Interesting Audyssey Crossover Points

[DougMac]

I received my new AVR yesterday and spent some time setting it up. One reason I chose to upgrade was to get built in EQ, my venerable NAD T-762 doesn't have it.

After running Audyssey Multi-EQ, it selected the following crossover points:

340 SE - 40 hz
170 SE - 60 hz
HTM 200 Classics - 100 hz

I did a search here and found that 40hz is not unusual, chas reports the 40hz is selected every time he runs Audyssey.

I had to leave to go to an event and didn't have time to tweak. I plan to adjust the mains (340's) to 60 hz or 80 hz, I'll try both and see. I may leave the 170's at 60 hz and drop the 200's to 80 hz.

The Audyssey EQ is good news and bad news. I need to do more critical listening, but the changes I've noticed so far are subtle. The good news is that our dedicated home theater room doesn't have any major problems. I had confirmed that with some rough measurements earlier. The bad news is that one of my motivations for upgrading may not have been valid.

[Mag_Neato]

Which brand/model AVR did you get?

I asked the Audyssey tech line a question about how it selects speaker size and crossover points. They said that those parameters were actually selected by the specific AVR's firmware and not Audyssey. He recommended setting all speakers as small regardless of what the AVR picked. As for the crossover points, I'd say go with 80Hz unless the speaker cannot go that low.

[Dr. House]

I received my new AVR yesterday and spent some time setting it up. One reason I chose to upgrade was to get built in EQ, my venerable NAD T-762 doesn't have it.

After running Audyssey Multi-EQ, it selected the following crossover points:

340 SE - 40 hz
170 SE - 60 hz
HTM 200 Classics - 100 hz

I did a search here and found that 40hz is not unusual, chas reports the 40hz is selected every time he runs Audyssey.

I had to leave to go to an event and didn't have time to tweak. I plan to adjust the mains (340's) to 60 hz or 80 hz, I'll try both and see. I may leave the 170's at 60 hz and drop the 200's to 80 hz.

The Audyssey EQ is good news and bad news. I need to do more critical listening, but the changes I've noticed so far are subtle. The good news is that our dedicated home theater room doesn't have any major problems. I had confirmed that with some rough measurements earlier. The bad news is that one of my motivations for upgrading may not have been valid.

Instead of using the crossover points that the auto calibration suggests I think the better approach would be to use the crossover points that Ascend suggests as a starting point for each of those speakers.

Also Audyssey might not make an improvement. So try a lot of listening with it on and off. While audyssey claims they are correcting room issues, it does it by changing the speakers frequency response and frankly there is a good chance it can screw it up.

[DougMac]

Which brand/model AVR did you get?

I asked the Audyssey tech line a question about how it selects speaker size and crossover points. They said that those parameters were actually selected by the specific AVR's firmware and not Audyssey. He recommended setting all speakers as small regardless of what the AVR picked. As for the crossover points, I'd say go with 80Hz unless the speaker cannot go that low.
I bought an Onkyo TX-NR808. I decided to upgrade because of, in order of importance: HDMI, 7.1, lossless audio codecs, Audyssey EQ. These are the things my NAD doesn't have.

I actually thought it sounded good straight out of the box, pre-eq. Without extensive listening, I put it on par with the sound from my NAD.

Tonight I'll do more tests. I'll A/B compare Audyssey/No EQ. I'll set crossovers, all to 80, then mains and sides to 60. I'll listen with speakers set to small and then to full range. Most of this I did with the NAD when I set it up.

I was basically happy with the NAD, but I got tired of using the kludgy HDMI switch. I sat on the fence a long time. I went ahead and got the Onkyo because I have another use to which I can put the NAD.