Room equalization

More Audyssey revelations! I've been playing around with the Denon/Audyssey, still learning how to use it's myriad functions. As mentioned above, I felt the Modwright tube pre still sounded more "musical" than the Denon, and indeed, even when running the Denon in "Pure Direct" mode, feeding my amp (bypassing the Modwright HTBP), there was something missing. However, in that same configuration, with the Audyssey MultiEQ invoked... WOW!! The soundstage and imaging are now pinpoint focused, with much tighter bass vs. the Modwright, yet, the overall tonal balance still retains some sense of "tube-like" vocals. An audiophile friend stopped by to borrow my Benchmark DAC, and had a (brief) listen. He thought the Denon/Audyssey revealed more "layers" in the music, and he preferred it over the Modwright! It's clear the Audyssey's "time domain" corrections, in addition to it's low frequency EQ, have a substantial effect on overall fidelity. Now, I need to find out if the Denon can have source-specific EQ settings, so I can have one for two-channel stereo mode, and another for 5.1 surround sound. To be fair, it's well accepted that the addition of tubes into the audio chain, yields both beneficial (warmer "organic" sound, midrange bloom, etc.) at the cost (sometimes) of diminished bass clarity and slightly rolled off highs. I'm going to push the Denon/Audyssey to it's limit, and see if these initial impressions hold up, and drive me back to a total solid-state rig. I'm curious to hear what other folks with an Audyssey enabled receiver think about using it as a pre/pro.

Final update! I'm now in hog heaven! I was torn between the musicality of my Modwright Pre, and the superb room EQ/bass control of the Denon/Audyssey. Turns out I can have my cake and eat it too! Thanks to some superb help on the Audyssey thread in AVForum, I found out I can feed my Modwright (adding tube magic) into the Denon CD input, run the Audyssey room EQ, and then feed the Denon pre-out back to my Belles amp. I now have an incredible wide and deep soundstage, with tight bass, and gorgeous midrange bloom. The former bass nodes/nulls of my room are virtually inaudible, and even off-axis listening is much improved. In fact, I reset the Summit woofer controls back to their defaults, and re-ran the Audyssey MultiEQ, thus letting the Denon fully control the bass. The only issue I ran into was a slight impedance mismatch requiring me to add ~7 dB boost to the Denon analog CD input, but despite that, there is NO additional noise or detectable distortion. I was able to set the Denon to apply the Audyssey EQ even when running in "Pure Direct" mode, which turns off all non-essential circuits. This setup is absolutely the BEST sound I've ever gotten out of my Summits. I can't vouch for other room EQ components, but the Audyssey effect in my room/setup is incredible!

Alan, great news!

Glad it's working so effectively for you and that you found a way to integrate the 'tube sound' into the mix.

Did you do anything to the Summit rear wave in terms of absorption yet?

If not, get ready for more magic

JonFo said:

Did you do anything to the Summit rear wave in terms of absorption yet?

If not, get ready for more magic

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I've always had silk ficus trees positioned behind the Summits as diffusors, and they get an A+ for WAF. With Audyssey (sorry Ethan), I no longer have a pressing need for bass traps, but still need to get equipment to actually measure my speaker/room response, and see how flat it really is. Once I have objective measurements, I'll see what acoustic treatments I can sneak into the mix. I'll hafta get the Tampa ML gang over for their opinions first.

sleepysurf said:

With Audyssey (sorry Ethan), I no longer have a pressing need for bass traps

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Heh, I'm sure you'll come around eventually.

--Ethan