Help a New Forum Member Set Up a System That ROCKS

[markie]

Skip that last question. You no doubt have gone through basic stuff like that. Perhaps, perhaps, FirstReflect's more advanced setup advice will yield fruit.

However, I think the simple truth is that the Denon does not have the juice required to run your M-K speakers properly. They are low impedance, probably low sensitivity, and probably love current. Your old Marantz quite possibly delivered more current than your Denon. The fact that the sound is so disappointing at higher volumes (presumumably with things like Dynamic Volume turned off) speaks to me that your intuition is right - the Denon is just too wimpy for your speakers.

I think your choice of XPR-5 is crazy good, but it's expensive. Maybe the XPA-5 would more than suffice at less than half the price. It would be way better than the Denon's amps anyway, and better than the Marantz. And quite possibly your M-K speakers might sing so well with the new amps that you might not be looking for speaker replacement. While the Sierra Towers would sound great, the only downside is that your would loose the seamlessness of having 5 of the same speakers as you do now.

Whatever may transpire, I'm very interested in whatever procedure has your system sounding even better than it once did!

Mark

[Wanger 714]

IMG_1523 (640x427).jpgIMG_1424 (640x427).jpg

Thanks...Meet AnnaBelle, the blue merle Aussie(10 months) and Rett, the Black Tri Aussie (6 Months)...We refer to them as the terrible two!

[Wanger 714]

Skip that last question. You no doubt have gone through basic stuff like that. Perhaps, perhaps, FirstReflect's more advanced setup advice will yield fruit.

However, I think the simple truth is that the Denon does not have the juice required to run your M-K speakers properly. They are low impedance, probably low sensitivity, and probably love current. Your old Marantz quite possibly delivered more current than your Denon. The fact that the sound is so disappointing at higher volumes (presumumably with things like Dynamic Volume turned off) speaks to me that your intuition is right - the Denon is just too wimpy for your speakers.

I think your choice of XPR-5 is crazy good, but it's expensive. Maybe the XPA-5 would more than suffice at less than half the price. It would be way better than the Denon's amps anyway, and better than the Marantz. And quite possibly your M-K speakers might sing so well with the new amps that you might not be looking for speaker replacement. While the Sierra Towers would sound great, the only downside is that your would loose the seamlessness of having 5 of the same speakers as you do now.

Whatever may transpire, I'm very interested in whatever procedure has your system sounding even better than it once did!

Mark

Thanks Mark for the help

Im thinking the XPR is maybe overkill too. I'm got it in my head that I want to try a new speaker system . But after the Denon, Id love to hear them before. But, I know thats a tall order. And I have not had a Floor stander for many a year....

[AR2ax man]

Also beleive emotiva has a 30 day return period, so you could try it and know for sure if that is what your missing. If no dice, return.

[petmotel]

First thing that jumps out at me is the speaker and listener locations. Not good, don't know if you want to get into that, or how much rearranging you'd be able to do. Regardless of which speakers and electronics you end up with, proper speaker and listener set up is very important, and your current arrangement leaves a whole bunch of performance on the table.

Jay

[Wanger 714]

First thing that jumps out at me is the speaker and listener locations. Not good, don't know if you want to get into that, or how much rearranging you'd be able to do. Regardless of which speakers and electronics you end up with, proper speaker and listener set up is very important, and your current arrangement leaves a whole bunch of performance on the table.

Jay

What do have in mind Jay.. I don't want to end up where only one or 2 people can sit in front of TV,is my only concern. And that Woodburner gets HOT. I have to keep at least several feet from that thing. The post is a factor too.

[FirstReflect]

I'm very sorry it has taken me this long to reply. I'm doing my best to grab a few moments for home theatre stuff whenever I can. We've got a stupid tuberculosis scare running through our whole family, and my mom's in hospital with meningitis and TB, so there isn't much time to go around! Quite a frustrating and trying time.

Anywho, on much happier topics, I will start by saying that seeing those pictures is a huge help. Makes such a difference to know what we're dealing with. More than that, if your desire is to "bring the instruments and voices into your room", it becomes less imperative to acoustically treat your room. If we discover some acoustic issues that cannot be addressed any other way, I might still end up recommending some acoustic treatments. But for right now, we can leave the room as is in that regard. I happen to be on the opposite end of the preference spectrum, I want to be "transported" to a different venue. I don't want to hear my own room much at all. So I go to some effort to reduce the reflections of my own room so that I can rely on the ambient information in the recording to "tell my brain" where I am. But a great deal depends on the recording. Nevertheless, when your goal is to "bring the instruments into your room", having the reflections of your room intact is important. So we will leave your room's acoustics alone for the time being.

Another note for you is that the sofa that is pushed up against the left wall - that is a "lost cause" to us acoustically. We cannot worry about how things sound in that left wall sofa. Anyone sitting there is going to get what they get. When it comes to things like Audyssey and potentially measurements with a microphone in the future, we're not even going to worry about that left wall sofa.

And as far as Audyssey setup is concerned, we aren't going to worry about the recliner, either. When it comes to running Audyssey, we are only going to concern ourselves with the sofa in the middle that is directly facing the TV. Audyssey works by using spatial averaging, so there is no point in placing the microphone in locations where it is just going to create outlier data. We will confine the placement of the Audyssey microphone to the width of that middle sofa.

But before we get to any of that, as promised, we should start with getting your bass from your subwoofers in order.

I want to start with something even before that.

First, here is the manual for the AVR-4520CI: http://1drv.ms/1EJJqrd

Go to page 201 and it will tell you how to reset the 4520 so that it is like it's brand new again. I'm hoping you will be ok with starting from scratch, because it just makes it so much easier if I know where you're starting from.

So with the AV Receiver plugged in, but turned off, press and hold the "info" and "back" buttons on the front panel of the 4520. Then press the power button to wake the 4520 out of standby. Continue to hold both the "info" and "back" buttons until the front display starts to blink. Once the front display is blinking, you can release the "info" and "back" buttons. This will reset your 4520 so that it's like brand new.

Once the 4520 is done with its reset, turn it back on, cancel out of the Setup Assistant. Then have absolutely nothing connected physically to the 4520 except an HDMI cable going from the 4520 to your TV (so that you can see the on screen menus) and the two subwoofers (and depending on how things go with placement, we might need to alter the connection for one of your subwoofers a little bit, but we will get to that in a moment).

So, once again, all that is plugged into the 4520 right now is an HDMI output going to your TV, and your two subwoofers. No speakers, no sources yet.

Press "setup" on the remote to get into the 4520's settings. Go down to "speakers", and go to "manual setup". Go to "impedance" in that section, and double check that "8 ohms" is selected. After resetting the 4520, it should be - 8 ohms is the default. But we are just double checking. As I said previously, any AV Receiver that gives you the option to select a lower impedance (such as 4 ohms) just completely chokes off all of its current if you select that lower impedance setting. Always leave any impedance option at the highest impedance available. In the case of the 4520, that is 8 ohms.

With that done, now we can focus on your subwoofers. We are going to have to do some experimentation here. Our goal is to locate your two subwoofers so that when we play a bass sweep (which you can download here: http://1drv.ms/1L90QlB ) that sweep sound uniform at every location across that middle sofa in your room. Again, we can't worry about the left wall sofa or even the recliner so much. Our real concern is that middle sofa in these tests. And we are not necessarily looking for the bass sweep to sound perfectly linear. Our goal here is to position your two subwoofers such that we can play the bass sweep on repeat, we can sit anywhere on that middle sofa, and the bass sweep will sound the same in every location. We want to avoid any gigantic dips in the bass sweep. But other than that, it's ok if the bass sweep doesn't sound perfectly linear. We are looking for uniform, and free of any gigantic dips. So long as the bass is uniform across the middle sofa, Audyssey MultEQ XT32 can do a fabulous job of making it linear. And since it is uniform, it will remain linear across that entire middle sofa. The only unfixable problem are gigantic dips that are caused by sound wave cancellation. No amount of EQ can "fill in" a cancellation dip. You can make the subwoofers play louder at those frequencies, but they will still just cancel. So uniform across the middle sofa, and no gigantic dips. That's our goal.

Right now, you have both subwoofers towards the left of your room. That is going to cause lots of issues. I'm looking at your photos and trying to come up with options for how you might be able to get your two subwoofers positioned across the room from on another:

1) Put one subwoofer where that ottoman is shown in the pictures right next to the left wall sofa. Then place the second subwoofer all the way across the room beside your bar stools. That would give you sort of a diagonally opposite setup.

2) I'm not sure what kind of room you have behind your bar, but you could leave one subwoofer in the left rear corner where it is already, and put the second subwoofer behind the bar. This will give you diagonally opposite corner placement.

3) You could move the subwoofer that's at the front of your setup just to the left of the TV to the other side - so on the right of your TV and beside the landing for the fireplace. Then move the second subwoofer basically next to your staircase at the back of the room. Again, we're trying to get them across the room from one another and diagonally opposite.

Now, I realize those placements might make it hard to run a subwoofer cable to the subwoofer that ends up all the way across the room. So an easy solution is a wireless subwoofer connection. I'd recommend this one from Outlaw Audio, since most users have found it very reliable (unlike, say, the Rocketfish offering at Best Buy): http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/OAW3.html

I realize it's an added cost, but it is so, so worth it to have your subwoofers positioned where they will create uniform, even bass across all of your primary seats. That is a nearly magical thing when it happens, and it will free up your speakers and AV Receiver tremendously because it will make crossing them over and integrating the bass with the mid-range astonishingly easier.

So, we are going to try any of those placement combinations that might work for you. We need to make sure the settings on the backs of your two subwoofers are correct. The "low pass filter" knob needs to be up as high as it will go - 125Hz in the case of the MX-70B. The phase switch should be set to "+" on both. The subwoofer cable or the wireless unit should be plugged into the "Left/Mono" plug. And to start, the "bass level" knob should be set at "Reference".

Now, the AVR-4520CI doesn't offer the handy, dandy independent subwoofer volume adjustment screen at the beginning of its Audyssey setup process. So we are going to even out the volume levels of the two subwoofers manually. Again, we're not even running Audyssey yet or worrying about any other speakers. Just the two subs. And we just want them to be equally loud at your primary seat while we run the bass sweep on repeat.

So we are going to press "setup" on the remote and go the "Audio" section. While we are here, we are going to go to the "Volume" section and change the "Scale" setting from the default "0-98" to the much more useful "–79.5 dB to 18.0 dB". The negative number scale tells us how many dB above or below Reference Volume we are using. The 0-98 all positive numbers scale is basically arbitrary and tells us nothing useful!

Back out of the "Volume" and "Audio" sections and go into the "Speaker -> Manual Setup" menus. Go to "Speaker config -> Subwoofer" and make sure that is set to "2spkrs". Then go to the "Levels" menu and play the test tones.

We are NOT adjusting anything on the AV Receiver. All we want are the test tones to come from Subwoofer 1 and then Subwoofer 2 independently. If you have an SPL meter or a smartphone with an SPL meter app, ideally, the test tone should register at 75 dB SPL when you are sitting in your primary seat and the test tone is playing from just one subwoofer (and you haven't changed anything on the AV Receiver itself - it's still just at the default 0 dB test tone level). You want to manually adjust the "Bass level" knob on the back of each of your subwoofers. That is where you are making any adjustment right now. So get the test tone from Subwoofer 1 to read 75 dB SPL (or close to it), then get the test tone from Subwoofer 2 to also read 75 dB SPL. If you do not have an SPL meter, just get the test tones to sound equally loud. Since one subwoofer is all the way across the room, it will almost certainly need to have its knob turned up higher than the subwoofer that is physically closer to you.

OK, now your subs are positioned and equally loud. Now we are going to play that bass sweep on repeat (you can load it onto a smartphone or iPod and plug that directly into the USB input, or you can put the bass sweep right onto a USB thumbdrive and play it directly from the 4520's USB input (it's a .wav file). Any method of just playing that bass sweep on repeat is fine.

Turn the master volume dial on your 4520 up fairly high. If you're not going to bother anyone, go ahead and set it all the way up at 0 dB for full Reference Volume. Of course, if you notice any distortion coming from your subwoofers, turn the volume down a bit! But just turn up the volume dial gradually on your 4520 until that bass sweep is playing nice and loud - probably a bit louder than you would expect. 75-85dB is louder than it seems!

With the bass sweep playing, you're going to sit in every seat across your middle sofa, and you want that bass sweep to sound uniform. Not necessarily perfectly linear, but uniform - and without any gigantic dips. If you achieve that, congratulations! You now have optimally positioned subwoofers! If it doesn't, then you can try one of the other placement options. Also, do not be afraid to make small adjustments in positioning. Sometimes, just moving one of the subwoofers 6 inches in any given direction will be enough to make a very noticeable difference. So this is the trial and error stage. But once you have uniform bass across your middle sofa with no gigantic dips, then you are off to the races!

I will leave it there for the moment. But the next steps will be connecting all of your speakers, getting them angled properly (since it looks as though physically moving them isn't a convenient option), and then running Audyssey with proper microphone placement and technique!

I'm very keen to hear from you how these subwoofer positioning experiments go. It is not a subtle thing when the bass becomes uniform across your seats. You will definitely know when it is not uniform vs. when it is. And it's a very cool effect when it "snaps" into place and becomes uniform

[Wanger 714]

Looking at your "to do list" all I can say is "Oh my God"

This is going to be great..BTW, I have the same kind of family issues hitting home here also Rob. My mother fell Saturday at her home and thank goodness we have life alert type product. She pushed her neck collar button and they dispatched an ambulance. She was still laying there when they arrived. So I have been at the hospital all weekend and looks like she is going to have to be admitted to some type of additional skilled nursing home...at least for a while..She is 88 and has smoked a pack of cigarettes for the last 71 years so many would say....well you know.... So this week is probably a wash . I have next Saturday thru Tuesday off as once every 6 weeks I get a 4 day weekend...I'll get my butt busy then ...Thanks much Rod, this looks fun... Also, I had the manual printed (4250) and put in 2 binders when I bought it...So I will always have it laying there.
And I saw the pictures of your set-up---- I had to go get wife and show her....Wow,I've never seen anything like it...downright awesome

[FirstReflect]

I somehow forgot to put in an important step prior to you playing the bass sweep on repeat.

So before you start playing the bass sweep, press "setup" on your remote, go to "speakers -> Manual Setup" and go to the "speaker config" section. Make sure you set the Front L&R speakers to "Small" (they default to "large" after resetting the AV Receiver). After setting them to "small", go into the "crossover" menu. You can leave that as applying to "all", but set it to a nice, high number just while we are running the bass sweep - 150Hz or higher is good.

This is important because we want ALL of that bass sweep being played by the subwoofers while we are figuring out their positioning and whether they are producing uniform bass across all of your seats.

And when you are playing the bass sweep, set the listening mode to "stereo".

Important stuff that I somehow missed despite my verbosity

[Wanger 714]

Rob, and everybody

Apologize for getting such a late start. My Mother has been making the rounds between skilled nursing facilities and the hospital since I last posted. Between that and my actual job there are just other things more important than my hobbies...

BUT, ! I could not help myself,... I had a weak moment and called Dina and...ordered a new set of Towers and a Horizon.