To audyssey or not to audyssey, that is the ...?

Hi Joe,

My personal opinion on room correction is that you need to do what you can with the room first. Room correction isn't a substitute for proper speaker placement, proper sub placement, taming echoes in the room with carpeting, etc. So, while I know that's not your exact question, I cannot emphasize enough how proper placement is to start.

Secondly, I'm personally a big fan of room correction in the appropriate application. I have a Revel B15 sub that had manual eq settings way back 10 years ago. Did it make a difference? YES! However, if I didn't have the sub in an optimal positioning then it didn't work as effectively.

Also, room correction, if not done properly can actually make things worse. So, I would likewise make sure that you follow the proper instructions.

Good luck with what you're doing. I personally love seeing the advancements in room correction as it holds such great promise in helping of us with less than perfect rooms (which is basically all of us :-)

Theo

Mucho info and help in using Audyssey. Audyssey does work but you have to pay attention to details and be patient.
See: http://www.audyssey.com/blog/2009/05/small%20vs%20large/
And: http://www.audyssey.com/faq/index.html
Also: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14456895#post14456895

My personal opinion on room correction is that you need to do what you can with the room first. Room correction isn't a substitute for proper speaker placement, proper sub placement, taming echoes in the room with carpeting, etc.

I think everyone agrees with that principle although carpets are not particularly useful for echoes or bass but can help with reflections.

Also, room correction, if not done properly can actually make things worse.

Again, that is true but one can also screw things up with physical acoustical treatments. For example, use of unfaced thin (1-2") absorption panels can suck up a lot of HF without affecting LF or modes. The result is a dead but boomy room.

I've set up two different room correction systems for my 2.2 channel (music only) system over the last 5 years; first a "sub-only" Velodyne set-up, and most recently the full-range Audyssey Pro 32XT in an Onkyo pre-pro. My process might be a bit more anal than some other folks', as I always run many, many set-up sweeps with each combination of gear. Since I own a sh*tload of stuff (accumulated over the years), those combos have varied quite a bit: several different subs (Velodyne, Rythmik), speakers (Maggie, Ohm, Verity, Merlin, etc), electronics (ARC, Joule, Cary, etc).

As a result, I've run many hundreds (possibly more than a thousand) sweeps over that period, and listened to the results. Obviously, some were better than others (sometimes, pretty dramatically so), but ...

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single instance in which the "pre-EQ" result was better than the "post-EQ" result. My room is inherently somewhat difficult, but I have made it reasonably workable with passive treatments - including various absorbtive panels and bassbuster style Hemholtz devices. It sounds borderline okay without room correction. However, for me, the improvement below 100hz has always swamped any offsetting compromise introduced by the room correction system.

Just my humble O from my experience.

Marty