Audyssey MultEQ Discussion Thread

**youravhandyman** · **10-31-08, 11:10 PM**

I'm not going to start my time on this forum getting into a negative discussion about calibration options and equipment. Now this may be stirring the pot when I say this, but I do have a full Sencore kit for my video calibration and no client has been impressed with that name brand. I think my job as a calibrator is not only to properly calibrate their theater, but to educate the customer as to how I am improving their theater and why. With the customer's selection of an Audyssey equipped product from me they have made a great step towards their satisfaction. Anything I can do to provide the ultimate experience for my client would be the least I should do. So if that does include shareware, I'll use it. Once I learn how, of course. That's where you all come in for me

But I will always suggest an Audyssey Pro calibration. I have a kit to pay for, right?

**youravhandyman** · **11-03-08, 09:25 PM**

Boy, can I kill a thread or what?

**Wayne A. Pflughaupt** · **11-03-08, 10:34 PM**

I think I hold the record for that...

Regards,
Wayne

**DavidMW** · **01-17-09, 09:33 PM**

Watch out, Newbie blasting in!

With my new Marantz SR 7001 I have finally been able to enter the world of Audyssey goodness. This receiver only has the MultEQ without the extra goodies, so I am limited. Am looking into getting a Behringer ECM8000 mic just to test with REW, we'll see.

I like what I hear, clearly a cleaning up of midbass nastiness, bit more presence or clarity. In combination with the auto surround + THX I find music and TV/Movies to be quite engaging.

To my questions: Does the REW work with Digidesign MBox as a Mic pre interface? (I'm on Mac OSX) Could the Audyssey mic be used instead of buying a Behringer or is it not "flat" but calibrated to a particular curve? Does the Audyssey system incorporate something like the BBE technology to "time align" the different drivers in one's system? Are there any white papers known on the Audyssey system?

Many thanks for any thoughts. Peace, David

**mtbdudex** · **02-04-09, 01:49 PM**

I'm about 1 year late to this discussion....

Read all 4 pages of this thread, later I'll take/post my graphs in the other thread for that.

Prior to reading this thread I posted various Q's to "Chris", Audyssey CTO in their "Official" Audyssey thread @ avsforum.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post15722704 and http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post15723974

He answered http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post15729471

Quote:

Just to clarify, even if seat 5 has that big 50hz null Audyssey MultEQ would still have process for that position?

Yes, it should have no problem with it. What speaker is it on when it stops?

Quote:

2nd Q:
Other forums recommend adding 1 foot to sub distance for FBQ2496, however Audyssey MultEQ already takes into account that time delay and I don't have to do that, correct?

That's correct. If you measure through the FBQ then MultEQ measures the delay that it adds and compensates for it.

Quote:

3rd Q:
How much EQ/processing does Audyssey MultEQ do in the subwoofer area?
I have a nice slope/house curve for seat 3 via FBQ2496, would then Audyssey MultEQ flatten that out or leave it as is?

MultEQ is not about house curves and personal preferences. It measures each speaker and then applies a correction filter that will make that speaker play as close as possible to the curve used in mixing the content. For film, that is a flat curve in the bass with no slope.

Quote:

All my sub measurements were thru the Ext In, so no Audyssey EQ was measured.

OK. One big source of inaccuracy in low frequency measurements is taking them in one position. You will get a much better idea of what you will hear in the listening area if you can average the measurements. The averaging needs to be RMS (root mean square) and not simple arithmetic averaging in order to get meaningful results.

So, some here liked Audyssey Mult XT while some did not, that's the consensus?
Try it and if you like it use it instead of REW/BFD for sub? The YMMV applies so to speak?

**Bailman** · **02-27-09, 08:25 AM**

OK so I have tried and re-tried MultTEQ XT w/ mixed results. I always love what it does to the center channel, voices to be more specific. Well thats not entirely true. I also like what it does for my upper bass. It makes it less muddy still allowing a slight punch. Not like my old car audio system mind you, but the speakers aren't located 6 inches from my legs.

On the other hand it removes any life from my low end. Its dead. It isn't realistic. If I was to invite a bass player over with their equipment to play a section of what was loaded up in a DVD in my back yard it would be easy to demonstrate my claim. I'm not speaking about in room created bloat. I'm speaking about what I would label a natural musicality.

I've just about given up on Audyssey Mult XT for this reason. I guess there will be tweaks to this program so it will only mess with major nodes and suck outs. I want life back into my bass!!!! I want a flat recording to be using room gain and all its glorious effects. I just wish we didn't have the ugly side of our listening environments. Can we get a multi position EQ that doesn't remove room gain and only works on nodes? Why yes, I'm sure we can and will.

**Ayreonaut** · **02-27-09, 08:41 AM**

Well, you can put an equalizer between your receiver and subwoofer. Dial in any house curve you want after you run Audyssey. That's what I did, it's the best of both worlds.

**Wayne A. Pflughaupt** · **02-27-09, 07:49 PM**

Ditto that.

Nice to see you coming back around, Naut!

Regards,
Wayne

**Bailman** · **02-28-09, 11:38 AM**

Quote:

Ayreonaut wrote:

Well, you can put an equalizer between your receiver and subwoofer. Dial in any house curve you want after you run Audyssey. That's what I did, it's the best of both worlds.

This is what I will need to do. Break out that FBD again!

**brentsp** · **05-05-09, 11:02 AM**

Hey fellas, new to the forum. Have been a Audio enthusiast for many years and have just dived in the Audyssey feature a few months ago with my purchase of my Marantz SR8002. Years ago I predicted that there would be an internal processor that would do exactly what Audyssey is doing now but I always thought THX would be the one to do it first. With that said THX will probably come out with its own version of this.

First off, the MultiEQ is pretty cool but I can't say its a night and day difference in my system. I have to fish through the settings to really tell a difference in movies but its not much. It was to the point where I was doubting it was doing anything at all until I made a drastic preset setting with the mids cranked just to see if it was engaging. What I have yet to try is playing some pink/white noise and go through the settings. That may result in a bigger difference. I actually use the flat setting 99% of the time with THX for movies.

Personally I think there's not enough bands of EQ to get an accurate flat response but its better than nothing at all. Also, I don't see any manual adjustment or anything at all for that matter for the sub response but yet I'm seeing graphs here that supposedly Audyssey altered. Is this just done automatically and they just choose to not let us see what was actually adjusted? Where do you guys set your crossover? My was at 60hz but I changed it to 80hz.

Unfortunately, at least with the 8002 I can't use the MultiEQ nor can I use THX processing while watching bluray disc when using Dolby TruHD and DTS MA. All the other audio formats (DD, DDex, DTS, DTSes etc.) work fine and I'm able to use the MultiEQ with it. This is only when I'm bitstreaming from my player and the Marantz is decoding. The fix to this is letting my bluray player decode the new formats via PCM only then am I able to use the MultiEQ/THX with TruHD and MA. Strange but I think thats more of a Marantz thing than Audyssey's.

I think the ideal setup would be is to have a mono 31 band outboard eq (Art, Ashley, DBX, Samson etc.) for each speaker and use the REW program to see what needs to be adjusted. This is essentially what Audyssey is trying to do but I think its lacking IMO. This would take some time going back and forth until you had gotten a flat response but I think it would be worth it. With that said the average user would be flustered doing it this way and Audyssey has taken out the guess work for you.

**Kal Rubinson** · **05-05-09, 02:02 PM**

Quote:

brentsp wrote:

Personally I think there's not enough bands of EQ to get an accurate flat response but its better than nothing at all.

Why do you think that?

Quote:

Also, I don't see any manual adjustment or anything at all for that matter for the sub response but yet I'm seeing graphs here that supposedly Audyssey altered. Is this just done automatically and they just choose to not let us see what was actually adjusted? Where do you guys set your crossover? My was at 60hz but I changed it to 80hz.

You can change crossover frequencies and channel levels but nothing else without defeating Audyssey.

Quote:

Unfortunately, at least with the 8002 I can't use the MultiEQ nor can I use THX processing while watching bluray disc when using Dolby TruHD and DTS MA. All the other audio formats (DD, DDex, DTS, DTSes etc.) work fine and I'm able to use the MultiEQ with it. This is only when I'm bitstreaming from my player and the Marantz is decoding. The fix to this is letting my bluray player decode the new formats via PCM only then am I able to use the MultiEQ/THX with TruHD and MA. Strange but I think thats more of a Marantz thing than Audyssey's.

Definitely and the major reason why I was not very interested in the Marantz.

Quote:

I think the ideal setup would be is to have a mono 31 band outboard eq (Art, Ashley, DBX, Samson etc.) for each speaker and use the REW program to see what needs to be adjusted. This is essentially what Audyssey is trying to do but I think its lacking IMO.

Not quite. It is a parametric which is set based on multiple measurements and with attention to modal decays.

**brentsp** · **05-05-09, 02:45 PM**

Quote:

Kal Rubinson wrote:

Why do you think that?

Parametric only gives you limited number of frequencies to alter at one time. Yeah there may be 30 or so total frequencies to choose from but you can only alter 10 at a time sometimes less. 31 band gives you 31 bands of frequencies to alter. In Audyssey's case (at least with MultiEQ) you only have 9 bands 63hz, 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, 1khz, 2khz, 4khz, 8khz and 16khz. They chose those particular frequencies probably because those are usually the problem areas but what if you have a spike/dip at 10khz 70hz 350hz? You'll just have to live with it then because Audyssey is limited just to those given frequencies.

Quote:

Kal Rubinson wrote:

You can change crossover frequencies and channel levels but nothing else without defeating Audyssey.

You can change the small/large also without any effect, read below.

Quote:

audyssey wrote:

........ so the simple solution is to manually set the speakers to Small after the calibration is finished. When you do that, the crossover values that were found by MultEQ will be applied to all speakers and the bass will be properly redirected to the subwoofer. This manual step is a small inconvenience, but it doesn't have any negative effect on the performance of the room correction filters produced by MultEQ.

Chris Kyriakakis
Founder and CTO
Audyssey Laboratories

Quote:

Kal Rubinson wrote:

Definitely and the major reason why I was not very interested in the Marantz.

Yeah but its hard to beat the Marantz audio capabilities. I've done Denon 3802, 3808, Onkyo 906 and finally the 8002 and I'm not regretting it one bit.

**Kal Rubinson** · **05-05-09, 03:26 PM**

Quote:

brentsp wrote:

Parametric only gives you limited number of frequencies to alter at one time. Yeah there may be 30 or so total frequencies to choose from but you can only alter 10 at a time sometimes less.

Not so for this DSP-based multi-tap PEQ.

Quote:

In Audyssey's case (at least with MultiEQ) you only have 9 bands 63hz, 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, 1khz, 2khz, 4khz, 8khz and 16khz.

Aha! There's source of your misapprehensions. What you are describing is the limited graphic display of the Marantz (and most other Audyssey-based devices). That is not anything close to what Audyssey is doing. It is a mere suggestion.

Quote:

They chose those particular frequencies probably because those are usually the problem areas but what if you have a spike/dip at 10khz 70hz 350hz? You'll just have to live with it then because Audyssey is limited just to those given frequencies.

Nope. Audyssey has many filters. In fact, it has many more filters in the sub channel alone.

Quote:

You can change the small/large also without any effect, read below.

Yup. I include that under changing the crossover frequency from none to something.

Quote:

Yeah but its hard to beat the Marantz audio capabilities. I've done Denon 3802, 3808, Onkyo 906 and finally the 8002 and I'm not regretting it one bit.

Good. I have no argument with that, of course.

Kal

**SierraMikeBravo** · **05-12-09, 09:25 PM**

Kal is absolutely correct. What you are describing is a graphic EQ...which can work provided you have say at least 1/24th octave resolution...ok...I would go with 1/12 below 300 Hz. The beauty of parametric EQ is that it is NOT frequency limited. Whatever the bandwidth of the mode, you can adjust for it. However, resolution does play a part in this as well. Depending on the resolution of your paramteric EQ is how accurate of a bandwidth correction you can get without overshooting or undershooting. Most built in parametric EQ's are rudimentary at best and are around the resolution of human hearing (1/3 octave), but this really limits you. Audyssey takes the processing power of the DSP to map the frequency response. It allows for higher mapping where it is needed most at 300 Hz and below. Audyssey Pro allows for a higher level of resolution, or mapping below 300 Hz, which helps out tremendously. IMHO, there is a significant jump from MultEQ XT to Audyssey Pro...and then a pretty good leap to the outboard SoundEQ...for numerous reasons.

**Lordoftherings** · **05-16-09, 09:05 PM**

Quote:

SierraMikeBravo wrote:

Kal is absolutely correct. What you are describing is a graphic EQ...which can work provided you have say at least 1/24th octave resolution...ok...I would go with 1/12 below 300 Hz. The beauty of parametric EQ is that it is NOT frequency limited. Whatever the bandwidth of the mode, you can adjust for it. However, resolution does play a part in this as well. Depending on the resolution of your paramteric EQ is how accurate of a bandwidth correction you can get without overshooting or undershooting. Most built in parametric EQ's are rudimentary at best and are around the resolution of human hearing (1/3 octave), but this really limits you. Audyssey takes the processing power of the DSP to map the frequency response. It allows for higher mapping where it is needed most at 300 Hz and below. Audyssey Pro allows for a higher level of resolution, or mapping below 300 Hz, which helps out tremendously. IMHO, there is a significant jump from MultEQ XT to Audyssey Pro...and then a pretty good leap to the outboard SoundEQ...for numerous reasons.

Thank you for the nice explanation, Shawn.

Bob

**Kal Rubinson** · **05-16-09, 10:32 PM**

Quote:

SierraMikeBravo wrote:

Audyssey Pro allows for a higher level of resolution, or mapping below 300 Hz, which helps out tremendously. IMHO, there is a significant jump from MultEQ XT to Audyssey Pro...and then a pretty good leap to the outboard SoundEQ...for numerous reasons.

I do not believe this is true. Pro is only software and does not change the DSP capabilities of the hardware. It permits additional measurements, calculations and options but the resolution and mapping is inherent in the hardware.

Kal

**Lordoftherings** · **05-16-09, 10:52 PM**

Quote:

Kal Rubinson wrote:

I do not believe this is true. Pro is only software and does not change the DSP capabilities of the hardware. It permits additional measurements, calculations and options but the resolution and mapping is inherent in the hardware.

Kal

Hey Kal, thanks for the rectification.

Because, just like you, I also believe that you are absolutely right.

Bob

**Lordoftherings** · **05-23-09, 03:18 AM**

Any comments on this: http://www.emt.iis.fhg.de/projects/carrouso

Don't mean to be

, just an extension to something interesting.

Bob

**maxmercy** · **06-01-09, 02:34 PM**

Quote:

Bailman wrote:

OK so I have tried and re-tried MultTEQ XT w/ mixed results. I always love what it does to the center channel, voices to be more specific. Well thats not entirely true. I also like what it does for my upper bass. It makes it less muddy still allowing a slight punch. Not like my old car audio system mind you, but the speakers aren't located 6 inches from my legs.

On the other hand it removes any life from my low end. Its dead. It isn't realistic. If I was to invite a bass player over with their equipment to play a section of what was loaded up in a DVD in my back yard it would be easy to demonstrate my claim. I'm not speaking about in room created bloat. I'm speaking about what I would label a natural musicality.

I've just about given up on Audyssey Mult XT for this reason. I guess there will be tweaks to this program so it will only mess with major nodes and suck outs. I want life back into my bass!!!! I want a flat recording to be using room gain and all its glorious effects. I just wish we didn't have the ugly side of our listening environments. Can we get a multi position EQ that doesn't remove room gain and only works on nodes? Why yes, I'm sure we can and will.

Bailman,

MultEQ XT by itself gives you a flat response (or a 'movie' response with a high freq roll-off), which if you listen at lower volume levels, the bass does seem to be 'sucked out' and 'flat'. Our ears don't hear bass as well when we turn it down, so it must be boosted (remember 'loudness' controls on old receivers?). That's what house curves with REQ are all about, to giving you the same 'impact' as you would receive at a higher overall volume level.

Audyssey created a product called Dynamic EQ for just such a reason; most people do not listen at reference volume. How it works is detailed here:

Search google for "what is audyssey's dynamic eq and dynamic volume" you'll get a hit at electronic house that has an interview with Chris Kyriakis of audyssey where he explains in detail how they work.

basically, it applies a house curve moment by moment depending on how loud the content is at the time, and what the receiver's volume level is...I think it works very well for most films...

If you listen at reference level, you have no need for a house curve or dynamic eq (dynamic eq applies less boost as you turn up the receiver's volume). You are listening to the content as the director/sound mixer intended (not necessarily how YOU would like it, though). If you listen at more sane volumes, you can benefit by the boost in the lower freqs...

JSS

**eugovector** · **06-01-09, 02:44 PM**

Link to above article here: http://www.electronichouse.com/artic...ynamic_volume/

**ggallaway** · **07-17-09, 07:23 PM**

I have a 7.1 setup with NHT Superzero XU speakers and an MFW-15. I definatly like how Audyssey makes the soundstage, however it seems to really cut the output of the subwoofer. I am thinking that it is mainly doing this because the speakers are so small to get a decent blend it needs to bring it down a few notches, is this reasonable or should I be looking to fix it?

**tonyvdb** · **07-17-09, 11:04 PM**

Your are correct on both accounts however Audyssey will turn down the sub too much and you will need to turn it back up again it is a known "bug" if thats what it should be called. Do you know what the frequency response is of the NHT speakers?

**Kal Rubinson** · **07-18-09, 12:19 AM**

Quote:

tonyvdb wrote:

Your are correct on both accounts however Audyssey will turn down the sub too much and you will need to turn it back up again it is a known "bug" if thats what it should be called. Do you know what the frequency response is of the NHT speakers?

Known bug? Under what circumstances?

**ggallaway** · **07-18-09, 01:19 AM**

Quote:

tonyvdb wrote:

Your are correct on both accounts however Audyssey will turn down the sub too much and you will need to turn it back up again it is a known "bug" if thats what it should be called. Do you know what the frequency response is of the NHT speakers?

The NHT's are rated at -3db at 86hz so they don't quite get to the 80hz recommended by THX. the Onkyo puts them at 150 for the center and 150 for all the others as the crossover for the sub. is this normal? should I adjust these?

Thanks for your reply

**Kal Rubinson** · **07-18-09, 10:18 AM**

Quote:

ggallaway wrote:

The NHT's are rated at -3db at 86hz so they don't quite get to the 80hz recommended by THX. the Onkyo puts them at 150 for the center and 150 for all the others as the crossover for the sub. is this normal? should I adjust these?

Thanks for your reply

Clearly, 80Hz is inadequate for these (or vice versa). Ideally, one would actually measure the responses in-room but you might just experiment and try 100Hz. In terms of subwoofer localization (or lack thereof), this would be an improvement if the NHT's are up for it.

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