|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
78.147.141.100
I have always regarded Audyssey as a gimmick & totally useless contrary to other posters on this site. In the Hi-Fi Choice magazine September issue a excellent review 5 out of 5 is given to the new Chord SPM 2400 5.1 amplifier. The reviewer says, Connected to my Denon AVP-A1HD Processor running without EQ resulted in the cleanest and most dynamic presentation. Going through the Denon's somewhat arduous multipoint Audyssey EQ set up, the result was a gentle filtering to address some of the light room-borne issues but otherwise a very clean result. However the layering of the Audyssey filtering did'nt do anything to improve the Chord's natural presence and clarity and if anything robbed it of some richness through the mid-bass, switching Audyssey on & off, I plumped for "OFF" everytime. No suprise to me
Follow Ups:
Depends for mch music. There is no doubt, to my ear, that the dynamics are compromised with Audyssey on. But it does so many other things that are good. Most of the music I'm buying these days is already grossly dynamically compromised anyway, not by my choice.
Who the hell has a clue what a movie sounds like anyways? It's all "fake", eff with it to your hearts content, they did...
You did NOT speak of Audyssey XT32. Your opinion has no merit in the context in which you listened...
First, this is entirely the wrong thread for discussions of Audyssey, amps and prepros. As always, your motives are to create controversy and act out vendettas. Why not try posting this "finding" at the Official Audyssey Thread at AVS forum? You will get the attention there that you are seeking in spades.
Were there any measurements accompanying the review?
What was the source material? Many rock lovers prefer some added mid bass boost, whether it is faithful to the original recording or not.
People, including reviewers, can prefer anything they want. One person's subjective mid bass "richness" may well be a euphonic, room induced frequency non linearity that might just as easily not be preferred by others or upon using different source material.
We know you have a hair up your rear end about many things, including Audyssey, based on precious little actual listing experience. Your oft cited Onkyo receiver with low end Audyssey 2EQ experience proves little, other than that 2EQ is not much of an EQ package relative to full blown Audyssey versions. And, since it was not a Sony, how could it possibly be any good in your mind, anyway?
There are tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of audiophiles worldwide who strongly disagree with this assessment based on switching Audyssey on an off in their own systems. Some disagree, as personal preference is a very unstable standard. Some have failed to calibrate correctly, skewing the results. As always, I recommend that people make their own listening assessment of Audyssey or any other EQ system with a properly set up system. Ideally, they would do it with more than one. In your case, I could put you in touch with several devoted Audyssey users with good systems in the UK.
No one who has heard my system or several other friends' Audyssey based systems prefers EQ off. The systems in question are all of high quality, and the listeners in question all have much frequent live listening experience.
I am talking about HT and multi-channel music only.
... Keynes, Galbraith, Samuelson, Shiller, Reich, Stiglitz, Krugman, Singh
IMO HT takes care of itself, I am mainly concerned with mch SACD & BD sound which I assume is the same for Fitzcalrado
Edits: 08/07/12
As I understand, SACD multi-channel assumes that all speakers are equal and set up at equal distance from the listener. The "equal distance" part is often difficult achieve in typical listening rooms. This is where digital EQ systems can help by providing accurate time delays (as well as frequency equalization).
Of course, digital EQ systems work with PCM, not raw DSD, so there has to be conversion at some point, either in your player or in your receiver. In my lower mid-range system, its in the player: my Sony player converts DSD to PCM and sends it to my Onkyo receiver via HDMI.
Like I said, even using the relatively low capability 2EQ I get a large improvement over no equalization (or manual set up for that matter).
... Keynes, Galbraith, Samuelson, Shiller, Reich, Stiglitz, Krugman, Singh
All multichannel formats are mastered with the assumption that all speakers are equidistant from the listener and all modern AVRs/processors incorporate facilities for adjusting delay to compensate for unequally distant speakers. This had nothing to do with EQ, Audyssey or otherwise. It is a normal component of proper setup along with setting the output levels equal across all the channels.
The reason this becomes an issue is that it is easier for AVRs/processors to do this in PCM, thus forcing DSD sources to be subject to conversion.
EQ, too, is implemented for use in PCM and for the same reasons.
(P.S.: It is possible to do both in DSD but considering the relatively small market penetration of DSD, it is not economically feasible.)
Despite sitting equidistant between front & rear speakers I find that auto system set up on all AV receivers I have owned, Marantz, Yamaha Onkyo, Sony Arcam, Cambridge results in too much volume from rear speakers, therefore manual adjustment is required.Perhaps this due to the rear speakers being considerably smaller stand mounts, the two front ones are floor standing, centre channel speaker also much smaller. . BTW the only setups I have auditioned that feature 5 large equal size speakers by Sony & Marantz gave for me uncomfortable listening and IMO totally impractical in most UK domestic rooms.
Edits: 08/08/12
Let's see...
As it appears, to use this software, one would have to have a HT pre/pro, that includes that package, as a preamp in his (presumably 2-channel, high quality) system.
Now - the question:
Who in his right mind would want to do that? Have you ever heard the extent to which something like that screws up sound quality, long before it starts "improving" it?
It depends on what you feed the prepro. Via the analog inputs, most, including mine, are not up to the levels of even middling analog stereo preamps, though mine is certainly not terrible in that regard. I found no reason to keep a very fine Levinson 380S line stage and Theta player + DAC for stereo playback vs. my prepro. The advantages of EQ and digital bass management in the prepro were very much in evidence for stereo playback via the prepro digital inputs. Prepros usually are optimized for digital input, so their lessed capabilities via analog do not come into play if used that way.
However, I listen to almost no stereo these days, favoring music in Mch, played of course via HDMI with Audyssey EQ. I have listened to quite a few super exotic stereo setups costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. None has impressed me as coming close to delivering a more true to life listening experience than the system I have got. Room EQ is a very important part of that. I would not part with it.
Other experienced stereophile friends who have heard my system agreed wholeheartedly and got on the same bandwagon with Mch and EQ, switching from high end stereo preamps to HT prepros via the digital inputs. The common thread among my friends and I is that we all go to large numbers of classical concerts, which forms our sonic reference. Mch with room distortions minimized via EQ gives us all the closest approach to that. And, we are all quite enthusiastic about the results achieved. One friend described this change as entering a Golden Age of musical enjoyment in the home. Like me, he had spent decades tweaking and upgrading his stereo looking for a better replica of live concert sound. We all think we have finally found it.
Call it reverse snobbery, if you wish, but after spending a fortune on 2channel high end gear over the years, I am finding carefully chosen and properly set up HT gear to be beyond quite satisfactory for the music listening I use it for primarily. I am getting the best sound and best musical experiences ever in my lifetime, and by a whole lot. It was the biggest leap forward sonically I have ever experienced.
On my two channel system I do room EQ correction purely digitally in my audio computer and at no extra cost in equipment, apart from a measurement microphone and mic preamp. I have done this with VST plugins (with cPlay) and as impulse files (with HQPLayer). So far, however, I have yet to find any software that creates filter settings automagically. I am using amplitude adjustment (taking down peaks) and have yet to try time correction. There were three room mode peaks and I took each of these down by adjusting parameters for three parametric equalizers. I varied the center frequency, Q, and amplitude for each of these and then measured the frequency response of the resulting VST plugin with a series of test tones, iterating the adjustments until I got substantially flat response in the bass down to about 27 Hz.
On many of my 2 channel recordings there is a significant improvement when using digital room correction. Bass response is substantially smoothed out so that a sequence of notes plucked in a double bass (jazz) come out with even dynamics. On large orchestral recordings there can be a dramatic increase in the size of the sound stage. When the room EQ is switched in the walls near the speakers disappear. I have a small listening room, so perhaps the advantage would be much less in a larger room.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Like Kal R, I have had poor results with no management and with my own attempts at managing room and speaker position issues. Audyssey yields the best results for me. Of course I don't use it for two-channel content, but for multichannel I tried to do without it for quite a while (I lost the microphone and futzed with the settings manually), and using the Audyssey mic to set up my multichannel properly was a great improvement.
nt
... Keynes, Galbraith, Samuelson, Shiller, Reich, Stiglitz, Krugman, Singh
****Of course I don't use it for two-channel content****,
Why not? Most don't(hopefully) need features such as distance compensation in a two-channel set up. But it would seem that the equalization features could lead to audible improvement in most rooms even for two channels.
The main reason is because I go straight from my Oppo to my VAC integrated amp, which of course doesn't have Audyssey capability. There is an audible advantage in having one less component and cable in the chain.Of course I could go through my Integra preamp and bypass my VAC preamp stage, but why? My Audyssey settings are compensating mostly for speaker placement, where I have serious problems due to space limitations. The rear channels are not equidistant and the center is closer to the listening position than the L/R speakers. But none of that matters for two-channel content. Much more straightforward to dial in the problems in real-world speaker placement of my L/R than in digital EQ, assuming other room reflections are under control, which is the case for two-channel.
.
ha.ha.ha.
The joke is on you, my friend. Since you do not believe in the universally accepted influence of the room on your sound, you are the loser. And, in more ways than one, I might add.
You are wrong because I do believe in the rooms influence on the speaker sound and I am fortunate enough not to require any room treatment or EQ which changes speakers response. My speaker designer friend has had to give his listening room extensive treatment both behind the speakers and on the walls and I am a winner as far as getting the closest approach to the original sound in my room.
Will wonders never cease! Not only do you have a perfect room, but you are able to discern that without measurements via your perfect hearing!
Obviously no domestic room can be 100% perfect for reproduced sound compared to a concert hall, however my listening room is excellent and needs no treatment, my loudspeaker designer friend who has better hearing than mine agrees and wishes his room was as good . We have compared live instruments in my room to recorded ones.
Yes, I used to think that my room of over 6,000 cubic feet sounded quite good, also. Many discerning audiophile friends thought so too. But, it sounds much, much better with EQ on, which becomes quite obvious in seconds in switching it off and on. They all agree that it is a major improvement. Several have also subsequently acquired prepros with room EQ, and are similarly delighted with the results in their rooms. None of us would part with it or ever be without it in any future system upgrades.
The measurements taken via Audyssey Pro confirm the room distortions that were there in my room in the frequency domain, with peaks/ nulls in the 7 to 10 dB range, but which I had grown accustomed to. The EQ lifts many veils that were limiting the sound before. You are likely to be quite shocked at the uneven response in your room upon taking measurements with a decent measurement package. But, it seems, in your case, that ignorance is bliss. You "know" that your room already approaches perfection. But, that is not something that can be determined by one's ears alone, not even your golden ones.
I am very happy with the sound I get in my room, no need to look for problems. EQ seems to be a US thing, no one I know of in the UK uses it. I feel the Hi-Fi Choice review of the Chord 5 channel amplifier using the Denon pre-pro when the reviewer says he prefers Audyssey OFF says it all.
.
I think we all can agree that Audyssey in its various forms performa algorythms which change the acoustics of sound, regardless of system quality, room dynamics, type of music, hearing, and a host of other subjective factors. If one person out of perhaps millions doesnt like it, so what?
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: