Calibrating your speakers...

[Driver_King]

This is not an informative thread but is about calibration and your speakers. I have previously only let Audyssey adjust my system and have not done any adjustments whatsoever to the settings it gave me. I got a little curious last night when I was getting a bit annoyed at how some of the songs only playing through my front SDA speakers had a huge lack of bass. I adjusted the tone control on my Onkyo 805 a few dB's for bass and a couple dB's for treble to make up for the bass increase. Wow. Just wow. Subs? What subs? The sound coming from my speakers are better than having subwoofers right about now. It still sounds better at lower frequencies with my subwoofers playing, however. I used to be a huge tweaker with speakers since all the speakers I owned in the past have been inferior to these SDA's and they really needed it. Just adjusting the bass on my fronts and LFE bass for stereo use has really made a huge difference. I remember why I really enjoyed tweaking my subs now. I'm definitely going to decouple my fronts from the floor now. That will definitely help increase bass detail from what it is now. So if you haven't taken time to screw around with the bass/treble on your front speakers (or surround speakers if you listen in all channel stereo or multichannel music) or bass on your subwoofer(s), you need to!

[VinnAY]

The last time I let Audyssey run on my Onkyo 605, it set the subwoofer level @ -11...you might look into that if youre thinking your system isn't producing low freq's like you think it should.

* I have a 400 watt 12" sub and a 8" sub, BTW>

[Driver_King]

Oh no, my subs are calibrated just the way I like them. It was the speaker bass that I adjusted and noted the biggest difference in.

[Rob J in WNY]

I'm a certified "tweaker," and I agree 100% with this thread. There is potential to make real sonic improvement beyond the auto-calibration functions of the many receivers which provide such a feature.

One of the really great advantages of better receivers is the ability to control tonal aspects of more than just the front L & R speakers, and having more than basic bass and treble control. Being able to control ALL the speakers (even if by their groups - front, center & surround) gives you great flexibility. Graphic equalization offers so much more control over sound shaping.

On my Pioneer Elite SC-05, the built-in calibration is called MCACC, which performs four major functions. It analyzes room acoustics and establishes control over standing wave and frequency phase characteristics. It sets up speaker levels for all 7 individual speakers and subwoofer. It determines speaker distances from the listening position. Lastly, it sets up equalization settings for the 7 primary channels of audio.

MCACC is designed to as a "set it and forget it" type of auto-calibration. It does a great job by itself, but if you are like me, you know that you have to let your own ears determine what fine adjustments to make - fine adjustments which really bring out the most to your ears, not unlike video calibration can bring out visual details otherwise lost without it.

For me, the fine adjustment of the audio was a matter of leaving MCACC's standing wave compensation/phase adjustments alone, but it was most definitely necessary to adjust the speaker levels, distances and equalization.

In my theater environment, I felt the need to boost levels on the surround and back surround speakers about 4dB each. The surround-back speakers still needed an extra 2dB on top more gain above the surround speakers. The calculated speaker distances were off by as much as a foot, so I manually adjusted those.

I have used multi-band graphic equalization on all of the stereo equipment I have owned since I was a teenager. The advantage of graphic equalization over basic bass and treble controls is great because you can adjust, say, the mid-bass frequencies without "coloring" the deeper bass and lower-midrange tones. On the Pioneer SC-05, adjusting tonal equalization means adjusting nine bands of equalization for EACH speaker. It takes a little while, but the resulting sound is quite nice and worth that extra time.

That said, adjusting even basic bass and treble controls can yield signifcant improvement, and making fine adjustments to these will not disappoint.

Lastly, you will find that it may take a few different Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs or other audio sources to decide that your tonal calibration is "complete." As many know, just about every movie has its own, unique equalization and channel characteristics, so base your tonal tweaks against several different sources.

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

This is not an informative thread but is about calibration and your speakers. I have previously only let Audyssey adjust my system and have not done any adjustments whatsoever to the settings it gave me. I got a little curious last night when I was getting a bit annoyed at how some of the songs only playing through my front SDA speakers had a huge lack of bass. I adjusted the tone control on my Onkyo 805 a few dB's for bass and a couple dB's for treble to make up for the bass increase. Wow. Just wow. Subs? What subs? The sound coming from my speakers are better than having subwoofers right about now. It still sounds better at lower frequencies with my subwoofers playing, however. I used to be a huge tweaker with speakers since all the speakers I owned in the past have been inferior to these SDA's and they really needed it. Just adjusting the bass on my fronts and LFE bass for stereo use has really made a huge difference. I remember why I really enjoyed tweaking my subs now. I'm definitely going to decouple my fronts from the floor now. That will definitely help increase bass detail from what it is now. So if you haven't taken time to screw around with the bass/treble on your front speakers (or surround speakers if you listen in all channel stereo or multichannel music) or bass on your subwoofer(s), you need to!

I'll have to look into this Driver_King, thanks for sharing your experience. I usually tweak Audyssey's settings a bit, especially the db's levels, so this sounds like fun. Furthermore, I also have my fronts on a pair of decouplers I built along with my sub riser. Seperating them from the ceramic floor may or may not have provided some improvement in the sound from the speakers, but to my ears, I believe my T90e's have responded better since I did this. Just my 2 cents.....

[bongzilla]

I do run the Audyssey setup, but then tweek it so much I might
as well not even do it.

[LifeOfAPirate13]

I adjusted the distances manually and it improved the sound. Based on this thread I mightas well play around with the dB's a bit and see if I can improve the sound.

[VinnAY]

Originally Posted by bongzilla

I do run the Audyssey setup, but then tweek it so much I might
as well not even do it.

Agreed, it's a wonderful base line tool though.

[Fors*]

Originally Posted by LifeOfAPirate13

I adjusted the distances manually and it improved the sound. Based on this thread I mightas well play around with the dB's a bit and see if I can improve the sound.

I'd be careful when messing with the distances. I recently found out that when messing with your subs distance, the calibration will most often set it up further away because low frequency signals move faster and the sound waves are bigger, thus the sub distance will be set up as if it is further away than it actually is. This is done so that the sound from your speakers and subs stay consistent and "in time".

Just some food for thought when messing with distances and Audyessey.

[got rice]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

This is not an informative thread but is about calibration and your speakers. I have previously only let Audyssey adjust my system and have not done any adjustments whatsoever to the settings it gave me. I got a little curious last night when I was getting a bit annoyed at how some of the songs only playing through my front SDA speakers had a huge lack of bass. I adjusted the tone control on my Onkyo 805 a few dB's for bass and a couple dB's for treble to make up for the bass increase. Wow. Just wow. Subs? What subs? The sound coming from my speakers are better than having subwoofers right about now. It still sounds better at lower frequencies with my subwoofers playing, however. I used to be a huge tweaker with speakers since all the speakers I owned in the past have been inferior to these SDA's and they really needed it. Just adjusting the bass on my fronts and LFE bass for stereo use has really made a huge difference. I remember why I really enjoyed tweaking my subs now. I'm definitely going to decouple my fronts from the floor now. That will definitely help increase bass detail from what it is now. So if you haven't taken time to screw around with the bass/treble on your front speakers (or surround speakers if you listen in all channel stereo or multichannel music) or bass on your subwoofer(s), you need to!

agreed... this is great info for those who haven't calibtrated yet. It wil make drastic improvements to the equipment you currently have, maybe even better results than new equipment without calibrating.

i'm still toying around with the MCCAC offered with Pioneer. The basic worked wonders for me, but I still have some "tweaking to do", so I can achieve optimal sound.

[mtbkr]

i had done the same thing this weekend. i lost the ability to use my surround sound so now i am temporarily stuck with a 3.1 system. i have been listening to more music than usual because of this, and i also felt my sub was a little underwelming so i went in and raised the base and treble on my onkyo 876. it made a huge diffrence.

[Driver_King]

Look at what Footloose301 had to say:

Originally Posted by Footloose301

Sorry guys..... just have to brag a bit

I bought a pair of T90e's and a CS10 a couple months ago and did the Audessey thing and honestly they were much clearer than the speakers they replaced but I have never been completely satisfied with them.

BUT!

Tonight I was bored and flipped thru the settings on my TX-SR805 because I've always wanted more mid and low from them. I shut off my MFW-15 and turned the bass all the way up to +10 for my fronts and +8 on the center and turned up the music. Using some rap and rock off my MacBook Pro via iTunes and a SPDIF cable. I AM SO STOKED!!!! These T90e's put out so much more bass than I thought they could! I had it in stereo, thus shutting off the center. Things were vibrating throughout the room from just the 2 fronts! I turned the volume up to 75.0 and thats all because it was plenty loud and ZERO distortion even with some of the most demanding rap songs.

Sorry, I told ya. I was just very excited to finally be 100% happy with them.

I have recommended adjusting the equalizer on receivers before to people if they weren't particularly pleased with the bass or whatever on their system. I did it to my old speakers on my old Onkyo receiver but have not taken time to really tweak it. Looks like I'm going to be doing some tweaking over the weekend.

[Rob J in WNY]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

I have recommended adjusting the equalizer on receivers before to people if they weren't particularly pleased with the bass or whatever on their system. I did it to my old speakers on my old Onkyo receiver but have not taken time to really tweak it. Looks like I'm going to be doing some tweaking over the weekend.

You won't regret it!

In the end, a calibration microphone is not the same as your own perception.

Have fun!

[prankster]

Originally Posted by bongzilla

I do run the Audyssey setup, but then tweek it so much I might
as well not even do it.

same here :] i make a lot of adjustments on the equalizer but i leave my bass/treble at 0, though i'm thinking of bumping up the treble a bit.

[Driver_King]

Originally Posted by Rob J in WNY

You won't regret it!

In the end, a calibration microphone is not the same as your own perception.

Have fun!

That really is true. I mean I love my speakers as is and I think they sound amazing in Pure audio with no adjustments made! But if I can make them sound even dreamier (if that's even possible!) just by tweaking a few things, why not? The only bad thing about it is that if I adjust it by listening to one song only, then I might end up not liking the results on others. Any calibration material I should go by?

[SammyG]

The audessy setup seems to keep all your channels at low values, after tweaking it sounds so much better. My question is why is it setting them so low? Would it be because they don't want you to risk blowing your speakers or is there a set db level its supposed to reach?

[Rob J in WNY]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

That really is true. I mean I love my speakers as is and I think they sound amazing in Pure audio with no adjustments made! But if I can make them sound even dreamier (if that's even possible!) just by tweaking a few things, why not? The only bad thing about it is that if I adjust it by listening to one song only, then I might end up not liking the results on others. Any calibration material I should go by?

DK,

You strike me as a person who has an "ear" for the nuances of recorded sound.

I do believe that your Onkyo 805 does have equalization (7-band if I'm not mistaken) for all your speakers. Audyssey setup may have set them up for you, and you may notice varying values for each band.

As far as material to do the calibration, I wish I could recommend something. Suffice it to say that I am confident that you have enough critical listening experience to judge what you would like to hear more, or less, of in the overall sound.

The trick is to make gradual changes. You are right. Drastic changes, based on one audio sample (be it a song or a movie), will likely not sound as good with other program material. But your ears will tell you what they want, overall.

Perhaps you might like some brighter "shimmer" to your overall sound. A 2 to 3dB gain at 16KHz may do the trick for you, but it's likely that +6 or +8dB would make it sound over-bright. If you feel the mid-bass is too high and mudding up the midrange, a 2 to 3dB attenuation at 160Hz may help considerably.

Graphic equalization adjustments to the center channel audio can assist in evening the front soundstage if a center speaker is not matched to the front L & R speakers.

I have found it's best to adjust the front L & R speakers first, followed by the rest. Your Onkyo likely lets you manually play a "pink noise" calibration sample. Once you achieve a satisfying sound on your fronts, you can play the pink noise on them, then the play pink noise on to your center channel and listen for the subtle differences in response. You'll hear them, I'm sure. Then, make equalizer adjustments from there.

You know what would be handy? A real-time audio spectrum analyzer with a quality microphone. We rarely see this type component anymore, but back in the day, say 15 or 20 years ago, they were much more common as part of a high-end stereo setup (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). Perhaps a good microphone hooked up to a computer with audio testing software could work. Then, we could easily sample our customized graphic EQ settings and match up the rest of the system very easily!

Again, it falls on what is pleasing to your own ears, and just about everyone is different. Fortunately, quality receivers let you make the finer adjustments to the audio, and those are the features which separate the great stuff from the good.

Have fun!

[jomari]

tips prior to your 'adjustment'

1. take note of all the details that youve placed before the MCACC or Audyssey calibration - you can always manually input it afterwards for comparison reasons or just to return to your 'default'

2. measure the room details - speaker distance from the listening position, these programs were built for a reason. ive mentioned it below.

3. Got an spl meter? great, use it if you'd like to in lieu with this program. see the results, and tweak appropriately. dont have one? if you are a true tweaker, this should be your first investment to work with, and not just your ears.

posted this a gazillion times, but hey, what the heck, might as well do it here again...

MCACC settings (and its counterparts like audyssey), are essentially built in tools used for the common clientele to calibrate their systems, including speaker distance, equalization (at times), and other parameters tailored towards your listening area, resulting in a good fine tuned environment.

IDEALLY.

its a great way to start figuring out the relations of your speakers and the acoustic environment you currently have. sure its not up to par to a calibration done by a professional, nor would it determine everything up to a precision, but its a start.

it does tho, most of the time, has a hard tiime evaluating the speakers size, and since subs produce a non-localized point, its difficult for it to determine where it is. remember: this is a tool used primarily for ROOM EQUALIZATION and not SPEAKER SETUPS. this is only an add on.

better results can be had tho using a SPL meter and a quick learning of how to use em properly.

the best results would be using an True RTA program paired with a good calibration microphone.

As stated by a very good colleague of mine, these 'built in' gizmos and products are simple add ons by these manufacturers to solve all problems, both realistic and well, relative. The most important aspects of it boil down to getting the basics done right. Acoustic treatments, placements, etc. in a comparative example these are the 'miracle diet pills' that are included, when all you need is a good diet and exercise.