New to the HT World - Need some Room EQ support

[Dieselboy777]

Hello Guys, as the title say I am quite new to the HT world, but familiar with sound since I was Producing and DJing in my early days

I did a lot of research and bought these part (so far, I will have to replace my Surround and Rear eventually as they are legacy equiment from my studio)

• Marantz 8802a AV
• JTR Noesis 210RT (R & L)
• JTR Noesis 210RM (Center)
• 2X JTR Captivator S1
• GoldenEar Invisa HTR-7000 (4X for the In-Ceiling Atmos in a Dynabox)
• Powered by a D-Sonic - M3a-2800-7 Seven Channel Amplifier
• The Rears are Alesis ProLinear 820 DSP and the Sides are KRK RPG-6, they are Both Actives Studio Monitors

My room is a Dedicated HT room 26X17X9 - it is not entirely closed.

I started looking at some suggestion in regards to acoustic treament as well as Speaker placement and Room accoustic and would love to know where to start, or to be Honnest end

Should I invest 400-500$ to get an expert in my place with the appropriate equipment run REW and set everything properly? (I leave in QC, Canada near Montreal, any suggestion?)

OR

Should I buy a miniDSP UMIK-1 and Spend 60 Hours trying to figuring things out play with Diffuser/Absorber/Basstrap.

Cheers!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Why don't you just use the Audyssey EQ in the Marantz?

 

[Dieselboy777]

Why don't you just use the Audyssey EQ in the Marantz?

I will for sure, that being said, I don’t want to entirely rely in that as I would be surprised my sound will be optimized after that.

 

[JStewart]

Wow, great set up!
My suggestion FWIW is to get the UMIK & REW, measure and then decide if you want/need to go further with treatments. It will also be handy to confirm the response in different speaker positions and sub positions if you can/want to try different placements, which I'm guessing you already know is the first step, with room treatments after.
Also agree with Kal to try Audyssey since you already have it.

 

[Tony V.]

Audyssey is a powerful tool and dont be fooled into thinking it cant do a great job however it is important to set the mic correctly and use a tripod. Room treatment can be as simple as placing a throw rug on the floor if its a hard surface and if thats not enough some acoustic panels on the walls (fairly easy to make yourself if money is a factor).

 

[Dieselboy777]

Great! I am setting eveything up in the next 2 weeks, thanks for the advices, I will use Audyssey once everythng is in place and see how it goes. Thanks!

 

[Dieselboy777]

Wow, great set up!
My suggestion FWIW is to get the UMIK & REW, measure and then decide if you want/need to go further with treatments. It will also be handy to confirm the response in different speaker positions and sub positions if you can/want to try different placements, which I'm guessing you already know is the first step, with room treatments after.
Also agree with Kal to try Audyssey since you already have it.

Should I run Audyssey first then REW or vice versa?

 

[JStewart]

Should I run Audyssey first then REW or vice versa?

Because Audyssey can be turned off/on either will work.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I would take some REW pre-measurements... then run audyssey (using the Audyssey app if your AVR supports it)... then take some REW post-measurements.

And get that system posted in the AV Showcase (here). Sounds killer!

 

[Matthew J Poes]

The nice thing about REW over Audyssey is that it can help with the aspects of setup that are unrelated to what it directly fixes. For example, it doesn't always get the distances precisely right for the speakers and subs, it gets thrown off by excessive group delay in the subs or some other setup anomoly.

A lot of people suggest using REW and a minidsp and then running Audyssey. I used to think this was harmless, but I've since come to believe it actually could be harmful and don't suggest doing that. The reason is that for folks who are just starting out, it's easy to go down a bad road and apply a ton of EQ and filters. When all is said and done, they've added so much group delay that the Audyssey algorythm tries to compensate without understanding what is causing it. In this scenario, Audyssey won't likely be able to fully compensate, and even it could, you really want to fix that at the source.

My suggestion, for now, buy a umik-1, download REW, skip the Minidsp for the moment, and learn the software. Use Audyssey and use it as a means to help you see what is going on. Once you feel confident in your measurement abiltiies, the MiniDSP can be a fun tweak that you may enjoy using to further enhance the system. I haven't had the best of luck with Audyssey myself and do find that some additional LF EQ can be beneficial, but I believe the version you have may be quite a bit better than what I used.

I'll also mention, I provide this kind of work for people, I'm relatively cheap, I would charge more than $500 to do what you asked. A basic room analysis is about $300 plus travel. The going rate for professional acoustic setup work like this is between $100 and $200 an hour, and for something like a dedicated theater with a complex setup like you have, I would say it could easily take 8 hours to do the measurements and EQ optimization, and more than one trip for acoustc treatment. I give people a break on EQ and subwoofer setup because I feel bad charging $800, but...for a multi-sub setup, that's what it can take, and I know plenty of firm that charge that and more.

I think anyone doing this much work fro $500 may not be giving you your monies worth or may not be a professional. I've seen a ton of hack jobs with EQ, self taught amatures that did more harm than good. If your going to mess things up, might as well do it yourself and pay nothing, right? Plus, I'll happily help you for free, I won't help your pro for free. Professional acoustic setup work is expensive, which is why it's not that common.

That money may be better spent on a pro-Audyssey setup. I'm not sure if that is still a thing, but when XT32 came out, I recall some folks who tested it both ways and felt the pro setup still offered some advantages over the user setup version. Assuming Audyssey is still supporting the Pro setup, that might get you more benefit. Actual from scratch acoustical analysis and seutp is a lot more involved than something like Audyssey pro because nothing is canned, you have to do all the work yourself.

 

[JStewart]

Wayne Myers ( @AudiocRaver ) did an excellent Audyssey set up guide on HTS here: https://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/audio-processing/68407-audyssey-multeq-faq-setup-guide.html

 

[Dieselboy777]

Thank you very much Guys! Matthew I will definitly have fun with REW. I tested the Audyssey XT32 Yesterday, and I am definitely not happy with it for the sub and Front adjustment (atmos and Suround seems a bit better but still) I will start playing with that and will ping you if I hit a major roadblock. THanks for the advices.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Thank you very much Guys! Matthew I will definitly have fun with REW. I tested the Audyssey XT32 Yesterday, and I am definitely not happy with it for the sub and Front adjustment (atmos and Suround seems a bit better but still) I will start playing with that and will ping you if I hit a major roadblock. THanks for the advices.

Sounds Great! Have fun. Feel free to share any results you have found. We are here to help. Plus I'm curious what it is doing that you are not happy with.

Do you have the app for adjusting the curve?

 

[Tony V.]

Its really important that the mic be positioned correctly. how did you place the mic during readings?

 

[Dieselboy777]

Hello, I placed it in the 8 Position the Graph told me to at ear level using the Mic provided with my AV receiver (Marantz 8802a), I also checked that all speaker are set to small (after) with an 80Hz Crossover except for the subs and LFE (not LFE+main). On my JTR I had to lower the gain to 4 notch from Min to get that 75dB Lvl, not crossover from the amp.

 

[Dieselboy777]

Sounds Great! Have fun. Feel free to share any results you have found. We are here to help. Plus I'm curious what it is doing that you are not happy with.

Do you have the app for adjusting the curve?

I actually do not, what would you suggest? and How could I use that with my Marantz 8802a? Thank you.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

I actually do not, what would you suggest? and How could I use that with my Marantz 8802a? Thank you.

https://www.us.marantz.com/us/produ...avreceivers&ProductId=AudysseyMultEQEditorApp

That is the app I was talking about. Check it out. It's pretty cool!

Share your REW measurements. It will be helpful for us to help you.

 

[Tony V.]

Did you use a tripod for the mic and have the mic pointing up?