Have your say & ask the experts

There are various discs that help to setup your AV Speaker levels and your Picture quality etc.

Is there any reference material on room EQ , what it does, what the different paramaters on your AV Amp mean?

I found that the auto EQ on my amp did a poor job and would like to set it up manually but don't have a clue how to.

Can anyone help?

Regards

Andy

Where abouts in the counrty are you Andy?

Nick

May I ask how important & what benifits you get from room EQ? And What measures might be taken - is it purely electrical or acoustic changes that make the difference.

Thx - still learning all the AV stuff 

I gather by Room EQ the OP is refering to Audyssey, in which case Vinny it is performed using a test microphone at different listening positions in the room.  The Room EQ settings that are derived from the process combine settings in EQ and phase to not only even the frequency response of your speakers around the room, but also correct shifts in timing due to speaker location in the room.  The end result should give you a well balanced system with a wide Sweet Spot that engulfs the majority of your listening positions.

Nick, I gather that you perform Audyssey Advanced Setups?  How does one get access to be able to perform this calibration?  I've got RTA's and a very good Earthworks calibration mic that I use in my studio and generally (believe I) have more advanced grasp on system calibration than most, but was wondering if you have to go off to some special course or if you can purchase a software package to be able to perform these manual adjustments to the Audyssey system?

Yes Tom you are correct I have purchased a Yamaha Z11 and did a calibration using their proprietary YPAQ

It was obvious that something was wrong when checking with a SP Meter .

On the left speaker on one setting there was no High frequencies and on the other no Low frequencies, this took a lot of investigation to find out the cause as I initally blamed my speakers and then the amp as I had it bi-wired.

But the cause was the Auto EQ, the speaker levels were not balanced and Speaker distances completely wrong, even said my centre was wired wrong which it wasn't.

Did a complete system reset and manually set the SPL with my meter, but I would still like to learn about EQ hence this post.

lesmor:

Yes Tom you are correct I have purchased a Yamaha Z11 and did a calibration using their proprietary YPAQ

It was obvious that something was wrong when checking with a SP Meter .

On the left speaker on one setting there was no High frequencies and on the other no Low frequencies, this took a lot of investigation to find out the cause as I initally blamed my speakers and then the amp as I had it bi-wired.

But the cause was the Auto EQ, the speaker levels were not balanced and Speaker distances completely wrong, even said my centre was wired wrong which it wasn't.

Did a complete system reset and manually set the SPL with my meter, but I would still like to learn about EQ hence this post.

Hi Lesmor,

Now that you mention it, I remember you posting your strange results from YPAO in a previous thread.  It's a very odd one and seems as though something's not performing correctly in the YPAO software.  Are you able to check for any firmware updates on your receiver?  Also have you re-run the YPAO repeatedly and consistently received the same results?  I don't have a Yamaha receiver, mine's a Denon using Audyssey MultEQ XT so it's a little different but same concept.  I imagine in the Yamaha, like the Denon, you have the facility to do a manual EQ curve.  The bummer in the Denon is that you can only utilise the Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume processing (which function nicely) on one of the two Audyssey automated curves.

If you want to set up a manual EQ curve to compensate for your room (You probably won't be able to adjust any kind of Phase information) you'll need a few things, a calibration mic, a Real Time Analiser, and tones.  You'll also need some time as this can be a long-winded process.  Tones you already have, well at least pink noise but this will do the trick.  Depending on how you want to do it you could probably use the calibration mic that came with your receiver.  The RTA is where it gets a bit tricky, there are free RTA softwares out there and quite expensive ones too.  Essentially you run the tones and take measurements of your frequency response curves from the RTA and then adjust the EQ in the channel on the receiver to compensate from deviations off of a centre line.  

A professional calibrator has bit deeper access to most receivers.  On Denons and other receivers that use Audyssey MultEQ XT, a calibrator can become certified by Audyssey to perform advanced calibrations using a special software on a laptop connected to your receiver via serial or USB and a more advanced calibration MIC.  This allows the engineer to access the full gamut of the Audyssey software and measurements and also to take measurements from more listening positions than the Autosetup can.  It also allows the engineer to manually adjust parameters before creating your custom Room EQ curve.  This is specific to Audyssey, but I have got to imagine installers must have a similar facility with Yamaha's YPAO and Pioneer's MCACC.

Thanks Tom you are spot on but seems too complected for a layman to carry out.

There has been many comments from dealers about the integral EQ, from poor quality Mic to Yamaha's always say the center speaker is out of Phase.

But come on a £5000.00 product it is just not acceptable, as I have not payed for it yet I believe boxing it up and returning it is the prudent option ,I cant tweak forever I only want an Amp that sets up , I put in a DVD and enjoy and at this price point it is not too much to ask.

I did manage to hear the benefit of this Amp once with " Master and Commander" it was awsome

Then Played " Casino Rotale" the next day and it was bland, couldn't understand what was wrong checking forums it should have be en reference sound , there was only one audio to use so was not audio selection on the disc.

Checked my Speaker levels and they had all gone back to 0db , another reason to return the Amp I think.

Regards

Andy

Hi Andy,

It sounds to me like the particular unit you have is not correct.  And it sounds like it's most likely a software issue.  If it won't even save your level settings after adjustment I have to imagine that the unit is faulty.

I wouldn't necessarily be put off buying that model amp as lot's of people have great things to say about it, but you seem to have had a spot of bad luck with this particular unit.  I'm sure if you got swapped for a properly working unit you would be happy with it, otherwise in that price range there are other excellent offerings such as the Denon AVC-A1HD.  If you're looking for a better plug-n-play experience from a high-end amp, the Audessey Auto-Setup works well on these and once the Auto-setup is done only minor adjustments to level are really ever needed.

Hi Andy sorry I havent replied sooner. It does sound like your Z11 has an error somewhere as the results you have are far from the norm. Even in the most difficult of rooms we have had good reults form the Z11. Give me a call if you have the time and I can swing by next time I am up your way if you like.

Nick

Hi Nick

Thanks for the offer very kind of you but I have returned the amp ,

I would not say that it was faulty I believe it was probably user error on my part but i found it to be too complex, overly difficult to set up ,and the manual to be pretty useless as it does not take you step by step through some key points setting up speaker levels manually being one of them.

I have read reviews where the reviewer lost his settings because he never saved them, but there is nowhere I have found where there is a save option, only memory buttons.

It probably had too many speaker channels for my needs and loads of features I would not use, networking being one , all of these features  have to be paid for.

I only need a top notch 7.1 AV amp , no bells and whistles.

But must say when I played "Master and Commander" through the Z11 ,it was awsome exactly the sound I want.

So on reflection probably better to look at other options ,and the money saved would go towards replacing my projector with a Panasonic AE3000

Wouldn't completely rule out Yamaha ,a Z7 might be more suited but I need to find out more about how to set it ,up lost faith in auto YPAQ

So thanks again to all posters you have been very helpful

Regards

Andy

Thats fair enough Andy, we would normally look for the Z11 to be installed by us to take all the doubt and hassle out of the set up. If you are looking at a Z7 we can happily set that up along with the Panasonic 3000 so you know they are performing to their best.

Nick

I've just setup my Arcam AVR600 and have turned the EQ off, the sound produced with it on is far inferior to it set to off. Having said that the Audyssey system on my outgoing Onkyo 905 produced better results with the EQ on.

As with the Yamaha Z11, you'd think the £3K+ AVR600 would do a better job than the Onkyo.

The Analog Devices ARC EQ system on the AVR600 is relatively basic single position measurement/paramteric soloution compared to the more sophisticated Audyssey approach.  Even then there are different flavours of Audyssey and better result can be achieved using the Audyssey Pro software and Sound Equalizer.

Dasp

There are specialist forums that provide advice and free software tools for assessing the acoustic characteristics of your listening environment.  The Room EQ Wizard (REW) is a software tool that may help if you have some basic hardware.   I'm not sure if a link is allowed so you will probably need to look yourself.

Dasp