RHTI 40: Popcorn Hour A-110/B-110, Anchor Bay DVDO Edge, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Frank Black "A

[eugovector]

RHTI 40: Popcorn Hour A-110/B-110, Anchor Bay DVDO Edge, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Frank Black "A Dog in the Sand"

Episode 040 (9/1/2008)
«» Questions to ask when Upgrading
«» Popcorn Hour A-110/B-110 Video Review
«» Showcase: Anchor Bay DVDO Edge
«» Movie Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
«» Frank Black: Dog in the Sand

[jaysonbarnett]

Just to let you know Polk has made everything right and all my speakers are up and running again. I just have a question about my center channel? I have set it to 75db according to my SPL Meter but the dialogue is way to low. Should i turn the center channel up to say 80 or 85DB? This lack a dailogue is only with dolby digital or dts soundtracks.

[eugovector]

Kudos to Polk.

[jaddie]

What are you using as your test signal source?

[eugovector]

jaddie wrote:

What are you using as your test signal source?

To Jayson...

(I think the answer is Blu-ray over HDMI, if I recall our conversation). How about it Jayson?

[bobgpsr]

eugovector wrote:

RHTI 40: Popcorn Hour A-110/B-110, Anchor Bay DVDO Edge, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Frank Black "A Dog in the Sand"

Episode 040 (9/1/2008)
«» Questions to ask when Upgrading
«» Popcorn Hour A-110/B-110 Video Review
«» Showcase: Anchor Bay DVDO Edge
«» Movie Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
«» Frank Black: Dog in the Sand

I also ordered one of those, them there, new-fangled A-110 Popcorn Hour players to connect to my old 34" direct view CRT RCA HDTV via component video and SPDIF audio to my Yammie AVR and local network hard-wired 100 bps ethernet to the A-110. We will see how it goes.

[jaysonbarnett]

Sorry i have been sick. I use the receivers internal tones to calibrate. I have avia 2 on blueray coming on netflix. Audyssey set the levels to 72 db so i boosted the levels to 75db. When i sit in my sweet spot on the couch do i point the spl meter up or at the speaker?

[jaddie]

SPL meters use omnidirectional mics, so no, you don't point it at each speaker.

More questions:
How is the meter set? A or C, Fast or Slow?
How many calibration points did you use when you set up Audyssey?
Did you put the Audyssey mic on some sort of stand so that the mic is in a real listening position, or just lay it on the seat?

Is your center speaker different from your L/R speakers?

[jaysonbarnett]

I had it on c weight and slow. I put the mic on a tripod and used all 8 mic positions (ear level and away from walls). I also used the tripod for the spl meter. That was my question should i point the spl meter up or forward?
here are some pics of the front sound stage http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/show...p?userid=85839

[jaddie]

This sounds more like a receiver setting issue than a calibration issue. So, more questions:
What's the receiver?
How do you connect from the disc player to the receiver?
What's the disc player?
When playing a disc that has the low-center problem, what surround mode is the receiver in?

It would also be helpful to know what individual channel levels the receiver picks at after Audyssey completed. There should be a menu that shows speaker level settings. You're probably using it to adjust your center.

So far, you've done it right. Don't worry too much about pointing the SPL meter. It should just be held in one position, not moved to point at speakers. Forward is fine, so long as it's away from other objects by a foot or so.

Just to confirm we have the symptoms... Audyssey calibration, the you confirm level settings...with what signal? And even though all channels look matched, Dolby Digital and DTS sound tracks have low dialog. Are they 5.1 channel sound tracks?

Might be useful to run a channel level check with a THX Optimizer disc. You can find Optimzer on any THX mastered DVD. Run the audio test and use your SPL meter to check it.

[jaddie]

Sorry, Jayson. I should read more carefully. Found your gear listing on the Polk page. I assume its a Toshiba HD-A3 player, and is connected via HDMI.

So my questions that remain are: What surround mode is the receiver in when you have the problem?
After you calibrate Audyssey, what signal do you use to confirm channel levels with the SPL meter? What's shown on the "Speaker Levels" menu page? What's the result after cal, and when observing the meter using the THX Optimizer?
What's shown on the Make sure when you run Optimizer that it's playing the Dolby Digital 5.1 track, and that THX processing is on.

One more thing to observe: Ignoring the SPL meter, run Optimizer. Listen critically to the band-limited noise as it goes around from speaker to speaker. Note the timbre, or character of the noise in each channel, and note if there are any radical differences. In an ideal THX system, the timbre of each speaker should match. Yours is not a THX system in the speaker department, so there will probably be differences. Major differences should be noted.

I see some possible causes, but I'm holding out for more data before I incriminate myself.

[jaysonbarnett]

Sorry, Jayson. I should read more carefully. Found your gear listing on the Polk page. I assume its a Toshiba HD-A3 player, and is connected via HDMI.
(SOrry Update I Now Have A Sony BDP-s350 Blue-ray)

So my questions that remain are: What surround mode is the receiver in when you have the problem?(THX CInema Ultra and Dolby digital EX, and DTS HD Master)

After you calibrate Audyssey, what signal do you use to confirm channel levels with the SPL meter?
(Internal test tones from the receiver)
What's shown on the "Speaker Levels" menu page?
(after audyssey most speakers excluding the subs where at -5 to -6 and this was at 72 db on spl meter. Then using internal test tones i brought the levels up to -2 and -3 and center to +0.5 and this made the spl meter read 75db)
What's the result after cal, and when observing the meter using the THX Optimizer?
(Im unsure what THX optimizer is?)
What's shown on the Make sure when you run Optimizer that it's playing the Dolby Digital 5.1 track, and that THX processing is on.

One more thing to observe: Ignoring the SPL meter, run Optimizer. Listen critically to the band-limited noise as it goes around from speaker to speaker. Note the timbre, or character of the noise in each channel, and note if there are any radical differences. In an ideal THX system, the timbre of each speaker should match. Yours is not a THX system in the speaker department, so there will probably be differences. Major differences should be noted.
(actually Polk rti series speakers are thx certified(THX Select) but polk did not want to pay all the royalties, and all my polk are from the same series so the timbre should be fine. I do notice that my rear right sounds a little different with the test tones, but i checked the speaker and all works well. Here are some more pics with my old tv stand but you can see my speaker placement
http://s304.photobucket.com/albums/nn182/jaysonbarnett/
As you can see i got lucky with the pilar to hold my right surround otherwise i would not have a place for it)
I see some possible causes, but I'm holding out for more data before I incriminate myself.
(thank you in advance)

[jaddie]

THX Optimizer is a home theater calibration program found on any THX DVD. So any of the Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones movies, and lots of others have it on the DVD somewhere. It's usually found in the "set up" or "options" menu. There's a set of audio tests and video tests. You can run them with no meter at all, but an SPL meter helps you to get things dead on. The video tests are best done with a pair of THX glasses, which you can buy from THX for a couple of bucks.

You should run the audio Optimizer test with your SPL meter. It's designed to work with an SPL meter. Follow the on-screen instructions.

You should not assume your SPL meter is calibrated!!!! I've found that most recent Radio Shack meters are off by as much as 3dB in either direction (a few are right on). I have an SPL meter calibrator that produces a standard sound pressure, and fits directly and tightly on the meter's mic. It's one good way to know if the meter is calibrated. The newer digital read-out Radio Shack meters are much worse than the old analog ones, but most can be calibrated, at least for general SPL tests. Their frequency response is a bit strange, again, worse than the old ones. Not an issue if you're using the THX Optimizer audio test, as it is band-limited noise.

Each Audyssey mic is calibrated before shipping, and its calibration data is contained in your receiver, which is supposed to use that data to remove the mic's idiosyncrasies from the measurement. I'd tend to trust it before believing any other test. Audyssey should get reference levels right, should also get channel levels right.

I've heard lots of stories about speaker manufacturers saying their product is THX Certified, but doesn't bear the logo because of, usually, cost. Not only Polk, but others too. Sorry, I don't buy it. There is a cost to certification, but if the engineering has already gone into the product and it passes certification, and doesn't need re-design, the license fees shouldn't stop any large manufacturer from following through with the last step. Your speakers may or may not pass THX Select, but if they did pass, their is no real reason they wouldn't be certified. More likely, there's one or two parameters that don't pass, and re-design is way more expensive than licensing, so there it would stop. Without first hand listening or testing, I can't say if your center and L/R speakers are matched, but the design is quite different. Timbre matching would be hard to do, though not impossible.

Now back to the issue at hand. Don't use the receiver's "test tones" with your SPL meter. Use a disc with THX Optimizer, and use your SPL meter for relative levels only. That means relative to each other. To start with, run Audyssey again, then run Optimizer and compare your SPL meter readings. Don't just do it in the sweet spot, take SPL readings on all channels in several locations and write them down so you can compare. Be sure you're playing the Dolby Digital track when you run Optimizer. You can leave the receiver set for THX Cinema, if you have all the channels connected. I did notice in the manual that if you use your receiver for a "powered zone 2", surround decoding defaults to ProLogic II. I don't know if that is an issue or not in your case.

Just make sure when you run Optimizer that you check to see how the receiver is handling the audio, and we'll go from there.

One last thought about Audyssey, this time you run it you might try positions closer to the sweet spot, and not including all seats. Your extreme side seats, like the ones on the couches close to the L or R speakers, could be eliminated. Concentrate the measurements around the maroon couch, perhaps just doing 6 points instead of 8, just for comparison. It should make sense that if you give Audyssey positions that are radically different from each other the result may not be quite as precise. Give it positions that are similar in distance from speakers and reflecting surfaces, and you might get a better result.

By the way, your right speaker probably sounds different from the left because of the items near to it. I think there's a leather couch and a wall near the left, a cloth couch and no wall near the right. Audyssey should fix this too, if you don't try to include the seats that are really close to the speakers.

I'm a little confused on your room layout. Is "front" toward the TV, or the projection screen? Or do you flip the room around to use both? Or perhaps the screen is for your multi-media disco set up. <wink!>