Audio-fool needs help from audiophiles

[mapmn006]

WOW...thanks again guys! Yeah seating is about 12 feet away.

So again last night I looked into XT32. I'm hoping it would really help me out. The room is 36X22. The room has tile floors, wood shutter window treatments, and all leather furniture. I don't think the room is very acoustically fit. We intentionally stayed away from cloth and carpet because of our big Rottweiler. Will XT32 help with this, or is this more of a room treatment issue. We will be putting in a 8X10 area rug but that is about the best i can do. If my wife comes home to giant stuffed animals placed around the room she might stop picking me up beer on her way home... So i started to wonder if XT32 will help. In fact the echo effect is bad enough that when we talk on the phone people comment on the echoey (echoey?) sound. Maybe a second area rug...

[FirstReflect]

Eep! That sounds like a bit of an acoustical nightmare, I'm afraid

I'm a fan of Audyssey -- MultEQ XT32 + SubEQ HT in particular -- if you can afford them. But I always recommend thinking of such programs as a "cherry on top". They are NOT a fix for bad acoustics or speakers. If they were, we'd all be using cheap speakers in any room and we'd all be getting the exact same sound! Well, of course that is not true. So we really should avoid thinking of any auto EQ program as being some sort of "fix" or panacea. It's not. So called "room correction" cannot eliminate reflections. Your speakers make a sound. That sound reflects off of your walls. There's nothing any software program can do about that! So fixing your room's acoustics requires fixing your room's acoustics There's no magic way of doing that with software, I'm afraid.

I feel very strongly that the marketing term "room correction" is misleading. I much prefer the "old" name that we all used to call such programs, which is "Auto EQ". That's what the software really is. It's an equalizer. We used to equalize our systems manually. Something like Audyssey can simply do it automatically now, and save you a lot of time! So that's the way to think of any "room correction" program. It's not room correction. It's really just an EQ. We used to use manual EQs to "dial in" the sound -- to a flat frequency response, or some other "target curve", or just to taste. Audyssey has done a ton of research into psychoacoustics and the ways in which we perceive sound, and they have come up with their "Audyssey Curve", which is labelled as "Audyssey Movie Mode" these days. Audyssey also offers the option of a "Flat" setting, which they're calling "Audyssey Music Mode". Audyssey also makes some adjustments in the time domain, which affects the relative phase of some frequencies. But that is mostly about making sure that if two or more speakers play the exact same sound at the exact same time, that sound arrives at your ears at the exact same time, as it should. Differences in placement can lead to the sounds arriving at slightly different times if no adjustments are made. So Audyssey does a pretty good job of correcting any such timing errors.

But reflections, echoes, and noise in your room -- Audyssey cannot fix those things. And, in fact, due to Audyssey attempting to "hit" its "target curve" with its EQ adjustments, it can actually make your speakers sound much worse when you are in an echoey room! If you have very strong reflections and echoes in your room, Audyssey can get "confused" a bit. Basically, due to all the strong reflections, the microphone ends up picking up more acoustical energy than it would if you were in a good acoustic environment. It tries to compensate for this excess energy by decreasing the output of the frequencies that the microphone is reading as being too loud. But this can lead to a really messed up signal!

Once again, its best to just think of Audyssey (or MCACC or YPAO or ARC or Trinnov, for that matter) as simply being an EQ. If you were doing things manually, you might measure the sound with a microphone. And if you're in an echoey room, you might look at your readings and see that the high frequencies appear to be far too loud. That tends to happen in echo-filled rooms. And you will also likely notice some BIG peaks and dips in your bass below 200Hz. That happens in pretty much any room, but it can be even worse if you have a lot of hard, parallel surfaces. So, manually, you go about your business and adjust your EQ to tame that treble and try to smooth out the bass.

But then you sit down and listen to some actual music, and you notice that things sound very "confined" and "closed in". There's a lack of detail, everyone sounds like they have their hand over their mouth when they talk. And if you move to a different seat, you hear totally different bass notes being emphasized, or some bass notes vanish entirely!

Well, sadly, Audyssey can end up giving you those exact same results! And this is why I completely understand when some people swear off all "room correction", call it "crap" and declare it to be worthless. Well, it IS giving you a bad experience. But no more so than what almost anyone would have done if they had taken measurements manually, and manually adjusted an EQ to compensate for their readings. Audyssey is just trying to make the readings from its microphone match the flat or target curve that it has in its memory banks.

So, if its a manual EQ, you take one listen, know right away that something is wrong, and set about adjusting your EQ to taste. Once you have it where you like it, you measure again, and you'll see that the graph you get looks terrible! But that's the best you can do when you have bad room acoustics! We adapt our hearing quite well all the time in order to "pick out" the sounds that we want to hear. It's how we manage to carry on a conversation, even at a loud party, or in a restaurant. We learn to sort of "tune out" anything we consider noise, and focus on the things we consider important. If we go and use an EQ to remove or greatly reduce entire chunks of the frequency spectrum, we end up throwing out the important sounds along with some of the noise! So even though the final result that we end up with when we tune an EQ by ear can result in a horrible looking graph, the reason we ended up there is because our human ears decided to keep certain frequencies -- even though they're too loud, or full of reverberation -- because there was important information in those frequencies. Meanwhile, the Auto EQ just cut them out because they measured horribly

So, bottom line is that an EQ -- even a very sophisticated and highly adjustable one, like Audyssey MultEQ XT32 -- cannot solve genuinely bad acoustical problems. And, in fact, it can make the end result sound worse. It will measure better. The graph will look flatter and more uniform. But the actual sound, to our human ears, will be bad, because a whole bunch of important sounds just got cut out or greatly diminished so that the graph from the microphone would look better.

Now, flip things around to a good acoustic environment, and Audyssey can work some wonderful fine tuning. Again, manual EQs used to be a common thing. But when you compare them to Audyssey MultEQ XT32, they were extremely coarse, not terribly accurate, and they would often affect far more frequencies than you really wanted to. If you start with a pretty good measurement to begin with, Audyssey, with its multitude of extremely fine and accurate filters, can really fine tune the response in ways we could only dream of back when all we had were manual EQs.

More than that, though, it's the bass below 200Hz where Audyssey XT, XT32, and SubEQ HT can have the most impact. Peaks and nulls are just a fact of life when it comes to producing deep bass in a room. There's no way to fix a null -- making the output louder won't "fill in" the dip because that dip exists due to the sound waves cancelling each other out at that particular frequency! So no matter how loud you play that frequency, it will still end up cancelling out, and you'll just end up working your subwoofer like crazy for no reason. So nulls are what they are, but peaks can be tamed. And if you use two subwoofers, and you tune them individually, the way Audyssey SubEQ HT does, you CAN fill in those nulls, by using the output of one subwoofer to compensate for the other!

So that's a HUGE benefit of Audyssey MultEQ XT32 + SubEQ HT. And, frankly, if you could use it for the bass below 200Hz alone, and somehow tell it to leave everything above 200Hz alone, I think a lot more people would find Audyssey extremely helpful and pleasing. But that is not the case -- not yet, anyways.

So we are back to the matter at hand. You need to address your room's acoustics. No ifs, ands, or buts!

To start, you should DEFINITELY opt for the RAAL tweeter upgrade if you can afford it! One of the greatest strengths of the RAAL 70-20XR tweeter is that it produces far less residual sound after a note than pretty much any other tweeter out there. When the signal says to stop making a sound, the RAAL tweeter stops -- on a dime. Pretty much every other tweeter in the world keeps moving just a little bit. It's simply inertia: an object in motion tends to stay in motion But the RAAL tweeter is as clean as it can possibly be. So that means fewer and weaker residual reflections right off the bat. And that is a VERY good thing in your case.

Next, the goal is not to create a "dead" room, or a room that is totally free of reflections. You don't have to go crazy to still have good sound, and still get good benefits from Audyssey. But you DO want to eliminate genuine echo.

The easiest way to tell when you've got enough absorption and diffusion in your room is to do the simple "clap test". Sit in your primary seat, and make a short, loud clap with your hands. Just one, quick, loud clap. And then listen very carefully immediately after. In the worst cases, you'll actually hear an echo of your clap! But in less severe, but still "bad" cases, you'll just hear a slight reverberation of your clap. Another big problem is if you hear a sound that is more of a "zing". You'll know it if you hear it. It's a high pitch that seems to rise, and it just sounds like a "zing". That's a very bad thing

Basically, you just want your clap to not echo back at you, not result in an obvious reverberation, and not result in a "zing". A minor little bit of "decay" is ok. But you basically want the clap to sound clean and distinct. You will also notice, once you get to that point, that just talking to someone in that room is much more pleasant. You will never struggle to make out what the other person said. And you won't feel the need to speak loudly, or to repeat yourself. In fact, you can be quite far away from each other, and still speak rather quietly once you have a good acoustic environment

So...how to get there? Particularly when you cannot have plush furniture or softer items on your walls due to your pets.

Well, the rug is a good start. Make sure you have it in between the speakers and your seat. And the thicker the better

The next obvious place where you could put acoustic treatments without worrying about your pets getting to them is on the ceiling, and particularly in the wall-to-ceiling edges. I can highly recommend GiK Acoustics for all manner of acoustic treatments, including their "soffit trap" found here: http://gikacoustics.com/product/gik-...fit-bass-trap/ , which can mimic the look of a soffit when you install it along those wall-to-ceiling edges, and do a terrific job of cutting down the reflections and echo in your room, and its also an excellent bass trap that can help reduce the severity of those peaks and nulls in your deep bass.

It's important to know that echoes and reflections happen in all directions. We tend to only think of reflections coming off of the walls because that's where our eyes are looking most of the time. But sound travels in all directions. So treating the ceiling and the upper edges of your room can be very effective, even though it doesn't immediately jump to mind.

That said, of course your walls also provide reflections. And the "first reflection points" create the strongest reflections -- sometimes almost as strong as the direct sound. But because they are a tiny bit delayed due to having travelled a slightly longer distance, they can "smear" the sound from your speakers, a rob you of detail and clarity.

So treating the first reflection points on your side walls would be worth while in a room like yours. And just to explain, the first reflection points are the spots on the wall where the sound waves would travel from the front of the speaker, hit the wall at an angle, and then bounce off at the same angle (like a billiard ball off the side of a pool table) and go straight to your ear. If you can picture it like a billiard ball shot, you can easily imagine how those particular spots on your wall would produce the strongest reflections, since it's the closest thing to a straight line in terms of getting the sound waves from the speaker to your ear with just one bounce

With the restrictions you have in terms of looks, and with your pets, treating those first reflection points might be a challenge. But, thankfully, GiK has a lot of great products, including stands for their panels so that they can be free standing, and even be moved in and out of the room for temporary use. And they also have designer fabrics, as well as custom dyed panels, if looks are a problem. Those dyed panels, they can literally be made to look like anything you want! So if you were already going to have artwork, or posters, or pictures hanging on the walls, the dyed panels are the perfect way to "kill two birds with one stone"! You can have any image you like dyed onto the panel.

You can also use their smaller "Spot Panels". You can get creative with them. Get a few different colours and sizes, and you can arrange them into any pattern you can come up with.

There is also another absorption panel company called, Acoustimac . They offer even more size options, as well as more fabric choices, including suede, and patterned fabrics, as well as printed image panels that are similar to GiK's dyed panels, but don't look quite as perfect (you can sort of tell they're printed), although they're less expensive

So looks should not be a problem!

What I would highly, HIGHLY recommend, though, is that you take advantage of GiK's FREE Room Analysis . I mean, hey, it's free! So why not, right?

Naturally, price is going to be a consideration. And so will the details of exactly how you will install any absorption panels or bass traps or diffusion panels. The information you will get from GiK will be invaluable, though. So it is WELL worth your time to fill out their form, put a little thought into your room acoustics, and then decide what will work for you in terms of budget, looks, and placement.

You don't have to shoot for "perfection". With audio, there's genuinely no such thing, anyway! People debate exactly how much we should keep or deaden reflections all the time. Some people swear off all EQ and "room correction", while others swear BY it. But hopefully this reply will be helpful to you. And there's also just a bit of common sense involved here. An echo-filled room is going to sound...echoey. Shocker! haha. And that's not good when you want the best audio quality. I'm pretty sure everyone can agree on that! But it's very important to know that something like Audyssey, as powerful and precise as it is, cannot fix that sort of thing. Just think of it as a good ol' EQ. Use it the way we would have used a manual EQ in the past. But just appreciate that it can make many, many more adjustments that are more precise, and it can do it all WAY, WAY faster than the old manual EQ methods! That's what it's good for. I personally think it's excellent when it's used in that way -- especially for the bass. But it's not a panacea for all acoustical issues. Those need to be addressed on their own. The "clap test" will tell you if things are really bad, and let you know when things have improved. And the RAAL tweeter upgrade will give you the absolute cleanest sound to begin with, which will be a big, big help

[Kisakuku]

I feel very strongly that the marketing term "room correction" is misleading. I much prefer the "old" name that we all used to call such programs, which is "Auto EQ". That's what the software really is. It's an equalizer.

Audyssey filters work both in frequency and time domains and can help with ringing.

[mapmn006]

I think you're right that GIK would help me out a lot. After looking at their site I see that some things will definitely not fly with the wife, but some might. The acoustic panels on the walls might work. Color and/or art will have to be approved, but seems they would be very effective in helping to eliminate the echo. The cost is also reasonable. Thanks for the tip...I've never heard of GIK.

As far as XT vs XT32 I think for me I'll have to do cost benefit analysis to see if I can swing it. Going with the X4000 vs 5008 it's a $400 increase (using amazon prices as a price benchmark for comparison). $500 more than the 3313ci (which seems very similar to 5008) Than I ran into the Marantz sr5007. It seems the 5007 is the last years version of the 5008? It's only $600 (5007) vs $900 (5008). It's 7 channel, same power, and also includes Audyseey XT. Now 5007 vs x4000 is a $700 difference. Thats big. I know XT32 is sweet but $700 sweet?...for some people for sure, but maybe not me. So would the 5007 be the way to go if I'm not going for XT32? 5008 worth $300 over 5007?

As far as the RAAL upgrade...I know its great. I've read threads where Davidf explained how its measurements and structural design are Superior. I see how for many who are into critical listening and can make a dedicated listening room it would be the only way to go. At $700 it might be a reach for me. Also Nrt seems to be great. Again for me I think it comes down to cost for gain. Money no object sure I'll take the RAAL's with the X4000. I started out this audio quest wanting a sound bar. O-how thing have snowballed. And that's cool...as the saying goes buy once cry once. Honestly 3K total for speakers and a receiver is still pushing it, and thats without room corrections. I guess I could put purchase off a little bit to save more, but in the end I will not have a dedicated listening room and will most likely not get into critical listening.

Still trying to get to Ascend mid month (July) but not sure if that will happen. Anyone know if you can buy products there (San Clamente, CA) or is it just a listening studio? I guess I can just call them. Starting to figure things out...Thanks again guys (and gals)!

[FirstReflect]

Yes, Audyssey does make adjustments in timing as well as just EQ'ing the sound. But when you think about what Audyssey is really doing -- all it can do is alter the sound that comes out of your speakers. Once the sound waves have left the speaker, they're subject to your room's acoustics, just as they always would have been. So Audyssey can alter how loud those sound waves are when they leave the speaker, and it can alter the timing of when they leave the speaker a little bit. Those adjustments to the timing can, indeed, help with ringing and reverberation by causing cancellations. But now you're potentially dealing with a bigger issue, which is that you've altered the direct sound in order to try and compensate for the reflected sound. And that can lead to the issue I described where things seem to sound even worse than when you just left the signal completely alone.

I mean, I'm in complete agreement with the simple advice of, "try it for yourself, and see if you like the results!" But that sort of relies on just user preference, and what each person is already used to a little too much, IMO. So, I think we can offer better, more helpful advice than that

But despite how long my post was, I'm still trying to simplify things somewhat, and make them easier to understand. You're right that saying Audyssey is ONLY an equalizer is incorrect on my part. What I should have stated more clearly is that I prefer, in my own mind, to simply THINK of Audyssey as being just a good ol' equalizer. In my experience, if I think of it that way, and use it the way I would have used a manual equalizer in the past, that's when I've gotten the best results from using it. That is the point I was attempting to get across I've found that when I try to use Audyssey as actual "room correction", which is to say, I've attempted to use it to improve the sound in a genuinely BAD acoustic environment, my experience has been that the results are not very good.

So all I was really trying to get across, in answer to the OP's questions, is that I do not think it is good advice to say, "if you have a bad acoustic environment, one that is filled with echoes so bad that people comment on them when you are talking to them over the phone in that room, just use Audyssey MultEQ XT32 and don't worry about it...Audyssey will fix everything." That just is not the case. Certainly not in my experience, anyway.

Like I say, I'm a fan of Audyssey. I think it's rather remarkable. I certainly recommend using it -- especially the XT32 version with SubEQ HT. But it is NOT a fix-all. Like I mentioned, if it were, every room with an Audyssey system running in it would sound the same, even regardless of which speakers were being used! Well, that is obviously not the case. So we know there is more at play than just Audyssey's adjustments. And we know there are things about the room's acoustics and the inherent qualities of the speakers for which Audyssey cannot compensate. And that's not a knock against Audyssey! It's just that I think it's too easy to run the risk of thinking that Audyssey will fix all your acoustic problems based on the marketing.

So, the OP wanted to know if one area rug plus Audyssey MultEQ XT32 in his echoey room would be sufficient. And MY answer to that question is: no. I think mapmn006 would be disappointed with those results, and might even be in a case where things would sound worse after having run Audyssey. Perhaps not. But he's in a situation that does not bode well, IMO. So I'm just trying to get mapmn006 the best results possible

My advice is: if you THINK of Audyssey as simply being an EQ, I think that helps people to conceptualize how it is best utilized, and why it might not be the panacea that the marketing makes it out to be.

[mapmn006]

Found a good article comparing the new Marantz line for all interested...

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/r...-sr6008-sr7008

[FirstReflect]

I understand completely when it comes to trying to stick to a budget, and figure out the cost - benefit ratio of each pricey upgrade

As you and I agree, mapmn006, if money is no object, it's easy! You'd be all over the RAAL upgrade, the higher-priced AV Receiver that includes MultEQ XT32 w/ SubEQ HT, and you'd be getting acoustic treatments from GiK and/or Acoustimac, as well! It's easy if cost is not a factor -- haha.

In the hopes of helping you to make a decision, though, I will simply offer you my opinion, and let you know what I would do if I were in your situation

My top priority, in terms of where I would spend my "wiggle room" budget, would be to get the echo in your room under control using acoustic treatments. The best speakers in the world put into an honest-to-goodness bad, echoey room are still going to deliver disappointing results -- even if you try to compensate with the best Auto EQ.

So, IMO, before the RAAL upgrade, and before the higher-priced AV Receiver, MY priority would be to get some FREE advice from GiK Acoustics, using their room analysis service. And then I would spend some money on getting that room echo under control. I would try to keep the cost down, if possible, with the hopes that I might still have enough left over to afford one of the other upgrades. But I would use that "clap test", I would take GiK's advice into consideration, and I would put my "wiggle room" money there first.

Second, for me, the next most important upgrade would be to get the RAAL tweeter. I know it's a relatively expensive upgrade, but we are talking about the two most important factors when it comes to determining the quality of the sound that you actually hear! We are first talking about your room's acoustics with the step above. And then we are talking about the sound that is projected into that room in the first place with this upgrade to the speakers themselves!

Now, the standard NrT tweeter is certainly no slouch! So it's not as though you're somehow getting a "bad" speaker by not doing the RAAL upgrade. FAR from it! The standard Sierra Tower with the NrT tweeter is really, really good.

But the RAAL is better And it's better in a particular way that will be very important in your room -- namely, in its transient response, and nearly perfect impulse response, where it truly does stop producing any residual sound.

Like I say, in the first step, I'd really, really want to get that echo out of your room. But I would also try to get away with, basically, as little in the way of room treatments as I can so that I could still afford to do this RAAL upgrade. To me, the room and the speakers are like 50/50 partners.

The rest of the gear, to me, is far behind the room and the speakers in importance (so long as we're talking about "good" gear still, of course. I'm not talking about stepping down to junk just in order to treat the room and get better speakers ). So, personally, if you were going to sacrifice one upgrade in this purchase, I would make it the more expensive AV Receiver, and I wouldn't worry about affording a separate amp right away, either. A separate amp can always be added at a later date. And you can always upgrade the AV Receiver in the future, as well. Especially considering how there are always new features being added to the new models every year. In other words, I think you're more likely to wind up upgrading your AV Receiver or Processor at some point, regardless. Meanwhile, though, your speakers could last you decades, and unless you move, your room isn't going to change. So even from that standpoint, to me, it makes the most sense, by far, to put any "wiggle room" money into your room and speakers

So, with all of that in mind, if going a bit less expensive on the AV Receiver means that you can afford the acoustic treatments for your room and the RAAL ribbon tweeter upgrade, THAT'S the way I would go, personally.

And on that front, I have another suggestion for you, which is that you check out accessories4less.com !

Accessories4less is the official, online "clearance and refurbished" retailer for Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, KEF, and a number of other brands. Now, I know that the whole "refurbished" label turns a lot of people off. But in the case of A4L, it shouldn't. Since they are selling the items directly from these manufacturers, you get a full 1 year warranty (no 90 day BS like you find on most "refurbished" items), and you get the full backing of the manufacturers. And a lot of times, even though they're being sold as "refurbished", the items are actually brand new, and they're simply being cleared out since they're a year old model, or there's excess stock.

So accessories4less is a fantastic way to save a bit of extra money on the AV Receiver! And that might allow you to afford the RAAL upgrade, or it will make your necessary acoustic treatments easier to afford.

I started my first reply with recommending the Marantz SR5008. At the time, this thread had started with you just looking at whether you should go with Separates or an AV Receiver. And I figured the SR5008 hit an attractive price point, had all the major features I would recommend, and it's the current model.

With everything we've talked about since, though. And with price being a consideration now. I completely agree that the SR5007 from last year is a fantastic way to save a bit of money that you can then put towards the other upgrades. I recommended the SR5007 a lot last year. It's not like it suddenly became a bad purchase just because a year went by! I had a couple of little quibbles with the SR5007, though, which were that, for some weird reason, both Denon and Marantz models from last year had no AM Radio tuner. I've no idea why that was the case, and AM Radio is not an important source for a lot of people. But still, I thought it was a weird omission. And second, the SR5007 only has 6 HDMI inputs total (that's including one on the front). That's probably fine for most folks. But I always like to have as many HDMI inputs as I can -- it's easy to run out

But the Marantz SR5007 can be had for $499 at accessories4less! So that's a very compelling price point!

Of course, there are alternatives, as well. In particular, for just $50 more at A4L, there's the Denon AVR-3312CI from a couple of years back, now. And that's a real contender! You get your AM Radio tuner back And an additional HDMI input.

So, I really like the AVR-3312CI as an option for you -- particularly at the accessories4less price. $550 on the AV Receiver should help you to keep the budget under control, and hopefully afford the necessary room treatments first, and then maybe even the RAAL tweeter upgrade second.

Hope that helps!

[natetg57]

Great find on the 3312ci for $550! I second that recommendation.

[JustaSheep]

I see Denon 3312ci for $650, $550 off the MSRP, but still a great value.

My bad, I was looking at the 3313ci.

[mapmn006]

I think that all sounds like good advice, and makes scene. The acessories4less sounds like a good find. Like GIK I've never heard of it before. I think going with a refurbished older model AVR might be the way to go to get the RAAL upgrade. Honestly That was the one upgrade I was worried about not getting because once I get the speakers there is no going back on that choice (unlike the Sierra 1 vs Sierra 1 Nrt). Going with the base tweeter with the Sierra 1 you could always upgrade later...not the case for the towers. I read a thread where Davidf was saying a towers nrt and RAAL center was a great combo especially for home theater. If I remember right he was watching Kung Fu Panda with the kids. He was taking about how the dialog from the RAAL center was great. As someone who will only have 2.0/2.1 I'm now thinking I need to find a way to make the upgrade happen. Also like what was said...I'll have these speakers for a long time. AVRs will come and go as technology advances. I'll just hold out for XT128 Price wise nrt +$1100 AVR=$3100. RAAL+$550 AVR=$3250. Very comparable. I know that's without room correction, but that can happen over time. As with the F15 Sounds like my plan is taking shape.

I will be MIA for the next 6 days...thanks again!