Audyssey calibration mic - does mic brand matter?

soupdragon

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I sold my Onkyo 3008 amp on the classifieds recently and when I went to pack it all up, I opened my audyssey mic box up and it was actually my Marantz calibration mic in the box. I stopped in my tracks and let the buyer know that I would need to check to see if the Marantz one would still be ok for running the calibration. It seemed to run spot on, it got the distances all correct as well as being able to get the correct crossovers all correct relative to each speakers capability.

I got a PM and he was having some calibrations issues as detailed here:

On Monday all I had time to do was connect the TV and speakers and run Audyssey - gah! Firstly the menus / manual could be much clearer - the only way I could get it to recognize that I had rear surrounds and front high & wides was to tell it I didn't have front high or wides
Having worked out how to actually get it to test the right speakers I then found that three of my speakers threw errors. The old monitors I was using for front highs are pretty knackered so that wasn't too shocking, and of all the speakers I can live without that pair, but I was surprised when my Jamo THX One rear tripole also errored. After much Googling I found that some surrounds may be wired out-of-phase - but that Audyssey should report this as a skip-able out-of-phase issue and not an unskip-able error. The likely cause may be that the tweeters in the tripole are dodgy - I couldn't find any other likely alternative via Google in the time I had to test. I replaced the rear Jamo with a single Mission tripole and removed the front high monitors and Audyssey finally completed.
How reliable the results are I'm not sure - in my Googling I found this quote from an Audyssey engineer on the Audyssey help site about using a different set-up mic: "There is a calibration file for the mic built in to the AVR. If you use a different microphone then the measurements are totally off." Doh. Not great (particularly given your selling point was the XT32 calibration system) - but I can live with this if I have to.


and this:

Re setup mic, on one hand I'm sure the Audyssey guy wasn't lying about each receiver being calibrated to it's mic (or vice-versa), however on the other hand I doubt it's made that much if any difference to the sound I'm hearing. I hadn't realised that I could check the other measurements it's come up with - the cross-over values seemed about right but having just looked in the manual set-up the values there were totally different to those I thought Audyssey had saved.
OK, I've just run Audyssey three or four times* with the mic in the same places each time - I still can't seem to get it to recognise my front wides if I try and specify a Speaker B configuration (yet!) but most of the values it's come up with seem about right - excepting the sub on the first test, but the later run-throughs it came up with a more realistic result for the distance. I'd have to get and check the speaker manuals to verify the crossover values - though on the last test it came up with different values to the first few tests. I will check this and try a manual set-up to compare when I get a chance, though the sort of point of Audyssey is that you don't have to do this! And I'd have to do a head-to-head between the Onkyo and Marantz mics to see if there was actually any difference - and as I still might end up setting the values manually this hardly seems worthwhile.


Has anyone else any experience of these calibration mics and do you think the Marantz mic is an issue or do some speakers give issues regardless of mic?

Would be grateful to hear some views on this.
 
Some pics of my calibration with the Marantz mic which is why I assumed it was spot on...

1450527213216.jpg


1450527228140.jpg


1450527242564.jpg
 
The Mics that Audyssey supply to D&M will be the same models used for both Denon and Marantz models and can be the same as those used by other manufacturers. What you have to check is the specific model number of the mic. The calibration targets are only relevant if the exact model of mic used is the model those targets were generated in association with.

The AV manufacturer dpesn't make the Audtssey mics, they are made by Audyssey to correspond with the Audyssey target curves and supplied to the AV manufacturer.

Note that the mics supplied to Onkyo don't always match the models supplied to other manufacturers.
 
The Mics that Audyssey supply to D&M will be the same models used for both Denon and Marantz models and can be the same as those used by other manufacturers. What you have to check is the actuall model number of the mix. The calibration targets are only relevant if the exact model of mic used is the model those targets were generated in association with.

The AV manufacturer dpesn't make the Audtssey mics, they are made by Audyssey to correspond with the Audyssey target curves and supplied to the AV manufacturer.
Thanks Dante. Have you any idea how to tell which mic is required for an Onkyo 3008? Do I email Audyssey or Onkyo?
 

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