I am an avid fan of Audyssey MultQ XT and have spent years on getting to understand it. Your explaination of why something sounds bloated with Dynamic EQ On is wrong.

With Dynamic EQ it’s important that the INPUT level is correct. This is fine with calibrated inputs like DVD and BlueRay via digital inputs like HDMI. If you have something that is “too loud” (and you turn down the AVR level) the calibration works out wrong and so everything is being boosted.

Try a music DVD. Then try the same off a CD that you’ve ripped into your iPod. Connect the iPod via an analog input (as is mostly the case). You’ll find the iPod playback is some 10db even 15db louder, and so yo’d be setting your volume control to -30db; but the DVD will be at -10db or so. Reduce the output of the iPodto match. It’ll then be VERY nice. The bass then will be the same whether it’s the DVD or the iPod.

I get around this by feeding all my 320k MP3 files into MediaMonkey, setting the Volume Levelling to 85db, then store that back into the file. You’ll find many are 10db even 15db higher then 85db, maxed out to 100db leaving no headroom (why they do this is beyond me when we now have 100db range instead of 40db in the analogue days). On playback, whether it’s DVDs or MP3s my AVR volume level does not change, and the bass is tight as!

Cheers
skriss
Cairns, Australia

NEXT WEEK:

We begin recording on Tuesday nights at 9 pm Eastern.

And check out the link below for Rob’s guest appearance on The Digital Media Zone’s Entertainment 2.0 Podcast:

http://www.thedigitalmediazone.com/2014/08/21/entertainment-2-0-291-designing-your-home-av-experience/

AV Rant Listener John M. —

Sent us a link to an article from KenRockwell.com in which he thoroughly measures the headphone output of an iPhone 5 and concludes that it is an excellent quality audio device:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-5/audio-quality.htm

AV Rant Listener Joe S. —

has a need for some good bookshelf-sized speakers – most likely front ported – that could work well inside an entertainment cabinet.

KEF’s Q Series have a great design and sound quality for this sort of application. And if they’re going to live inside an entertainment cabinet, a very minor cosmetic imperfection won’t be noticeable at all! So why not save some money while you’re at it? Buying KEF speakers from Accessories4Less makes a lot of sense in this situation.

http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/spkbookshelf/speakers-stands/bookshelf-speakers/1.html?brand=KEF

AV Rant Listener Michael R. —

found a 2 page article from Sound & Vision on bass management. He thought it was a very interesting and informative read, and he thought we might like to discuss it and share it with the AV Rant community.

Frankly, we really like this article. It reaffirms many of the things we say about bass and bass management on the podcast, and gives readers a little history lesson, as well. So check it out!

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/bass-management-and-lfe-channel

AV Rant Listener Jonathan F. —

got an ad (I’ll use that word since Tom doesn’t like the word “promotion”) from Sonos for their wireless Subwoofer.

http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/sub

He noticed that it has dual drivers that face each other and fire inward, but it also has dual amplifiers. The dual amplifier part is rather unique. We can’t really say we’ve ever seen that before, nor do we know for certain why they chose that design.

It’s somewhat similar, overall, to the Paradigm MilleniaSub:

http://paradigm.com/products-current/type=subwoofer/model=milleniasub/page=overview

But the Paradigm uses only one amplifier for both active drivers.

If you have any ideas about the Sonos SUB’s design, please feel free to share them in the comments below!

AV Rant Listener Herb (from http://www.cross-spectrum.com/ )

tweeted to Rob to correct him about Nyquist frequencies and digital audio sampling. This sent Rob down the rabbit hole a little bit, and he found a pretty great write up and video that explains things far better than we probably ever could.

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

VIDEO: http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

It’s from xiph.org , and, unfortunately, it’s entitled “24/192 Music Downloads…and Why They Make no Sense”, which is bound to turn some readers off immediately. But it is quite technical, extremely well-reasoned, and the video demonstrates a lot of what is explained in a very clear manner. So it’s well worth checking out.

AV Rant Listener (Infinite) Gary —

kindly forwarded a link to the manual for Onkyo’s Dolby Atmos-capable Pre/Pro, the PR-SC5530. The manual goes into some detail about exactly how Onkyo is handling Atmos in this first generation, and it also makes it clear how your speakers are supposed to be positioned.

Unfortunately, it also makes it clear how restrictive those positions are, and how limited your options are when it comes to the exact combinations of speakers Onkyo allows you to utilize!

Check out pages 5 & 6 to see what we’re talking about:

http://filedepot.onkyousa.com/Files/own_manuals/PR-SC5530_BAS_En_29401678_140619_web.pdf

Not to be outdone, Denon Europe has posted the manual for one of their Dolby Atmos-capable AV Receiver, the AVR-X5200. It’s 335 pages long!

Denon’s description of speaker locations is even more detailed. And comparing it to the Onkyo manual, it is clear that different manufacturers will indeed be offering varying levels of flexibility in terms of which speaker positions you can use for Atmos playback.

Denon is offering a lot more options for speaker combination options. Check out pages 28-31 for the speaker placement insanity. And pages 208-211 to see all of the configuration options for using 11 speakers at once!

Confused? Don’t worry. Everyone is. It’s ridiculous.

http://assets.denoneu.com/DocumentMaster/MASTER/AVR-X5200WE2_ENG_CD-ROM_IM_v00.pdf

Want to see all the new Atmos speaker positions and the names they’ve been given? Aren’t you just overjoyed that there are a whole bunch of new speaker position names?

Check out our little photo album. Better yet, get your significant others to look at the pictures. I’m certain they will give you their support and tell you how attractive they think your living room will look with all those speakers in it!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.947026021981494.1073741849.522979641052803&type=1

Pioneer Elite posted the manual for their Atmos-enabled speakers. We’re particularly fond of page 4 where they give you all the restrictions for speaker placement and room dimensions while casually mentioning that you’ll probably want to buy the bookshelf versions rather than the towers. First time we’ve seen that!

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/ephox/StaticFiles/Manuals/Home/Elite%20SP-EBS73_SP-EFS73%20User%20Manual.pdf

Back in March, representatives from Barco Auro, Dolby Atmos and DTS-UHD (called “MDA” at the time) had an “open discussion” and stated their cases for why their respective versions each represented the best solution for “immersive audio”.

It’s a fun read. And if DTS can actually deliver on what they’re promising, it’ll put some pressure on Dolby, for sure.

http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/news-and-features/features/technology/e3iea323cda9b7700a91444d6e20a65b111

Here are a couple headphone comparison reviews that included B&W headphones:
http://m.thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-300ish-headphone/
http://www.marco.org/headphones-closed-portable