Interesting, you bring down the upper limit to a number lower than the lower limit. Thereby, as you can see in the image below, it gives a completely flat filter. I'm not sure if anything weird happens if you try to send this but Bimbleton could definitely try it out.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Initial answer is no. I'm not aware of any standard way of turning off filter.

That was a rhetorical question...

BUT, just had a little play!

I thought to have a go a the filter frequency range in the "filter settings" tab. Interesting, you bring down the upper limit to a number lower than the lower limit. Thereby, as you can see in the image below, it gives a completely flat filter. I'm not sure if anything weird happens if you try to send this but Bimbleton could definitely try it out.

View attachment 286283

And then no personal filter curve can be applied...

But hey, why use a free hack with MultEQ, when one can spend his money on expensive MultEQ-X, bound to the receiver, with much less functionality.

 

[restorer-john]

The issue is, the lowest limit I can set for Audyssey correction is 80Hz; cannot go lower than that. Annoying! Wish I could just exclude a speaker.

Just disconnect the speaker and then reconnect it after the Audyssey fiasco has done its 'job'. Then tweak levels to suit.

 

[OCA]

You can replace all 8 measured impulse responses of the center channel in the MultEQ Editor app with {1,0,0,.....,0} (16,383 zeros followed by 1) in any json editor and Audyssey will not apply any correction to that speaker with already "perfect" response.