Sorry for the audio issues on this one everyone. I had my RODE Wireless Go microphone set too hot and that resulted in some occasional distortion while I was talked. Since this was filmed and edited during Thanksgiving week, I just didn’t have enough time to reshoot it. Sorry about that! Also, I totally forgot to mention that you SHOULD do a measurement after adjusting distance the first time, even if you need to raise your crossover. This is mainly so you have something to compare each measurement against and pick the best one. I don’t know why I forgot to do that while recording this video. And if you’re wondering why at 80-ish Hz I needed to be at 82dB and at 100 Hz I needed to be at 78dB, it’s because of my house curve and the way it slopes down.
At first I skipped over your videos. Now that I’m setting up my system and going in depth over REW, I find your videos are some of the clearest and most useful on RUclips. Thank you very much
I heard from various Forum threads that prolonged sine wave signals can damage speaker drivers. I wanted to try this method but I'm a little concerned about stressing my speaker drivers. I use the "Subs Distance Tweak" method adding a foot in the AVR until I find the smoothest FR at the crossover point and so far this has worked for me. I just play it safe and it doesn't take that much longer.
After mounting speakers in the perfect Atmos positions, finding the best place for the sub(s), watch a dozen contradicting "how to use REW videos", measure, adjust, measure, tweak, lower the noise floor, add acoustical treatments, measure, tweak, measure again - AHHH perfection. You then sit down to enjoy a drink with a movie or music. And, then Satan sits on your shoulder and asks you: "Hey pal, is it really right ?". 2 more drinks!
Wish I never watched any of these type of videos honestly. I haven't fooled with home audio since I was around 20 years old way back in the late 80's. I am beyond confused with all of this stuff. lmao
Im even tired of not having good sound, when i got into AVRs and HT two years ago i didnt even knew a subwoofer could sound better 1.5 meters further from its original position, i didnt knew it needs to be in an optimal place, i thought you place it and forget about it but my SVS SB 2000 sounds like shait evben in a small room, i should have gotten a PB1000 Pro, probably that could fill the room better than a sealed!
I bought a new HT system recently and fell into this calibration rabbit hole. I feel so lost. Wish there was a guide that just walked you through A to Z, but people make entire 30 min videos on one single setting lol. It's like if I want directions to the Grand Canyon and they spend an hour telling me about a gas station on the way there. Ok I will check out the gas station but I'm still lost! It's overwhelming for a busy working man like me.
@@deepg7084 You're not alone. Believe me! But, tragically, the tuning of a HT system is not a one evening task. I've been struggling with my home system for 10 years. I'm finally close to calling it good enough. If you can find others in your area and they're willing to help you that would be a great thing. But, HT hobbyists are far and few between. Those of us here are willing to help as best we can.
Aside from the great tips in the video, thanks so much for using the web interface on your receiver. I had no idea Denon AVR's could be controlled via web interface. Can't wait to use this on my X3700H. This is gonna make tweaking so much easier and less time consuming.
I tried on my SR6015, its connected but I have no control, no web interface. In properties it says presentation webpage unavailable. any direction on how to fix?
Thats really helpful. I also have a dip around 80-90 and never played with the distances. Im going to have fun this evening. Thanks for another great video! And thanks to JavonDGGreen
I ran rew to try to improve the sound of my dual pb4000 subs and had a nasty null around 65hz no matter what I did with distance and crossovers. I ended up spending around 2 hours messing with just the phase control of the subs and ended up getting the flattest response up to 100hz that I ever have before. No eq adjustments or anything. Simply just phase adjustments. It's definitely worth a try I you have the time and patience.
It’s amazing what a few minor adjustments can do, am I right!? Getting those subs in phase with each other can make a major difference. Sounds like 2 hours well spent if you ask me!
Excellent video as always Brad! Just to be sure... 1. Run REW to calibrate subs 2. Align subs in Mini DSP 3. Run room correction software (Audyssey, YPAO, etc) 4. Do the steps mentioned in this video.
Amazing info. Thanks!! I've been wrestling with large nulls for a few years. I can set the delay on my Yamaha PX-3 subwoofer amp, but this is far more accurate. I still don't know why manufacturers insist on calling this parameter "Distance." There are so-called experts on RUclips who tell you to use a tape measure to set this. Perhaps as a baseline idea but it's totally wrong! P.S. Love the t-shirt! I want one 🤣!
Thank you very much for the two connected videos. Allow me to ask a potentially stupid question. Would pink noise and using the real time analyser not be possible as well? That way you see the notches or nulls change in real time as you adjust phase and then time. I also wonder if it is better to adjust phase or time first, since these are connected.
Hey brad, just getting caught up on your few videos, there is a calibration file out there for 90 degrees for the auddessey mics, can you go over a tutorial for a setup to use the auddessey mic with eww, for some reason the mic doesn’t detect in rew when connected to the mic port on a pc, it sees the mic and you can select it and add the calibration file, but when you run the test tone or pink noise the app meter doesn’t move. I think there will be huge value to the home theater community if there was a nice and easy way to use the auddessey mic with few as most will already have the mic and will not need to purchase an expensive mic. Your easy to follow tutorials will be extremely helpful.
nice presentation, thanks... i think it's a good habit to check measurements/adjustments afterwards, especially using different approaches. in this case i would suggest a pink noise with a spectrogram view, as it would show the impact of the phase over a wide range of frequencies *in real time*. easier to interpret than a RTA window. ----------------------------------- one thing to be aware is that most of the times, the delay/phase sub adjustment is a compromise between constructive interference in one frequency area and destructive interference in another. i think it's unwise to deploy just one technique, whatever one. using just a narrow fq window as exemplified in this approach is certainly opened to errors: you could be getting max output at 80Hz but simultaneously create a null at 160Hz or whatever.
Love all your guides! I can honestly say that your multople detailed videos on how to use a Mini-DSP and REW enabled me to use these tools to optimize both of my HT setups. One thing I have done in optimizing my subs location, settings etc is to take the average of 3 main seating positions on the couch to guide my decisions, while noting the individual seat responses. In my room, the right seat on the couch can be in a null highly dependent on sub position. I ended up using the position whose average response is more uneven, but with less of a seat to seat variation and having no nulls to speak of since they are difficult/ impossible to EQ. Once I got those positions right, it Audyssey's work a lot easier in optimizing the full system setup. A lot more work and measurement ( and decision making) but worth it to make sure everyone on the couch has good sound instead of only having a narrow sweet spot with very good sound and the left and/ or right seats missing out.
Just getting in to REW and looking forward to getting the Denon 3800h setup fine tuned. Your video series has been very helpful. I was just going to leave a suggestion after watching the first video about the web interface and see that you've already updated the video to cover that. Very nice!
hello from France 😁 i don't understand all my english is bad. why not put the main volume of the denon on 00db and -30db in r.e.w? like that we know that it corresponds to 75dbc as said in one of your other videos. an advantage to make -12db on rew ? thank you
Great video and application! Question: Have you done any setups to synchronize impulse response between sub and mains at the cover point? An idea > set the sub xcover and distance using your method above. Then increase the sub distance by multiples of one wavelength of the xover frequency. Example: At 80 hertz the wavelength is approximately 14.1 Ft > add 14.1 to your sub distance and run your frequency sweep and listening tests. In theory, most subs use digital amps and DSP circuitry which adds delay to their output. My experience is Audyssey can get the distance close in phase that your method corrects, but the sub output is actually one or more wavelengths off. I use drum test recordings to test this theory. I welcome comments (good or bad) & new any ideas.
Cool thumbnail. Cooler content. Love how you gave the guy who told you the idea his props but also took the time to make it your own and share it with us. This approach never occurred to me but now that I know it I'm jealous I didn't think of it!
Trying to apply these concepts on my Onkyo TX-RZ50 and I seem to have hit a wall. It does not appear that i can manually adjust the speaker distances after I have ran the DIRAC Live calibrations. Any tips on here to help me out?
I just typed out a long comment with a question at the end in another video of yours, but I have a somewhat related question so I'll just get right to it... If I set my subwoofer level to 75 db then I lose almost all Dynamics in my room for music and movies, so I've been running it at 79-81db for the past 2 years and it gives me great impact and full sound for most content. My question is, do you think the fact that I only have one 10" sub is the reason I have to set it higher than 75db, because it isn't pressurizing my room enough? Now that you have 4 subs in your room, do you notice more Dynamics in your sound field then when you only had one? When I had two big tower speakers in my room, I had much more punchiness in the bass, and I'm sorely missing that now that I want to in-walls for my LCR, so I definitely think I'm going to have to add multiple subs in the near future, to get back what I've lost...
What i kind of miss in this video is why you think the 80hz crossover was not good and you had to raise it. Is it because the max output at set frequency was not high enough to match the wanted output for a smooth response? For example; you wanted it to be 82dB, but you only got a max output of 78dB, so with the crossover set to 80hz, you were unable to match the desired output, and thus you tried a higher crossover?
Only if you’re having issues getting things dialed in with Part 4. That way is technically more accurate. This video does supplement that process though, so you can incorporate both while dialing things in.
I tried on my SR6015, its connected but I have no control, no web interface. In properties it says presentation webpage unavailable. any direction on how to fix? thanks for the videos, very helpful!
Could you please clarify. Is the reason you know the crossover setting is wrong is you could not get the decibels up to the same level when you increased the distance?
that is what I think and it was not clear how to get the correct Crossover.. Brad new 110 from his other video but seems to skip how we would know in this trick but maybe like you said..
Can you use this for two different-sized subs of different brands? I have a 12" Klipsch (newest) and a 10" Polk (original) with my mixed-brand 7.2.2 (front height) HT/music system. I have my Denon X4700 set to LFE+Main
Hey Brad, 13.00 when you up the distance of the sub it wont rise the DB in other frequency ranges? I get that you fix that nul with changing distance but maybe you get more DBs elsewhere too and when you make another measurement you wont get an optimal outcome.
It can sometimes cause slight differences in frequencies slightly higher than the crossover (if crossover is set to 80Hz for example, there may be a slight boost or dip added at between 100Hz and 120Hz), but most of the time the differences are minor and well worth the trade off in order to have a smoother blend between subwoofers and speakers.
Doesn't Audyssey compensate for the delay caused by the subwoofer's built-in DSP and such? If so, doesn't it mess up the subwoofer's performance in the time-domain if you set the distance to several feet different from what Audyssey says it needs to be?
I guess so. Smooth freq. response isnt the same as smooth timing as far as i know. Thats one of the big problems with a sub in each corner. To get smooth response its almost like the 4 subs have to wait in line to get to “say” what they want and you hear what each sub has to say just not with the same impulse response. 🤔
I just got done going through this again and noticed something. If you're running these tests with the avr set to multichannel, you get drastically different measurements when you switch back to stereo. It's really bad. Any thoughts?
Great vid. I’ve followed the rest of your setup vids, finishing with the subs, mains integration. This added delay into the dsp. I’m using an Anthem mrx1140 & you have to add your own distance. I just left it at 0 after the subs mains integration. Should I now follow this video & add distance?
Hi John, I have an MRX1120, so same boat as you with distance. In my case, sub distance is 0 because I used miniDSP to calibrate the subs. I used REW to find the distance for the mains with sweeps as I did not know about the method in this video. Same idea, though where you are looking to match output across the sub to speaker array. I ended up with mains at 2, center at 3, surrounds at 4 and heights at 6 IIRC. I know I have it dialed in fairly well when I can hear intercoms directly overhead (a la Auro 3d) when using Atmos or DTSX upmixers on the TrueHD or DTS Master tracks. The audio just comes alive and is exactly how one expects Atmos and DTSX to sound. I am sure there is a better way to get the phase aligned in distance with our AVRs, but for now, I am sticking to this as the balance and effect is preferred.
What listing mode should I use on my pioneer vsx-lx503? I know I want multi channel but pioneer doesn't really list/offer "multi" in the selection menu like you use in your videos.
Hi Brad small question: u mentioned doing room correction first and then going in and changing the distance or cross over. I have a NAD T778 with Dirac. After I use Dirac I can't change the distance anymore unless I use no Dirac. Do I just use cross over frequency to get the best result or is that also determined by Dirac? thanks !!! .
Question...Setting a curve for the Fronts speakers....everything I measure with this front speaker House curve it stays the same reading on REW measures with no changes. But when I put my front as Large speakers it does give me that curve that I intended to achieve. How can I get that curve with speakers set to small? Thanks
Thank you for this video! Great info! I absolutely need to test this method! I have two klipsch r-115sw with B&W CM7 floorstand speakers in a relative big basement room with a Denon avr-x3300w and Anti-Mode 8033S-II. I have a similiar dip around 80hz. Let's see if this method can help me out! And greetings from Finland! ;)
You chose to measure L+R, so REW is only measuring the left and right speaker together right? How does changing your subwoofer distance make the L+R measurement change if its not even playing sound out of the subwoofer?
Is changing the distance of the sub essentially like turning a phase dial? So if your subwoofer only has a 0 and 180 phase switch does distance give you the option to get more granular? I picture a phase dial shifting your sound wave and distance setting doing the same but I might be confused
Hi HTG, I tried this technique and the db barely went up even as I tried more feet and higher crossover. I am unsure what else to try to get my crossovers set properly? I will watch this video again in the meantime maybe I missed something.. thnx for all the videos..
Brad, knew the crossover from his other technique and video he had a video on. but I would like to know do we just set the crossover @ 80 and go from there still seems like a bit of guesswork.. but still alot easier then the other method.. but Brad was not too clear on how we get to the correct crossover but it looks like trial and error?
I'm starting with REW and understanding how to use it in my home theater. Yours is definitely the most comprehensible video tutorial. Thank you very much. I do have a question (not regarding REW), Would you recommend using Subwoofer Isolation feet on a 2nd story concrete floor? I have two SVS PB-1000s in a small dedicated room (14.4 x 13.8 x 9) but I am having much trouble controlling energy transfer (at approximately 80 dB) to the first floor. The problem is, I need to play at those volumes to really feel the Movie Theater experience I'm looking for.
Similar way multiple subs can be aligned too. May I request you do the same for MSO software. I heard MSO is better suited to tune the system for multiple seats in media room. Thank you.
@@HomeTheaterGamer MSO with a miniDSP is pure black magic. It takes a bit of messing around to get it right (what target volume level and boost amount) but it will reach an amazing result I cannot begin to compete with manually tuning EQ with REW. I'm talking flat 10hz-200hz with 2 subs in my 3300sq ft room. Also, theres an even better way than this to get your sub distance set correctly. Let's use the left speaker for example. Step 1: Set your subwoofer distance to the same distance as your left speaker. Step 2: Measure your left channel (left speaker + sub) for a baseline, witness that crossover dip from the distance (phase) not being right. Step 3: Turn off your subwoofer and run it again, now you'll just get the left speaker part of the crossover. Step 4: Turn on your sub and disconnect your left speaker and run it again, now you'll just have the subwoofer part of the crossover. Step 5: Now is time for the magic. Click on the all spl tab, then click on the gear in the top right and go to alignment tool. Step 6: Select your left speaker no sub measurement, and your no left speaker sub measurement. The summation line drawn will be the same as the measurement you took in step 2. Step 7: Adjust the subwoofer delay tab until you get a smooth FR. To the side of the delay slider you'll see a distance. Adjust your subwoofer distance by this amount. It's a little easier in metric.
Big Q is how to properly place and configure subs when you don’t have an AVR or any EQ or DSP software. I just have a simple integrated amplifier and rythmik f12 subs that must be set up completely manually with the knobs on the back. Can anyone point me to advice for this situation?
Very informative video and looking forward to trying this. By the way, I have dual PB2000 pros, what should the volume of the subs be when running these tests?
I’m having big time trouble getting to the denon Interface on my Laptop. Telling me that the IP address could not be found all my settings for is Wi-Fi to my laptop in ethernet cable to my receiver everything says it’s all good but still it’s saying on the laptop that the IP address cannot be found
why dbC for SPL measurements? Wouldn't dbZ make more sense for subs, since it's a flat curve? Also why REW if you already have Audy enabled? Audy makes all distance and phase corrections already. I think if you want to do distances via REW than Audy should be disabled. Also those dips you see in FR might be just nulls in your room acoustics, which should be corrected via EQ, rather than distance, seems like you might be solving the problem with wrong tools.
Never attempt to fix nulls in your room larger than 3-4dB via EQ. You are asking for trouble. And Audyssey’s distance is a rather crude estimation that often results poor time alignment to the MLP of all speakers. Audyssey also doesn’t do any phase corrections as it only detects absolute phase. It will simply throw up an error if it thinks the phase is wrong (even when it isn’t).
At around 5:00 you are adjusting settings for your receiver using your computer. Is that something you can do only on newer Denon receivers or can I do that with my X6300H from around 2016?
How did you get it so you can even see your receiver on your pc? My receiver is wired to my router and it doesn’t show up. Did you have to do something to get it to show?
I’ll have to double check the receiver, but from what I recall it has always just showed up under the Network tab in Windows 10. I’ll report back when I get a chance.
@@HomeTheaterGamer so I sort of got it to show up. BUT when I double click all it does is bring up a properties tab and nothing like what you have. I tried all kinds of google search terms but nothings comes up on how to bring up that type of control panel. Maybe the x6300h doesn’t do that
@Somu you can raise it without an issue but lowering it below what Audyssey sets means that those frequencies played back by the speaker won’t have EQ applied. Audyssey doesn’t EQ any frequencies below what it determines to be the crossover for that specific speaker. Again, this is a general rule and since you have REW, you can do a measurement to see the result from lowering the crossover too much.
I tried this technique with my svs subs after a full audy cal and adjusting the difference in sub woofer distance didn't change the db level at the problem frequency. It didn't matter if i changed the distance by multiple feet the db level always remained the same. Weird?
Great tutorial , very clear .......but ,like too many youtube vids ,how about getting rid of all background muzak ..its pointless and an annoying audio smog, music is designed to be heard so its just a weird unnecessary distraction
Generally speaking, around 120Hz is where low frequencies start to become localized. Although honestly, it’s not a simple yes or no answer. It depends on subwoofer placement, speaker placement, the room size, amount of subs, etc. There are lot of variables involved so it’s best to experiment to see what gives you the best response and sounds good.
I would love to, I just unfortunately don’t currently have the budget to purchase it and Audyssey hasn’t returned any of my emails. Down the road it’s a possibility.
My 2 cents: Somehow I think that technically this video doesn't make sense. The idea behind speaker distance is that the amplifier delays the sound of speakers close to you. In this way all sound effects reach the listener time-aligned, improving the impacts. What you actually are doing with your distance-settings is solving phase-problems. (Non-active amplified) speakers are full of phase problems. My SVS even has a phase-dial. If the phase of Sub and main speakers is 'out-of-phase', the bass will cancel out around the crossover frequency. Maybe you could do a video how to phase-align speaker and sub without *messing* with the delay :). Obvious, having 4 subs and multiple listening positions is a phase-alignment nightmare.
I would definitely avoid anything above 120Hz which is typically where bass starts to become noticeably directional. As a general rule I always start at 80Hz using a receiver and 40-60Hz if using separate amps.
Thanks for comment and that’s actually a great observation that I want to try and clarify. Basically, we’re measuring how the subwoofer and main front speakers interact with each other. Those nulls and peaks at 80Hz and above are caused by the mains cancelling out frequencies of the sub, and if we raised the crossovers to the max and measured just the sub, it wouldn’t have those nulls and would be relatively smooth. That’s because the mains and sib are not time aligned or in-phase with each other. Adding or subtracting a slight delay to the subwoofer (a foot is equal to about 1ms) can bring them in phase with each other so they aren’t cancelling each other out. That’s why the response gets better as a result.
Can't we just use the Audyssey microphone that comes with the receiver to make these adjustments? 130$ for the Umik-1 is too much for me to spend to just make these adjustments and never use the mic again.
huh, didn't know you could double click the Denon via the Network section [edit] double clicking the denon opens up the properties tab, rather than launch a program?
After the double clicking my Denon on the network I copied the IP address indicated in the network window into the address bar in Firefox. After a few permissions I was in. Way cool. I couldn't find the information anywhere so I just guessed it might work.
Sorry for the audio issues on this one everyone. I had my RODE Wireless Go microphone set too hot and that resulted in some occasional distortion while I was talked. Since this was filmed and edited during Thanksgiving week, I just didn’t have enough time to reshoot it. Sorry about that!
Also, I totally forgot to mention that you SHOULD do a measurement after adjusting distance the first time, even if you need to raise your crossover. This is mainly so you have something to compare each measurement against and pick the best one. I don’t know why I forgot to do that while recording this video.
And if you’re wondering why at 80-ish Hz I needed to be at 82dB and at 100 Hz I needed to be at 78dB, it’s because of my house curve and the way it slopes down.
Thank you very much for the video. Using this method I was able to eliminate 20db null between 30-60Hz, just by adding 30cm to the subwoofer distance.
At first I skipped over your videos. Now that I’m setting up my system and going in depth over REW, I find your videos are some of the clearest and most useful on RUclips. Thank you very much
Thanks Brad!!! Really help flaten a big null around 68hz that measured -10db. Now is all flat at 80db from 30hz to 100hz
Awesome to hear and glad it helped!
I heard from various Forum threads that prolonged sine wave signals can damage speaker drivers. I wanted to try this method but I'm a little concerned about stressing my speaker drivers. I use the "Subs Distance Tweak" method adding a foot in the AVR until I find the smoothest FR at the crossover point and so far this has worked for me. I just play it safe and it doesn't take that much longer.
After mounting speakers in the perfect Atmos positions, finding the best place for the sub(s), watch a dozen contradicting "how to use REW videos", measure, adjust, measure, tweak, lower the noise floor, add acoustical treatments, measure, tweak, measure again - AHHH perfection. You then sit down to enjoy a drink with a movie or music. And, then Satan sits on your shoulder and asks you: "Hey pal, is it really right ?". 2 more drinks!
Ha, truth
Wish I never watched any of these type of videos honestly. I haven't fooled with home audio since I was around 20 years old way back in the late 80's. I am beyond confused with all of this stuff. lmao
Im even tired of not having good sound, when i got into AVRs and HT two years ago i didnt even knew a subwoofer could sound better 1.5 meters further from its original position, i didnt knew it needs to be in an optimal place, i thought you place it and forget about it but my SVS SB 2000 sounds like shait evben in a small room, i should have gotten a PB1000 Pro, probably that could fill the room better than a sealed!
I bought a new HT system recently and fell into this calibration rabbit hole. I feel so lost. Wish there was a guide that just walked you through A to Z, but people make entire 30 min videos on one single setting lol. It's like if I want directions to the Grand Canyon and they spend an hour telling me about a gas station on the way there. Ok I will check out the gas station but I'm still lost! It's overwhelming for a busy working man like me.
@@deepg7084 You're not alone. Believe me! But, tragically, the tuning of a HT system is not a one evening task. I've been struggling with my home system for 10 years. I'm finally close to calling it good enough. If you can find others in your area and they're willing to help you that would be a great thing. But, HT hobbyists are far and few between. Those of us here are willing to help as best we can.
Aside from the great tips in the video, thanks so much for using the web interface on your receiver. I had no idea Denon AVR's could be controlled via web interface. Can't wait to use this on my X3700H. This is gonna make tweaking so much easier and less time consuming.
I tried on my SR6015, its connected but I have no control, no web interface. In properties it says presentation webpage unavailable. any direction on how to fix?
@@adam4g63 Try putting the AVR's ip address directly into the address field on a web page.
Thats really helpful. I also have a dip around 80-90 and never played with the distances. Im going to have fun this evening. Thanks for another great video! And thanks to JavonDGGreen
This is the best part of our community. Learning and sharing information with one another. You’re absolutely welcome my friend.
I ran rew to try to improve the sound of my dual pb4000 subs and had a nasty null around 65hz no matter what I did with distance and crossovers. I ended up spending around 2 hours messing with just the phase control of the subs and ended up getting the flattest response up to 100hz that I ever have before. No eq adjustments or anything. Simply just phase adjustments. It's definitely worth a try I you have the time and patience.
It’s amazing what a few minor adjustments can do, am I right!? Getting those subs in phase with each other can make a major difference. Sounds like 2 hours well spent if you ask me!
Excellent video as always Brad! Just to be sure...
1. Run REW to calibrate subs
2. Align subs in Mini DSP
3. Run room correction software (Audyssey, YPAO, etc)
4. Do the steps mentioned in this video.
Thanks for the shoutout man. Awesome video!!!
Amazing info. Thanks!! I've been wrestling with large nulls for a few years. I can set the delay on my Yamaha PX-3 subwoofer amp, but this is far more accurate. I still don't know why manufacturers insist on calling this parameter "Distance." There are so-called experts on RUclips who tell you to use a tape measure to set this. Perhaps as a baseline idea but it's totally wrong!
P.S. Love the t-shirt! I want one 🤣!
Great information, I love when people can come together to help out each other. I’m going to try it today
Thank you very much for the two connected videos. Allow me to ask a potentially stupid question. Would pink noise and using the real time analyser not be possible as well? That way you see the notches or nulls change in real time as you adjust phase and then time. I also wonder if it is better to adjust phase or time first, since these are connected.
Hey brad, just getting caught up on your few videos, there is a calibration file out there for 90 degrees for the auddessey mics, can you go over a tutorial for a setup to use the auddessey mic with eww, for some reason the mic doesn’t detect in rew when connected to the mic port on a pc, it sees the mic and you can select it and add the calibration file, but when you run the test tone or pink noise the app meter doesn’t move. I think there will be huge value to the home theater community if there was a nice and easy way to use the auddessey mic with few as most will already have the mic and will not need to purchase an expensive mic. Your easy to follow tutorials will be extremely helpful.
nice presentation, thanks... i think it's a good habit to check measurements/adjustments afterwards, especially using different approaches. in this case i would suggest a pink noise with a spectrogram view, as it would show the impact of the phase over a wide range of frequencies *in real time*. easier to interpret than a RTA window.
-----------------------------------
one thing to be aware is that most of the times, the delay/phase sub adjustment is a compromise between constructive interference in one frequency area and destructive interference in another.
i think it's unwise to deploy just one technique, whatever one.
using just a narrow fq window as exemplified in this approach is certainly opened to errors: you could be getting max output at 80Hz but simultaneously create a null at 160Hz or whatever.
Wow….I’m gonna be spending sooooo much time on this tomorrow!
Using both REW for measurements and MSO for filter calculations, gives best results. Must try MSO latest automated version!
Love all your guides! I can honestly say that your multople detailed videos on how to use a Mini-DSP and REW enabled me to use these tools to optimize both of my HT setups.
One thing I have done in optimizing my subs location, settings etc is to take the average of 3 main seating positions on the couch to guide my decisions, while noting the individual seat responses.
In my room, the right seat on the couch can be in a null highly dependent on sub position. I ended up using the position whose average response is more uneven, but with less of a seat to seat variation and having no nulls to speak of since they are difficult/ impossible to EQ. Once I got those positions right, it Audyssey's work a lot easier in optimizing the full system setup.
A lot more work and measurement ( and decision making) but worth it to make sure everyone on the couch has good sound instead of only having a narrow sweet spot with very good sound and the left and/ or right seats missing out.
This is a fantasyic video. Javon Rocks! Subcribed
Just getting in to REW and looking forward to getting the Denon 3800h setup fine tuned. Your video series has been very helpful. I was just going to leave a suggestion after watching the first video about the web interface and see that you've already updated the video to cover that. Very nice!
Hi Brad, Paul here from the UK 🇬🇧.
Thanks for your vids. They've been a great help and made a big difference. This one especially. Thanks 👍
Great to hear from you Paul! I’m glad you found them helpful. That means a lot!
hello from France 😁 i don't understand all my english is bad.
why not put the main volume of the denon on 00db and -30db in r.e.w?
like that we know that it corresponds to 75dbc as said in one of your other videos.
an advantage to make -12db on rew ?
thank you
Great video Brad.. thank you. Come on people he should have a lot more subscribers by now for his REW videos.
Really helpful video, thank you! I noticed that you only mentioned the crossover for the speakers, how about the subwoofer? What’s the crossover freq?
Always learning... - Thanks!
Ooh ! What a wonderful demo.
Great work...
Keep doing it for the Audiophile community 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Hi brad, this video helped me a lot. I have to increase a 2 ft sub distance for almost 10db increase at a near sub-mains crossover region.
Great vid. I'm just learning and your site is excellent.
Great video and application! Question: Have you done any setups to synchronize impulse response between sub and mains at the cover point? An idea > set the sub xcover and distance using your method above. Then increase the sub distance by multiples of one wavelength of the xover frequency. Example: At 80 hertz the wavelength is approximately 14.1 Ft > add 14.1 to your sub distance and run your frequency sweep and listening tests. In theory, most subs use digital amps and DSP circuitry which adds delay to their output. My experience is Audyssey can get the distance close in phase that your method corrects, but the sub output is actually one or more wavelengths off. I use drum test recordings to test this theory. I welcome comments (good or bad) & new any ideas.
great vid pal. better method any of the other vids ive watched on sub levels. cheers
Cool thumbnail. Cooler content. Love how you gave the guy who told you the idea his props but also took the time to make it your own and share it with us. This approach never occurred to me but now that I know it I'm jealous I didn't think of it!
It was definitely really cool to see.
Great video Brad! Thank you and greetings from Austria 🇦🇹 Europe
love the Vandelay Industries shirt
Why doesn't changing the sub distance affect the graph from 20hz to about 75hz? Also, what if using MultiEQ-X software?
I only get negative delays on all alignments so i cant use them on the sub- any idea why? i use dirac so i cant amend them :(
Trying to apply these concepts on my Onkyo TX-RZ50 and I seem to have hit a wall. It does not appear that i can manually adjust the speaker distances after I have ran the DIRAC Live calibrations. Any tips on here to help me out?
I just typed out a long comment with a question at the end in another video of yours, but I have a somewhat related question so I'll just get right to it... If I set my subwoofer level to 75 db then I lose almost all Dynamics in my room for music and movies, so I've been running it at 79-81db for the past 2 years and it gives me great impact and full sound for most content. My question is, do you think the fact that I only have one 10" sub is the reason I have to set it higher than 75db, because it isn't pressurizing my room enough? Now that you have 4 subs in your room, do you notice more Dynamics in your sound field then when you only had one? When I had two big tower speakers in my room, I had much more punchiness in the bass, and I'm sorely missing that now that I want to in-walls for my LCR, so I definitely think I'm going to have to add multiple subs in the near future, to get back what I've lost...
After you know your best settings, would it be a best practice to go into the MultiEQ App and save everything as a new profile?
What i kind of miss in this video is why you think the 80hz crossover was not good and you had to raise it. Is it because the max output at set frequency was not high enough to match the wanted output for a smooth response? For example; you wanted it to be 82dB, but you only got a max output of 78dB, so with the crossover set to 80hz, you were unable to match the desired output, and thus you tried a higher crossover?
I'm kind of wondering about this too. Awaiting clarification from @HomeTheaterGamer.
Wouldn't level matching speakers after running room correction cause the room correction corrections to be skewed?
You can meassure the output with REW so if that shows any dips and bumps then those are not corrected by correction software.
do you recommend this guide over the mini dsp part 4 way?
Only if you’re having issues getting things dialed in with Part 4. That way is technically more accurate. This video does supplement that process though, so you can incorporate both while dialing things in.
Do you reset the delays in the mini-dsp before doing these adjustments?
I tried on my SR6015, its connected but I have no control, no web interface. In properties it says presentation webpage unavailable. any direction on how to fix? thanks for the videos, very helpful!
So just to be clear, do I need to do this with both of the subwoofers on , or individually? Thanks for the great content.
Good question, I was wondering that also.
Could you please clarify. Is the reason you know the crossover setting is wrong is you could not get the decibels up to the same level when you increased the distance?
that is what I think and it was not clear how to get the correct Crossover.. Brad new 110 from his other video but seems to skip how we would know in this trick but maybe like you said..
Hi Brad. I love the work you do for all of us. Can you create a tutorial on how to setup subwoofers using MSO and mini DSP?
That’s definitely something I’m planning to do. Once I get better acquainted with it, I’ll do a video about it.
Can you use this for two different-sized subs of different brands? I have a 12" Klipsch (newest) and a 10" Polk (original) with my mixed-brand 7.2.2 (front height) HT/music system. I have my Denon X4700 set to LFE+Main
Just found this video, well done. I know what I'll be doing later tonight. haha
Very interesting method - thanks for the great explanation and how-to! 👍
Hey Brad, 13.00 when you up the distance of the sub it wont rise the DB in other frequency ranges? I get that you fix that nul with changing distance but maybe you get more DBs elsewhere too and when you make another measurement you wont get an optimal outcome.
It can sometimes cause slight differences in frequencies slightly higher than the crossover (if crossover is set to 80Hz for example, there may be a slight boost or dip added at between 100Hz and 120Hz), but most of the time the differences are minor and well worth the trade off in order to have a smoother blend between subwoofers and speakers.
Doesn't Audyssey compensate for the delay caused by the subwoofer's built-in DSP and such? If so, doesn't it mess up the subwoofer's performance in the time-domain if you set the distance to several feet different from what Audyssey says it needs to be?
I guess so. Smooth freq. response isnt the same as smooth timing as far as i know. Thats one of the big problems with a sub in each corner. To get smooth response its almost like the 4 subs have to wait in line to get to “say” what they want and you hear what each sub has to say just not with the same impulse response. 🤔
I just got done going through this again and noticed something. If you're running these tests with the avr set to multichannel, you get drastically different measurements when you switch back to stereo. It's really bad. Any thoughts?
Great vid. I’ve followed the rest of your setup vids, finishing with the subs, mains integration. This added delay into the dsp. I’m using an Anthem mrx1140 & you have to add your own distance. I just left it at 0 after the subs mains integration. Should I now follow this video & add distance?
Hi John, I have an MRX1120, so same boat as you with distance. In my case, sub distance is 0 because I used miniDSP to calibrate the subs. I used REW to find the distance for the mains with sweeps as I did not know about the method in this video. Same idea, though where you are looking to match output across the sub to speaker array. I ended up with mains at 2, center at 3, surrounds at 4 and heights at 6 IIRC.
I know I have it dialed in fairly well when I can hear intercoms directly overhead (a la Auro 3d) when using Atmos or DTSX upmixers on the TrueHD or DTS Master tracks. The audio just comes alive and is exactly how one expects Atmos and DTSX to sound.
I am sure there is a better way to get the phase aligned in distance with our AVRs, but for now, I am sticking to this as the balance and effect is preferred.
Thank you, I tried this, but there is no change in the value or the sound is raised with me, am I making a mistake?
Great video and great t-shirt from Mr. Constanza? :)
I used to work for Art Vandelay, but now I spend my time working as a marine biologist.
What listing mode should I use on my pioneer vsx-lx503? I know I want multi channel but pioneer doesn't really list/offer "multi" in the selection menu like you use in your videos.
Hi Brad small question: u mentioned doing room correction first and then going in and changing the distance or cross over. I have a NAD T778 with Dirac. After I use Dirac I can't change the distance anymore unless I use no Dirac. Do I just use cross over frequency to get the best result or is that also determined by Dirac? thanks !!! .
Question...Setting a curve for the Fronts speakers....everything I measure with this front speaker House curve it stays the same reading on REW measures with no changes. But when I put my front as Large speakers it does give me that curve that I intended to achieve. How can I get that curve with speakers set to small? Thanks
Thank you for this video! Great info! I absolutely need to test this method! I have two klipsch r-115sw with B&W CM7 floorstand speakers in a relative big basement room with a Denon avr-x3300w and Anti-Mode 8033S-II. I have a similiar dip around 80hz. Let's see if this method can help me out! And greetings from Finland! ;)
Very cool! Thanks for this!
You chose to measure L+R, so REW is only measuring the left and right speaker together right? How does changing your subwoofer distance make the L+R measurement change if its not even playing sound out of the subwoofer?
Because the xover in the AVR Will send anything below xover to the subs. So you need to turn on your subs.
Is changing the distance of the sub essentially like turning a phase dial? So if your subwoofer only has a 0 and 180 phase switch does distance give you the option to get more granular? I picture a phase dial shifting your sound wave and distance setting doing the same but I might be confused
Hi HTG, I tried this technique and the db barely went up even as I tried more feet and higher crossover. I am unsure what else to try to get my crossovers set properly? I will watch this video again in the meantime maybe I missed something.. thnx for all the videos..
Same thing happened to me yesterday. No matter what I did it didn't matter. Null spot was still very much there.
There's one thing I don't understand. How did you know it was a 110 cross over? Could you explain how you knew that it was 110?
Brad, knew the crossover from his other technique and video he had a video on. but I would like to know do we just set the crossover @ 80 and go from there still seems like a bit of guesswork.. but still alot easier then the other method.. but Brad was not too clear on how we get to the correct crossover but it looks like trial and error?
I'm starting with REW and understanding how to use it in my home theater. Yours is definitely the most comprehensible video tutorial. Thank you very much. I do have a question (not regarding REW), Would you recommend using Subwoofer Isolation feet on a 2nd story concrete floor? I have two SVS PB-1000s in a small dedicated room (14.4 x 13.8 x 9) but I am having much trouble controlling energy transfer (at approximately 80 dB) to the first floor. The problem is, I need to play at those volumes to really feel the Movie Theater experience I'm looking for.
Similar way multiple subs can be aligned too.
May I request you do the same for MSO software. I heard MSO is better suited to tune the system for multiple seats in media room. Thank you.
Thanks for the request. I’ve actually been meaning to check out MSO as it is!
@@HomeTheaterGamer MSO with a miniDSP is pure black magic. It takes a bit of messing around to get it right (what target volume level and boost amount) but it will reach an amazing result I cannot begin to compete with manually tuning EQ with REW. I'm talking flat 10hz-200hz with 2 subs in my 3300sq ft room.
Also, theres an even better way than this to get your sub distance set correctly. Let's use the left speaker for example.
Step 1: Set your subwoofer distance to the same distance as your left speaker.
Step 2: Measure your left channel (left speaker + sub) for a baseline, witness that crossover dip from the distance (phase) not being right.
Step 3: Turn off your subwoofer and run it again, now you'll just get the left speaker part of the crossover.
Step 4: Turn on your sub and disconnect your left speaker and run it again, now you'll just have the subwoofer part of the crossover.
Step 5: Now is time for the magic. Click on the all spl tab, then click on the gear in the top right and go to alignment tool.
Step 6: Select your left speaker no sub measurement, and your no left speaker sub measurement. The summation line drawn will be the same as the measurement you took in step 2.
Step 7: Adjust the subwoofer delay tab until you get a smooth FR. To the side of the delay slider you'll see a distance. Adjust your subwoofer distance by this amount. It's a little easier in metric.
@@HomeTheaterGamer Did you ever try out MSO?
I thought you are supposed to use stereo with everything crossed at 250hz...but I might try 7.1
Even though you have 4 subwoofers did you tell the Denon that you only had one?
Correct.
Wow, mind blown. Thank you thank you thank you👍
Big Q is how to properly place and configure subs when you don’t have an AVR or any EQ or DSP software. I just have a simple integrated amplifier and rythmik f12 subs that must be set up completely manually with the knobs on the back. Can anyone point me to advice for this situation?
Does this work for two indepedant subs and if so, does anyone know how to do it?
Very informative video and looking forward to trying this. By the way, I have dual PB2000 pros, what should the volume of the subs be when running these tests?
Great video thank you 👍🏻
Thank you for this Video
I’m having big time trouble getting to the denon Interface on my Laptop. Telling me that the IP address could not be found all my settings for is Wi-Fi to my laptop in ethernet cable to my receiver everything says it’s all good but still it’s saying on the laptop that the IP address cannot be found
why change levels after room correction???
why dbC for SPL measurements? Wouldn't dbZ make more sense for subs, since it's a flat curve?
Also why REW if you already have Audy enabled? Audy makes all distance and phase corrections already. I think if you want to do distances via REW than Audy should be disabled.
Also those dips you see in FR might be just nulls in your room acoustics, which should be corrected via EQ, rather than distance, seems like you might be solving the problem with wrong tools.
Never attempt to fix nulls in your room larger than 3-4dB via EQ. You are asking for trouble. And Audyssey’s distance is a rather crude estimation that often results poor time alignment to the MLP of all speakers. Audyssey also doesn’t do any phase corrections as it only detects absolute phase. It will simply throw up an error if it thinks the phase is wrong (even when it isn’t).
Great video...got a sub from me. Your videos are clear and concise...and that's tough when you're helping idiots like me out with REW. :D
Thank you Brad.... 👊😃👍
At around 5:00 you are adjusting settings for your receiver using your computer. Is that something you can do only on newer Denon receivers or can I do that with my X6300H from around 2016?
How did you get it so you can even see your receiver on your pc? My receiver is wired to my router and it doesn’t show up. Did you have to do something to get it to show?
I’ll have to double check the receiver, but from what I recall it has always just showed up under the Network tab in Windows 10. I’ll report back when I get a chance.
@@HomeTheaterGamer so I sort of got it to show up. BUT when I double click all it does is bring up a properties tab and nothing like what you have. I tried all kinds of google search terms but nothings comes up on how to bring up that type of control panel. Maybe the x6300h doesn’t do that
@@HomeTheaterGamer well crap. I googled your receiver and even though it came out the same year. I think I don’t have that feature on my X6300H
Interesting. Have you tried typing your receivers IP address directly into a web browser like Google Chrome to see if anything comes up?
After audyssey setup can we reduce crossover settings if we want?
As a general rule, I wouldn’t recommend setting the crossovers lower than what Audyssey sets.
@@HomeTheaterGamer then how to play with rew here it may raise or reduce?
@Somu you can raise it without an issue but lowering it below what Audyssey sets means that those frequencies played back by the speaker won’t have EQ applied. Audyssey doesn’t EQ any frequencies below what it determines to be the crossover for that specific speaker.
Again, this is a general rule and since you have REW, you can do a measurement to see the result from lowering the crossover too much.
@@HomeTheaterGamer ❤️
I tried this technique with my svs subs after a full audy cal and adjusting the difference in sub woofer distance didn't change the db level at the problem frequency. It didn't matter if i changed the distance by multiple feet the db level always remained the same. Weird?
If you have a Denon AVR you need to set the distance and then exit the menu otherwise IT won't adjust the distance.
But what about the fact, that the time alignment doesn’t fit anymore?
Great tutorial , very clear .......but ,like too many youtube vids ,how about getting rid of all background muzak ..its pointless and an annoying audio smog, music is designed to be heard so its just a weird unnecessary distraction
I don’t get how this works. A room null is a room null. What’s the voodoo behind it? And now won’t it be an incorrect timing on music and movies?
How did you know you had to change your crossover?
Doesn't the subwoofer become localized with a crossover of 110Hz?
Generally speaking, around 120Hz is where low frequencies start to become localized. Although honestly, it’s not a simple yes or no answer. It depends on subwoofer placement, speaker placement, the room size, amount of subs, etc. There are lot of variables involved so it’s best to experiment to see what gives you the best response and sounds good.
Why not just use the alignment tool in REW?
You definitely could, it’s just more complex and would take longer.
Ty!
any chance for an idiot proof and easy video for Multieq-X users ?? seriously i have no idea what should I be doing with that software.... PLEASE
I would love to, I just unfortunately don’t currently have the budget to purchase it and Audyssey hasn’t returned any of my emails. Down the road it’s a possibility.
I dont see a multichannel in denon , when I connect my laptop through intel audio, anyone else?
My 2 cents: Somehow I think that technically this video doesn't make sense. The idea behind speaker distance is that the amplifier delays the sound of speakers close to you. In this way all sound effects reach the listener time-aligned, improving the impacts. What you actually are doing with your distance-settings is solving phase-problems. (Non-active amplified) speakers are full of phase problems. My SVS even has a phase-dial. If the phase of Sub and main speakers is 'out-of-phase', the bass will cancel out around the crossover frequency. Maybe you could do a video how to phase-align speaker and sub without *messing* with the delay :). Obvious, having 4 subs and multiple listening positions is a phase-alignment nightmare.
The problem with high crossover is that bass becomes directional
I would definitely avoid anything above 120Hz which is typically where bass starts to become noticeably directional. As a general rule I always start at 80Hz using a receiver and 40-60Hz if using separate amps.
Me just now discovering a web based interface for my Denon receiver I’ve had for a couple of years 🤦♂️
I understand the process. But I don't understand how the sub can measure better without moving it physically
Thanks for comment and that’s actually a great observation that I want to try and clarify. Basically, we’re measuring how the subwoofer and main front speakers interact with each other. Those nulls and peaks at 80Hz and above are caused by the mains cancelling out frequencies of the sub, and if we raised the crossovers to the max and measured just the sub, it wouldn’t have those nulls and would be relatively smooth. That’s because the mains and sib are not time aligned or in-phase with each other. Adding or subtracting a slight delay to the subwoofer (a foot is equal to about 1ms) can bring them in phase with each other so they aren’t cancelling each other out. That’s why the response gets better as a result.
@@HomeTheaterGamer So you are adding a time delay. Same as in MiniDSP.
Thanks you are doing a great explaining everything related to HT.
Can't we just use the Audyssey microphone that comes with the receiver to make these adjustments? 130$ for the Umik-1 is too much for me to spend to just make these adjustments and never use the mic again.
If you can get the calibration file for the Audyssey mic, then yeah (there are ways but I’ve never tried it). You probably can.
@@HomeTheaterGamer Thanks for the reply, I will try to find the calibration file. Do you know a starting place for my research :)
I would definitely recommend starting here: ruclips.net/video/KIozAzQH3CM/видео.html.
💐👍
huh, didn't know you could double click the Denon via the Network section
[edit] double clicking the denon opens up the properties tab, rather than launch a program?
After the double clicking my Denon on the network I copied the IP address indicated in the network window into the address bar in Firefox. After a few permissions I was in. Way cool. I couldn't find the information anywhere so I just guessed it might work.
en español