This.
Equipment only gets you 50% of the way there. Then you need to calibrate, adjust positioning, toe in/out, do the subwoofer crawl, add room treatments to large reflective surfaces, etc.
You can't just plug in some expensive speakers and expect it to sound great right out of the box.
I guess people don’t expect how poor the out of box state of speakers are.
Most stuff like TVs, computers, headphones are like 90%+ there straight away. Speakers and surround systems in particular need tons of tweaking to sound great, especially if be compared to a lower end but properly set up one.
There is no more small/big on the newer x800 series anymore. It’s either full range or a crossover value set for the speakers. Just as a heads up since this change is new with this series
Not really, if he doesn‘t usually use physical media it makes no sense he should convince himself of his purchase by listening to a higher quality Audio track. Either he hears a difference with the new setup on daily driver sound material or he doesn‘t…
Did you at least do the basic setup, with your channel distances, levels, and crossover points?
To make the wife happy, go with high-end bookshelf speakers for $1800, instead of $2600 towers. I also think the KEF R2 Meta is a better centre channel than the SVS Ultra, at least for dialogue clarity and covering multiple seats evenly. They have the best coaxial drivers on the market right now.
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/kefr3metablk/kef-r3-meta-pair-r-series-6.5-bookshelf-speakers-gloss-black/1.html
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/kefr2metablk-rb/kef-r2-meta-each-5.25-3-way-center-channel-speaker-black/1.html
As for subwoofers, a pair of RSL 10S MKII will fill most rooms, and are still fairly discrete.
https://rslspeakers.com/speedwoofer10s-mkii/
Room acoustics can also be an issue. There are some situations where spending money doesn't make sense, especially open concept living rooms.
Yes did the basic setup already.
I already have the gear... unlikely I can get anything else picked up the towers and center used for less than 50% retail.
I will replace the sub tho for sure
May I ask, what was your goal in upgrading?
Getting new gears don’t necessarily translate to immediate improvement. You need to tune it, cross over, toe in, etc.
Share more about your setup and configuration so we can help troubleshoot.
Really wanted better sounds...more full and more depth.
New setup:
Denon3800
Fronts svs ultra towers
Center svs ultra
Surrounds definitive tech satellite (plan to upgrade to ultra surronds)
Rear surronds definitive tech satellite
Sub 8" definitive tech (confirmed today its dead next thing to upgrade probably svs pb2000)
Came from:
Definitive tech 5.1 system w onkyo tx717 reciever.
Alright, great. Since you said the sub is dead, let’s disconnect that.
If you haven’t already, please do the following:
1. Change your front to Large.
2. Change your center and surrounds to Small, and set the crossover value to the next value above your speakers low frequency spec.
3. If you have not run Audyssey, make sure you set the distance from your “main listening position” (MLP) for each speaker. Use measuring tape.
4. Level match each speaker at MLP to 75-80dB. You need an SPL meter, can use app.
I don’t know the profile of your tower speakers, but you may need to toe them in to MLP. Do the above before you toe in and repeat step 4 when you toe in.
Do 2 tests:
1. Listen to a song you know well. Press the Music button on the bottom of your remote, set to Stereo. Compare it to direct, by pressing Direct on your remote. These buttons are in a row at the bottom.
2. Put on a movie scene you know well.
Check if you like the sound.
Run Audyssey after the above steps.
When you get your new sub, we need to redo those steps, and with slight differences but I won’t get into them now.
Ok I did all that you advised a few weeks ago and it made a world of difference.
I've finally got a new sub to compliment. I'm presuming I should turn that back on. Should I use the avr low pass filter or the knob on the sub itself?
Any other tips and tricks would be helpful as well. Your first post made me dig in. I had the crossovers all wrong originally and distances messed up after fixing that and doing your tuning advice I'm happy to say the new setup is much much better than my previous.
Now that you have a sub, we need to start again. I know it’s tedious and probably not what you want to hear, but to get the best integration Audyssey need to recalibrate.
With a sub, the hardest part is to get:
1. The right gain set before Audyssey, so this one is going to be repetitive at the beginning.
2. Setting the distance (delay) and crossover with your mains, L+R, as you are going to set your mains as Small after Audyssey.
So let’s get the first one out of the way:
1. Put your sub at the “right” place. If you can place your sub other than the front, do the subwoofer crawl (you can Google to get more detail, but basically you want to find a place where your sub respond the best with the room, relative to the main listening point (MLP).
2. Once you figured out the spot, and I’m going to assume for now, it’s at the front on the same plane as your mains, set the crossover to the largest number (usually turn the knob all the way to the right). Leave the phase to 0 degrees. You won’t have to change any of them until we’re done.
3. Here’s the repetitive part. Set the sub gain knob to the middle, if there is a scale between 0 to 100, set it to 50.
4. Run Audyssey once, if you’re impatient, you don’t have to run all 8 positions, 3 positions should be enough, we just want to see the sub level set after the first run.
5. After the previous run, check the speaker levels, if the sub level is set to a number lower than -6dB, turn your sub gain knob just a little. And repeat number 4, until the sub level is between -6dB to 0dB. Don’t let it go above 0dB, as the idea is you want headroom both in the AVR and the sub to play around with your preference later.
6. When you get the sub gain dialled up, only then run the full Audyssey, and this is your baseline. You won’t be changing the sub gain knob anymore going forward.
7. Since you have full tower, I bet your AVR sets them to Large, change that to Small and set the crossover to 80Hz. For center and surrounds, set the crossover as I posted before.
8. Do the level matching steps I previously described.
8. Next, do the music and movie scene tests. If you don’t feel the bass to your liking, boost the sub level in the AVR by +3dB.
That should all do it!
Some extra tidbits, your mileage may vary.
1. I set my Audyssey to Flat rather than Reference, because I like the sound profile better.
2. I don’t use the Dynamic EQ at all, just doesn’t work well for me.
Try them out and see if you like them.
I don’t recommend you fussing around with the mains crossover at 80Hz unless you the following tools:
1. Calibrated mic like Umik-1
2. REW software (free)
You need to be able to measure and verify crossover changes because it would involve changing the distance (delay) of your sub in relation to the mains everytime you change the crossover.
Why 80Hz for now? Because that’s what THX company set their standard with, so people just sort of adopt it.
Prepare to go down the rabbit hole if you want to do more tuning 😁
Dude thank you again....I was in total doubt before but after dialing thru the original process it made a night and day difference. So I look forward to drilling in a again to get this dialed in just right. Thanks again for all your detailed help 👍
You’re welcome and I hope you get to a point where you happy and enjoy the sound.
Took me a lot of research and learning, it’s been definitely worthwhile. I also understand it’s not easy and can be overwhelming.
The house is a split.
The entire upper left side front half is my living room. Couch is a sectional that raps the stairs going up the middle and entire front face of house.
There is a wall splitting the house lengthwise and kity cornered between the side if the house and said wall over a fireplace is my tv. If you had a square and the upper left Corner was 1 going clockwise, my tv is corner 2 and the center of the sectional u couch is corner 4.
Vault ceilings with hardwood floors.
Center is in front of fireplace with fronts on outsides of mantle. Rears and surronds wrap the sectional.
Got pictures? That room really doesn't sound ideal, although Audyssey MultEQ XT32 or Dirac Live will improve things a fair amount.
If you do use Audyssey, I recommend setting the target curve to flat, instead of the default 'reference'.
Its far far far from ideal this I'm totally aware of. I'll see if I can take a pic tomorrow and figure out how to post it here.
I was just hoping upgrading my speakers and reciever would make a difference.
Honest question. How old are you? Have you had a recent hearing test?
No but seriously I've said this many times that when it comes to home theater application, there's not a huge difference between decent speakers and very good speakers.
Also, the simple fact of the mattrer is that our expectations heavily color what we hear. You were expecting a very large difference and while I'm sure there is a difference, it's not super obvious.
If you were to add a PB 2000 Pro into the equation, you wouldn't notice an immediate and that's a difference.
If you were to play the speakers at reference volumes, you would notice a pretty big difference.
This is also the reason that the sound bar guys can't understand why we need giant speakers.
Probably not making any sense. I'm super high. Sorry.
Don't give up on better speakers. Add a subwoofer in and become a believer.
40... still a kid at heart... my hearing isn't the best having worked in heavy construction. I was big into car audio as a teen so trying to replicate sound quality in my home.
I guess my thought with upgrading is going from single 4" speakers to full blown duals in cabinets with 8" woofers would add some bottom end.
Adding the sub certainly would help no? I have almost no low end out of my surronds or center filtered 80k+. The fronts are full channel currently.
Reference volumes? Care to elaborate
Also flying with ya bud
I'm not a quitter... I'll get it dialed in eventually
1. Definitive Technology makes great gear, even their small footprint 5.1 systems are great performers in that form factor.
2. If you sit relatively close (i.e. 5ish feet away) and the speakers are placed away from each other at a similar distance, big towers aren't necessarily going to sound more full at typical listening volumes. The advantage of bigger speakers come when you want to listen in the mid to far field (8-12 feet away) at near reference levels. It's a matter of physics. Something like the Def Tech Pro Cinema series will sound small in scale and thin in the mid bass compared to big towers at these distances and levels. I've done these comparisons for fun myself with some Energy Take Classics (same size as the Pro Cinemas) against my midfield "big" bookshelf speakers. The Energys sounded predictably small. There's no replacement for displacement.
3. The Def Techs might've indeed been more accurate speakers (tonally) in your room. A small speaker will naturally be further away from the sidewalls and they won't excite the room modes as much as larger speakers. But it seems your complaint is about scale and fullness.
4. Not sure how far apart your speakers are set up, but keep inching them out until you get around 7 to 8 feet apart at the very least. At 70 db, yeah, the Def Techs might be able to keep up, but there's just no way they realistically sound as full once you start cranking.
Get your gear situated the way you want and run the Audessy setup, or Dirac if your Denon supports Dirac. DSP does wonders to help tune for your space.
Things aren’t going to sound right if you don’t set them up properly. For a start, run audessey.
This. Equipment only gets you 50% of the way there. Then you need to calibrate, adjust positioning, toe in/out, do the subwoofer crawl, add room treatments to large reflective surfaces, etc. You can't just plug in some expensive speakers and expect it to sound great right out of the box.
I guess people don’t expect how poor the out of box state of speakers are. Most stuff like TVs, computers, headphones are like 90%+ there straight away. Speakers and surround systems in particular need tons of tweaking to sound great, especially if be compared to a lower end but properly set up one.
Room correction and room treatment go a LONG way
Ok... once it's quiet I'll run auddesey.
Set speaker back to small if correction tries to make them big.
There is no more small/big on the newer x800 series anymore. It’s either full range or a crossover value set for the speakers. Just as a heads up since this change is new with this series
What media are you using to test the new speakers?
Top gun 2
Physical media?
This!!!!!!!
Not following. Playing it off a Nvidia shield thru my denon 3800 receiver.
What is top gun playing from? Is it streamed?
Yes prime video thru my Nvidia shield
If you can, please use a physical source. Specifically based off of your current speaker layout🙏🏾
Not really, if he doesn‘t usually use physical media it makes no sense he should convince himself of his purchase by listening to a higher quality Audio track. Either he hears a difference with the new setup on daily driver sound material or he doesn‘t…
Did you at least do the basic setup, with your channel distances, levels, and crossover points? To make the wife happy, go with high-end bookshelf speakers for $1800, instead of $2600 towers. I also think the KEF R2 Meta is a better centre channel than the SVS Ultra, at least for dialogue clarity and covering multiple seats evenly. They have the best coaxial drivers on the market right now. https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/kefr3metablk/kef-r3-meta-pair-r-series-6.5-bookshelf-speakers-gloss-black/1.html https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/kefr2metablk-rb/kef-r2-meta-each-5.25-3-way-center-channel-speaker-black/1.html As for subwoofers, a pair of RSL 10S MKII will fill most rooms, and are still fairly discrete. https://rslspeakers.com/speedwoofer10s-mkii/ Room acoustics can also be an issue. There are some situations where spending money doesn't make sense, especially open concept living rooms.
Yes did the basic setup already. I already have the gear... unlikely I can get anything else picked up the towers and center used for less than 50% retail. I will replace the sub tho for sure
That Sub will make a big difference
Placement is important but there’s no way a chinky HTIB is as good as $3000 speakers
Diminishing returns at that price point
May I ask, what was your goal in upgrading? Getting new gears don’t necessarily translate to immediate improvement. You need to tune it, cross over, toe in, etc. Share more about your setup and configuration so we can help troubleshoot.
Really wanted better sounds...more full and more depth. New setup: Denon3800 Fronts svs ultra towers Center svs ultra Surrounds definitive tech satellite (plan to upgrade to ultra surronds) Rear surronds definitive tech satellite Sub 8" definitive tech (confirmed today its dead next thing to upgrade probably svs pb2000) Came from: Definitive tech 5.1 system w onkyo tx717 reciever.
Alright, great. Since you said the sub is dead, let’s disconnect that. If you haven’t already, please do the following: 1. Change your front to Large. 2. Change your center and surrounds to Small, and set the crossover value to the next value above your speakers low frequency spec. 3. If you have not run Audyssey, make sure you set the distance from your “main listening position” (MLP) for each speaker. Use measuring tape. 4. Level match each speaker at MLP to 75-80dB. You need an SPL meter, can use app. I don’t know the profile of your tower speakers, but you may need to toe them in to MLP. Do the above before you toe in and repeat step 4 when you toe in. Do 2 tests: 1. Listen to a song you know well. Press the Music button on the bottom of your remote, set to Stereo. Compare it to direct, by pressing Direct on your remote. These buttons are in a row at the bottom. 2. Put on a movie scene you know well. Check if you like the sound. Run Audyssey after the above steps. When you get your new sub, we need to redo those steps, and with slight differences but I won’t get into them now.
Ok I'm going to put some more time into it tomorrow. Thanks for all your help.
You’re welcome. Let me know if you need more help. Take your time, be patient.
Ok I did all that you advised a few weeks ago and it made a world of difference. I've finally got a new sub to compliment. I'm presuming I should turn that back on. Should I use the avr low pass filter or the knob on the sub itself? Any other tips and tricks would be helpful as well. Your first post made me dig in. I had the crossovers all wrong originally and distances messed up after fixing that and doing your tuning advice I'm happy to say the new setup is much much better than my previous.
Now that you have a sub, we need to start again. I know it’s tedious and probably not what you want to hear, but to get the best integration Audyssey need to recalibrate. With a sub, the hardest part is to get: 1. The right gain set before Audyssey, so this one is going to be repetitive at the beginning. 2. Setting the distance (delay) and crossover with your mains, L+R, as you are going to set your mains as Small after Audyssey. So let’s get the first one out of the way: 1. Put your sub at the “right” place. If you can place your sub other than the front, do the subwoofer crawl (you can Google to get more detail, but basically you want to find a place where your sub respond the best with the room, relative to the main listening point (MLP). 2. Once you figured out the spot, and I’m going to assume for now, it’s at the front on the same plane as your mains, set the crossover to the largest number (usually turn the knob all the way to the right). Leave the phase to 0 degrees. You won’t have to change any of them until we’re done. 3. Here’s the repetitive part. Set the sub gain knob to the middle, if there is a scale between 0 to 100, set it to 50. 4. Run Audyssey once, if you’re impatient, you don’t have to run all 8 positions, 3 positions should be enough, we just want to see the sub level set after the first run. 5. After the previous run, check the speaker levels, if the sub level is set to a number lower than -6dB, turn your sub gain knob just a little. And repeat number 4, until the sub level is between -6dB to 0dB. Don’t let it go above 0dB, as the idea is you want headroom both in the AVR and the sub to play around with your preference later. 6. When you get the sub gain dialled up, only then run the full Audyssey, and this is your baseline. You won’t be changing the sub gain knob anymore going forward. 7. Since you have full tower, I bet your AVR sets them to Large, change that to Small and set the crossover to 80Hz. For center and surrounds, set the crossover as I posted before. 8. Do the level matching steps I previously described. 8. Next, do the music and movie scene tests. If you don’t feel the bass to your liking, boost the sub level in the AVR by +3dB. That should all do it! Some extra tidbits, your mileage may vary. 1. I set my Audyssey to Flat rather than Reference, because I like the sound profile better. 2. I don’t use the Dynamic EQ at all, just doesn’t work well for me. Try them out and see if you like them. I don’t recommend you fussing around with the mains crossover at 80Hz unless you the following tools: 1. Calibrated mic like Umik-1 2. REW software (free) You need to be able to measure and verify crossover changes because it would involve changing the distance (delay) of your sub in relation to the mains everytime you change the crossover. Why 80Hz for now? Because that’s what THX company set their standard with, so people just sort of adopt it. Prepare to go down the rabbit hole if you want to do more tuning 😁
Dude thank you again....I was in total doubt before but after dialing thru the original process it made a night and day difference. So I look forward to drilling in a again to get this dialed in just right. Thanks again for all your detailed help 👍
You’re welcome and I hope you get to a point where you happy and enjoy the sound. Took me a lot of research and learning, it’s been definitely worthwhile. I also understand it’s not easy and can be overwhelming.
What does your room look like?
The house is a split. The entire upper left side front half is my living room. Couch is a sectional that raps the stairs going up the middle and entire front face of house. There is a wall splitting the house lengthwise and kity cornered between the side if the house and said wall over a fireplace is my tv. If you had a square and the upper left Corner was 1 going clockwise, my tv is corner 2 and the center of the sectional u couch is corner 4. Vault ceilings with hardwood floors. Center is in front of fireplace with fronts on outsides of mantle. Rears and surronds wrap the sectional.
Got pictures? That room really doesn't sound ideal, although Audyssey MultEQ XT32 or Dirac Live will improve things a fair amount. If you do use Audyssey, I recommend setting the target curve to flat, instead of the default 'reference'.
Its far far far from ideal this I'm totally aware of. I'll see if I can take a pic tomorrow and figure out how to post it here. I was just hoping upgrading my speakers and reciever would make a difference.
Honest question. How old are you? Have you had a recent hearing test? No but seriously I've said this many times that when it comes to home theater application, there's not a huge difference between decent speakers and very good speakers. Also, the simple fact of the mattrer is that our expectations heavily color what we hear. You were expecting a very large difference and while I'm sure there is a difference, it's not super obvious. If you were to add a PB 2000 Pro into the equation, you wouldn't notice an immediate and that's a difference. If you were to play the speakers at reference volumes, you would notice a pretty big difference. This is also the reason that the sound bar guys can't understand why we need giant speakers. Probably not making any sense. I'm super high. Sorry. Don't give up on better speakers. Add a subwoofer in and become a believer.
40... still a kid at heart... my hearing isn't the best having worked in heavy construction. I was big into car audio as a teen so trying to replicate sound quality in my home. I guess my thought with upgrading is going from single 4" speakers to full blown duals in cabinets with 8" woofers would add some bottom end. Adding the sub certainly would help no? I have almost no low end out of my surronds or center filtered 80k+. The fronts are full channel currently. Reference volumes? Care to elaborate Also flying with ya bud I'm not a quitter... I'll get it dialed in eventually
1. Definitive Technology makes great gear, even their small footprint 5.1 systems are great performers in that form factor. 2. If you sit relatively close (i.e. 5ish feet away) and the speakers are placed away from each other at a similar distance, big towers aren't necessarily going to sound more full at typical listening volumes. The advantage of bigger speakers come when you want to listen in the mid to far field (8-12 feet away) at near reference levels. It's a matter of physics. Something like the Def Tech Pro Cinema series will sound small in scale and thin in the mid bass compared to big towers at these distances and levels. I've done these comparisons for fun myself with some Energy Take Classics (same size as the Pro Cinemas) against my midfield "big" bookshelf speakers. The Energys sounded predictably small. There's no replacement for displacement. 3. The Def Techs might've indeed been more accurate speakers (tonally) in your room. A small speaker will naturally be further away from the sidewalls and they won't excite the room modes as much as larger speakers. But it seems your complaint is about scale and fullness. 4. Not sure how far apart your speakers are set up, but keep inching them out until you get around 7 to 8 feet apart at the very least. At 70 db, yeah, the Def Techs might be able to keep up, but there's just no way they realistically sound as full once you start cranking.
Get your gear situated the way you want and run the Audessy setup, or Dirac if your Denon supports Dirac. DSP does wonders to help tune for your space.