# YPAO vs MCACC vs Audyssey vs...



## aceinc

Is there anyplace that gives a reasonable definition and/or comparison of the various auto eq technologies? and if there are differences between mfr's versions on less and more expensive receivers, what they are.

For example, I was looking at the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH, and someone here recommended the Onkyo TX-SR875. The Onkyo uses "Audyssey MultEQ XT", the Pioneer uses "Advanced MCACC 9-band EQ" when I looked online I found some subjective, but very little objective information about the technologies. I couldn't even find reasonable info on the MFR's site.

I have a lower end Yamaha from a year or two ago with YPAO, and I'm not overly impressed with it.

Paul


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## tonyvdb

Audyssey MultEQ XT is regarded to be the best available for the consumer end receivers. 
If you have a look HERE you will find a good review at Secrets of the OnkyoTX SR805 that uses the Audyssey MultEQ XT the link will take you to the page where they talk about it.


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## jerome

tonyvdb said:


> Audyssey MultEQ XT is regarded to be the best available for the consumer end receivers.


Well, that's if you ask someone who is pro Audyssey :bigsmile:
I guess if you ask Pioneer they will say that Audyssey is not that good and MCACC is the best etc etc


I'm neutral on this but I am also unable to find any really good literature on this subject. It's probably difficult to test those 3 in an A/B test but I find it really strange that nobody has done it. A very detailed description of how they work would be a good starting point.


However, here is what I read in another forum from a very experienced user:
1) Pioneer has the best room correction system for rooms with _naked_ walls and reflections, or strange shapes in their rooms
2) Yamaha has shown to have the system which gives the most dynamic sound
3) Onkyo is the one with the most _balanced_ system

I also believe that not all the room correction systems are equals when you change the type of room or type of sound. People are different, so should the room corrections system also be. For instance, I don't really like the sound my Denon AVR-3806 produces when running Audyssey (loss of bass, not dynamic enough).

But an explanation of what to expect from the different vendors would be **really** nice to have for the users.


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## aceinc

Jerome:

Sure, I was just beginning to think that it was simple, Audyssey was the best product, end of story. Now here you come along with your facts and common sense and just ruin everything. Now I've got to start thinking again.:hissyfit:

Yes I agree, I would really like to know more about how they work.

Not having heard the Audyssey, but knowing a bit about software, and a smaller bit about sound, I've got to believe that there must be some penalty in clarity, or something with all the machinations the DSP filters must do to try and make every spot in the listenening area sound good.

Their spiel just sounds too good to be true. Having said that I would love to be proven wrong since the Onkyo is $200 less than the Pioneer. 

My listening room is about 25' x 15.5' hard wood floor with two thick area rugs 8'x11' and 5'x8', a leather couch and love seat a moderate amount of mainly hard decorations. A couple of fake (silk?) plants. There are a fair number of windows with "cellular" shades. A marble Firplace protrudes into the room about 3'x6', floor to ceiling.

So which one is better for that room?

Paul


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## jerome

aceinc said:


> Sure, I was just beginning to think that it was simple, Audyssey was the best product, end of story. Now here you come along with your facts and common sense and just ruin everything. Now I've got to start thinking again.:hissyfit:


Sorry, I don't believe that it's that simple. But I have read in some reviews that the new room correction systems give results with only subtle differences.




aceinc said:


> Not having heard the Audyssey, but knowing a bit about software, and a smaller bit about sound, I've got to believe that there must be some penalty in clarity, or something with all the machinations the DSP filters must do to try and make every spot in the listening area sound good.


That's where they may differ according to the environment. Audyssey was known to cut lower frequencies (<20Hz) but I don't know if that's true in the newest versions.
I will soon receive a new Yamaha receiver will hear the differences with the old Audyssey.




aceinc said:


> My listening room is about 25' x 15.5' hard wood floor with two thick area rugs 8'x11' and 5'x8', a leather couch and love seat a moderate amount of mainly hard decorations. A couple of fake (silk?) plants. There are a fair number of windows with "cellular" shades. A marble Firplace protrudes into the room about 3'x6', floor to ceiling.
> 
> So which one is better for that room?


I am not qualified enough to answer this one, sorry. Maybe someone else does?

In my opinion, you should try to optimize your room before trying any room correction and believe that it will fix everything. You can probably achieve better results by improving your room acoustics than trusting blindly your receiver.


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## aceinc

Are there software/firmware upgrades/bug fixes available for download for Audyssey based receivers?

How about MCACC, or YPAO?

Paul


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## tonyvdb

jerome said:


> Well, that's if you ask someone who is pro Audyssey :bigsmile:


I am not at all "pro Audyssey" as a matter of fact I am still a big fan of Yamaha as some of my equipment is Yamaha. I am only repeating what has already been said all over the net in reviews of different receivers. The Secrets site is a very good site for reviews as they do not get commission from any of the manufacturers so there reviews are unbiased. 
The Audyssey MultEQ XT doesn't mess with the lower frequencies and the best part is that you can go in and change any of the settings that it chooses including the crossovers and EQ settings.


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## jerome

I have read some threads on several forums where people have big problems upgrading their Denon units but I really don't know if it's Audyssey related :dontknow:



tonyvdb said:


> I am not at all "pro Audyssey" as a matter of fact I am still a big fan of Yamaha as some of my equipment is Yamaha. I am only repeating what has already been said all over the net in reviews of different receivers. The Secrets site is a very good site for reviews as they do not get commission from any of the manufacturers so there reviews are unbiased.


Sorry, I did not want to offend you :no: I saw a few of your posts lately and they were positive to Audyssey and/or Onkyo. And you own a new Onkyo receiver. Therefore I thought that you became a pro Audyssey. Never mind, forget it and let's all be friends !!! :bigsmile:



tonyvdb said:


> The Audyssey MultEQ XT doesn't mess with the lower frequencies and the best part is that you can go in and change any of the settings that it chooses including the crossovers and EQ settings.


Yes, that's probably correct. The Audyssey I had on my Denon receiver is an older version. They probably have fixed this bug on the new receivers.
When it comes to modifying the EQ settings after running Audyssey, I read somewhere on this forum (can't remember where...) that if you do it, then the receiver will go out of the Audyssey mode and use the modified mode instead. Is it true? I haven't tested it in practice but, since you have the Onkyo 875, you could perhaps answer us on this one ...


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## Kal Rubinson

tonyvdb said:


> I am not at all "pro Audyssey" as a matter of fact I am still a big fan of Yamaha as some of my equipment is Yamaha.


Understandable.



> The Secrets site is a very good site for reviews as they do not get commission from any of the manufacturers so there reviews are unbiased.


And whose reviews are so biased? :foottap:



> The Audyssey MultEQ XT doesn't mess with the lower frequencies and the best part is that you can go in and change any of the settings that it chooses including the crossovers and EQ settings.


Untrue. It does EQ the lower frequencies and you cannot change the EQ settings, only the crossover f, level and delay.

Kal


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## tonyvdb

Kal Rubinson said:


> Untrue. It does EQ the lower frequencies and you cannot change the EQ settings, only the crossover f, level and delay.
> 
> Kal


Yes you can, I just did it last week on my Onkyo 805. All the channels allow eq adjustments from 25hz up to 16Khz including the sub.
This may just be an Onkyo feature not Audyssey but thats what I have found.


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## salvasol

I used the YPAO to calibrate my system ... I'm not an expert on this, but after reading a lot of post from experienced people :yes: ... I can say, it doesn't matter if you use YPAO, Audyssey or MCACC , that will be your starting point to set up the system to your taste :bigsmile::bigsmile:

After I used YPAO, I had to make some corrections manually (speaker size, distance, etc.) because the set up was either wrong or to adjust to my taste :yes::yes::yes: ... I been reading a lot of posts about using REW to better calibrate the system ... I'm sure it will be more reliable than the auto calibration included with any receiver :surrender:


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## htnut12

YPAO and MCACC allow adjustments after calibration. Audyssey does not. As stated by Kal if you want to adjust frequencies or the like you are just doing a manual setting job, not tweaking Audyssey. I think that Audessey Pro has some tweaking opportunity, but not the varieties in receivers. 

I have Audyssey Lite in my Denon 2307CI. Nice job of smoothing things out. Wipes out bass but I don't mind because I have all the latitude in the world to adjust that. You cannot even save a run, try again and then go back if it works out that the previous run was better. And it has my system a bit too bright. No way to fix that in the seven channels. Only if I were to manually set up everything. There is a huge thread on Audyssey on AVS. 

That said, I will be picking up a Pio 94 tomorrow with MCACC. You can save six different MCACC runs, tweak anything you want, etc. And it displays a bunch of graphs for you on a computer with the Pio software. 

Yamaha has some nice software for the 1800 3800 to help with setup.


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## Kal Rubinson

tonyvdb said:


> Yes you can, I just did it last week on my Onkyo 805. All the channels allow eq adjustments from 25hz up to 16Khz including the sub.
> This may just be an Onkyo feature not Audyssey but thats what I have found.


You are not adjusting Audyssey at all. You are replacing it with a manual graphic EQ setting of significantly less resolution and sophistication than the Audyssey EQ.

Kal


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## thxgoon

jerome said:


> However, here is what I read in another forum from a very experienced user:
> 1) Pioneer has the best room correction system for rooms with _naked_ walls and reflections, or strange shapes in their rooms
> 2) Yamaha has shown to have the system which gives the most dynamic sound
> 3) Onkyo is the one with the most _balanced_ system


Who quoted this? These seem like very broad generalizations for 3 different systems designed with the same goals in mind...


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## Sonnie

What might help us all understand this better is to know who developed each and how the system works. 

It seems to me the only way to really know which will be better is to set up all three in the same room and chart one before measurement and then chart three after measurements from each system to see which one is more accurate. Otherwise it's all conjecture as to which one is better.

Here is what Audyssey did in my Denon 3806... Red=No EQ / Green=Audyssey


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## jerome

Sonnie said:


> What might help us all understand this better is to know who developed each and how the system works.


Ok, let's start gathering information !!! :T

*Audyssey*: developed by Audyssey Laboratories.
How does MultEQ work?
Resulting graphs
Audioholics

*YPAO*: developed by Yamaha.
Not much to be found on the web about this one.
YPAO
Audioholics

*MCACC*: developed by Pioneer
MCACC Presentation (Very well done)
It seems that Pioneer provides a software to manage MCACC in some receivers:
http://www.pioneer.no/no/products.jsp?category=MCACC&taxonomy_id=42-98
From what I can see in the user guide, this piece of software seems very nice and might be very helpful!


What we need now is some detailed information on how they work. Does someone know where to find it ?




Sonnie said:


> It seems to me the only way to really know which will be better is to set up all three in the same room and chart one before measurement and then chart three after measurements from each system to see which one is more accurate. Otherwise it's all conjecture as to which one is better.


I don't believe it's that easy, Sonny. Some kind of rooms or setup may be more favorable to MCACC, YPAO or Audyssey. We should probably perform tests with different environments:
1) Room with controlled acoustics - correct/incorrect speaker placement
2) Living room with uncontrolled env. - correct/incorrect speaker placement
3) Small/large rooms
4) Rooms with many hard/soft surfaces
5) etc

Maybe we could have a special place on this forum where people can post their setup and results. That would be a really great place to search for differences and shown the true results without any marketing involved :yes:
What do you think ?


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## Sonnie

jerome said:


> Maybe we could have a special place on this forum where people can post their setup and results. That would be a really great place to search for differences and shown the true results without any marketing involved :yes:
> What do you think ?


Yeah, I think it would be good if people could use REW to show us the before and after... kinda like I did. We need to all use the same graph axis so that comparing is easier. We could start a sticky thread I suppose.




DS-21 said:


> That's a pretty impressive midband improvement. And if it's at the main listening position, _extremely_ impressive response. I need to get one of those. I wish someone would release a receiver with the TI Purepath amps (for energy efficiency, and just to be able to say that my system is "digital to the binding posts:") and the Audessey system. I'd pay good money for that.


Yes, main listening position only. I don't generally do all six seats since I'm typically in there by myself for 9 out of every 10 movies. I figure my seat is the most important. Most others that come in there wouldn't notice a difference one way or another... they walk out with their bottom jaw dragging the floor regardless. 

Supposedly they have improved the Audyssey in the latest receivers. Audyssey also has a standalone unit called the Sound EQ, which is an 8 Channel MultiEQ. It calibrates using MultiEQ Pro software--up to 32 measurements per room. It provides both Time & Frequency correction and improves sub/sat blending for much smoother bass response. It works with any prepro or receiver with pre-out/main-ins for all channels. Uhh... er.... retail is $2500. Did I just hear a :thud:

It's designed for custom installers to come in and set it up for you. They purchase a install kit that includes: MultEQ Pro CD, Calibrated Microphone, Microphone Stand and Cables, Calibrated Preamplifier, XLR-to-RCA Adapter, USB Cables and a Carrying Bag.


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## aceinc

For some reason I haven't been getting my e-mail notifications.

I wonder if we could convince someone at Best Buy's Magnolia Home Theater to allow us to bring in REW and do some testing. They sell Pioneer, Yamaha and Denon, but not Onkyo. Perhaps if someone were arrange to go in on a Tuesday at 10:00 AM they might agree.

When we do the tests we should probably use middle of the road speakers, not real low/high end, since I assume most of us don't have real ****, or real esoteric speakers.

BTW, how does someone go about testing all 5/7 + sub speakers easily with REW?

Paul


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## Sonnie

Rodny and I have been fiddling with my setup this afternoon and here's my latest Audyssey results from my NAD T785. This is no BFD. Amazing!

Gold = No EQ
Red = NAD Audyssey 



















Btw... yeah... the bass was extremely hot when we started listening and we have to cut it considerably.


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