Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Interesting Discussion 861v6 v ADA

Both the Audyssey Sound Equalizer and the Neptune EQ were 24/96 in and out.

Kal

I have just read the 200 odd posts and it seems to me that....

Some people want the best sound they can get and don't want to mess around setting it all up, now, they probably know that it will only ever give 95% but it is hassle free and still sounds stunning.
I am sure those that get installers in to calibrate know that unless the calibrator comes back every day to tweak it they will never get it running at 100% or if they have it is more chance than anything else and they still won't really know.

Where as other people want to tweak the living hell out of their system and know for a fact they are getting 100% out of it.


In the first case all we can do is buy the product, listen to it and either like it and keep it or try something else, but when we are happy it doesn't really matter if we have squeezed 100% from it or not, we're just happy.

I used to be the latter of users, but if I am honest I never really enjoyed anything, it was all about the next tweak, the next upgrade and that was the enjoyment.
So I can see it perfectly from Ken's perspective and from the few on here who want to get their head round the 'why?' of what has happened, so you can ask all the questions you like but Ken probably doesn't really give a [censored] 'why?'!!

Sorry Gizze that's not what this was about at all.

It's how to destroy the output of a high end ssp in 3 easy lessons.

My guess as to what happened is:

Ken knew he was over his head with this stuff and hired a "Pro".
Either the pro (or pros) were clueless and Ken was screwed.
Or after the pro left Ken thought he learned enough to take over and then (to put it politely) did some not so good things to the system.

Then Ken announced his break through performance on Avsforums and how ADA is supperior to 861v6 in Detail, Slam and Tight bass on a totally crippled (my opinion and some others) system.

And now Ken is coming around after he sees several folks agreeing.

Especially after Frank discovered yet another box Ken could buy.

It is true though, you do need to tweak day to day to learn the ins and outs and learn the system. But these are not tweaks. You can make some major differences with just a "Tweak".

Ken may not have done any of this, just the folks he hired.

I would be curious if the initial installer ran all channels through the QSC on the 861v4, 861v6 and ADA. Curious to know who did what when.

Too many installers is as bad as too many brand boxes.

If Ken is hooked on ADA then I would get my Advice from ADA or someone certified by ADA.

On that we disagree.

With all due respect George, you are a moron. This thread did not treat you kindly as it exposed you as someone that may know something in your limited Meridian world, but not outside that. Dennis proved that.

I was over my head and hired a pro? Almost but not quite.

Read carefully so I do not have to type this again:

I had a V4. After 6 months of it and having an authorized Meridian dealer trying to dial it in with the crappy MRC program, and being very underwhelmed, I decided to hire a pro. (This is the part you almost got right).

Now pay attention here George:

" He hooked up the V4 to the QSC in the same way I mentioned earlier, programmed it and voila, It was like I turned a Volkswagon into a Porsche Turbo. (In laymens terms, the V4 sounded better through the QSC).

" I then bought a V6 and did the same as above. The sound to me was nothing perceivable better than the V4.

"I bought the ADA and hooked it up the same as in the two above paragraphs, and the Porsche Turbo now was the Space Shuttle. This by the way was without the "Pro" coming to re-tune with the new SSP. Once he does that, I'm sure I really will be floored.

George, I suggest that you stick to what you think you know about Meridian and stop guessing and surmising about things you know nothing about. The saying that "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king", applies to you.

Now do everyone a favor and close this thread.
Ken

Hey all,

Let me introduce myself first. My name is Adam Pelz, and I am the individual who calibrated Ken's cinema. I have done quite a bit of work with Dennis Erskine, and am one of a few who he brings on to calibrate his exceptional work. I help teach some classes now and then with the HAA, and I also work for many dealers through out the country (and Mexico and Canada) as a freelance audio and video calibrator. I am also a big consumer of scotch, so this may tend to ramble a bit.

Hrm...where to begin? How about some design philosopy..Dennis has already explained quite well about why subwoofers are important, and how multiple subwoofers are critical to achieving smooth and similar bass response across a listening area, and he provided some basic references for such. Go ahead and read that sentence again please! If you happen to have a dedicated listening room, with 1 chair, or 2 very close together, then only read further if you are the curious sort. If you all need is for 1 seat to be great, then most of that can be achieved with proper positioning of the listener, mains, and subwoofer. You might achieve something good without using a sub, but the absolute physics of small room acoustics make it unlikely. Everything below is geared toward multiple seating positions, although the primary listener certainly does not suffer from these tools.

In reality, most of us prefer our music and movies to be social events, to experience and share with others. Insert your favorite dramatic music score here. Suddenly, we are faced with lots of problems that almost guarantee some compromises. Murphy clearly requires that for you, the primary listener, to have smooth bass response in your favorite chair, then the one occupied by your spouse will be in the middle of modal peaks, which are capable of being upwards of 15dB higher. Your neighbor, sitting next to you, happens to be in a null; Both of them think you are insane. No need to raise your hands, as I can spot you from here.

Compromises then. The papers referenced by Dennis suggest multiple subwoofers are in order. Another gentleman, Gerry Lemay, teaches a "virtual subwoofer" technique in his extremely valuable hands-on classes. In either case, some very important prerequisites are needed, starting with proper listener positioning, and putting your speakers in optimal locations. In other words, don't put your couch up against the back wall, keep the mains away from boundaries, insist that your center channel is the same speaker as your L&R, and not some horizontal bastardization, keep them out of cabinets, only use dipoles for surrounds if you absolutely must...and a bunch of other things I am sure the forum members here already know to avoid.

So reading from above, nearly all of those compromises involve the room. Direct sound vs indirect sound. The reflected sound clearly dominates direct sound. If any of you need, I can get into the math in another post, although it would be best in another thread entirely. So what we hear is very dependent upon the off-axis response of the speakers, which directly correlates to the type of acoustical treatments installed. Many of you would be shocked at how badly some very highly regarded speakers are when you measure the off-axis response, yet that reflected sound greatly dominates what we hear. Bad off-axis response? Absorb the first reflections, which will increase Focus, but greatly diminish Envelopment. Bad off-axis response will also decrease the accuracy of speaker Response, and possibly Clarity. And we haven't even begun to explore poor listener positioning, modal responses, boundary gain, and other room specific effects.

The goal of this is to present how much impact the room has on what we hear. Far more than most would assume. Having the right tools to overcome the obstacles the room alone presents will often outweigh the latest and greatest pre-pro, amplifier, or speaker selection. I am in no way trying to diminish high end audio companies! I myself have a room of very expensive kit from Linn. But I have participated in many manufacturer demo systems, where I have hidden some 3rd party DSP under the table, which allowed me to add PEq, very precise gain controls, shelves and other filters, none of which is currently available in any consumer grade components.

So back to compromises... I perfectly understand, and in some cases completely agree with some push-back on using professional grade 3rd party DSP solutions. Unfortunately, at this time, those are the best tools available. Certainly, there will be some losses in resolution, but I firmly believe that the benefits outweigh the costs.

My favorite anecdote involves a movie scene, Star Wars, Episode II, opening sequence I think. Large ship headed to land, accompanied by two smaller craft. In one system, until we had the bass dialed in correctly, the whining engine sound of the two smaller crafts was largely masked. The loss had nothing to do with speaker or pre-pro choice, and only to do with proper calibration of the system.

This particular system also exhibited some curious pre-pro design problems. When implementing crossovers, there must be a x-over setting for the mains, and one for the subwoofers. The first determines the slope and frequency applied to the lower end of the main speakers, and the second applies to the upper range applied to the subwoofers. Ideally, they should both be the same. If the mains are crossed at 80Hz, 24dB/octave, then the subs should also be crossed at 80Hz, 24dB/octave. This particular system changed crossover slopes depending on the DSP mode selection, ie, movies, music etc. The room certainly did not suddenly change; why should the speaker setup change? Simply because the component designer wanted it that way. You would be amazed at how often this occurs, in very highly regarded components.

I did not cover even a small portion of what I intended, but this has rambled on enough. I will answer any questions or comments when I have the time. Essentially, my point is that there are many compromises that need to be made when designing a system. Compared to all of the things I can fix with an offboard DSP processor, the bonuses will far outweigh the compromises made.

Adam
Acoustic Mafia 'Hear No Evil'

He did? I won't say what I think Dennis proved out to be, I think most in this thread know what he proved. How much did pay this guy?

What happened is pretty much what I said. And I think you were screwed and it's not your fault. To bad you don't realize that yet.

Please take this nonsense back to Avsforums.

@All:

It is too diffcult to quote all the speicifc preceding posts but a few things:

1. QSC DSP engines are extremely flexible devices with their functionality being completely custimizable...with that, I believe part of the confusion regarding Ken's setup is that his pre/pro [i.e. ADA or Meridian] is doing base management in teh sense of the cutoff [i.e. 80Hz and less + LFE to subwoofer, the rest to the non-subwoofer speakers] while the QSC is then equalizing the resulting signal that is sent to each channle...and, while I am admittedly a novice in the area of EQ, I do NOT see this as "double EQ".

2. That the TEQ is a serious piece and the QSC is not a serious piece...well, ignoring the dollars and cents involved in which the TEQ is less costly than the QSC [for equal channels] I want to point out that in building my theatre I asked and had independent industry engineers and insiders investigate the pros / cons of the two units [as well as aothers TacT, Trinnov [in its native version], etc.] and the conclusions reached by those with no vested interest [i.e. I was not buying any equipment from them, they were paid only for their advice and counsel] was as follows:

a) A user who wants to install a DSP engine, press a button and sit back and listen is best / well suited by purchasing the Trinnov unit.

b) A user who wants to install a DSP and have someone such as Adam, Dennis, et. al. perform a calibration is best suited by purchasing the QSC unit.

Again, I am reporting what I was told by those who have no axe to grind wrt any company's offering...

3. The general point of conversation and disagreement is whether or not the QSC / TEQ / etc. adds or detracts from audio performance and, while there are some who strongly believe that it detracts from it, I am squarely in the Adam / Dennis camp that it does more good than bad [i.e. its cons are greatly outwieghed by its pros]...

And, as to the reason for my position, it has nothing to do with the fact that Dennis designed my home theatre and that I too have QSC 922uz sitting in myrack [2 of them in fact] but rather it has to do with the fact that who are credentialled, who make their livelihood at designing home theatres, who teach courses and are well respected by the likes of THX, etc, MUST know what thay are doing because, at the end of the day, there reputation and work quality is all that they have...

And, to go one step further [and while not practical for those in Europe], I will am extending an open invitation to all fellow hitchhikkers to come to my home in Toronto -- I will even put you up -- to compare and listen to Dennis' efforts and then judge and respond...that is, comment with experience and fact rather than intuition...

I hope that the above has added to this conversation in a positive way...

George:

I am not the Hitchhiker police by any means but the quoted comment is just unfair...I would agree that there are two different camps here and, for the sake of ease, let us call them i) George's camp and ii) Adam/Dennis' camp...and, just because ken [and, by extension me] are not in your camp does not mean that he either overpayed or got screwed...

I might readily pay USD 150,000 for a Porsche 911 but that does not mean that I either got screwed or overpayed simply because I believe and perceive there to be value in such a vehicle over a USD 40,000 Camaro...

Look, net net, Ada,/Dennis have their view and you ahve your view...and, to me, until the arguement is based on math and science [apoligies, my formal training coming through] including the separation of what is and is not audible no one camp will be able to convince the other camp [though I do wish that Adam/Dennis would bring out the math]...

While it may upset some here and, for the first time ina decade since being a member here, I do not agree with you and will [again and as noted in my above post] throw my lot in with Adam/Dennis...

With that, the best that we can hope for at this point is that ADA/Meridian or anyone else makes a pre/pro with the built in fucntionality of the QSC [or, whatever is necessary] to do the job right...


PS. And not to poke you in the eye but simplyt to ask a questions...were the Meridian way the unversally accepted best solution/way then woul dit not be the case that everyone would own a Meridian...

PPS. And, as far as Roger Dressler is concerned, I ahve spoken with him and woudl note that the only pre/pros that he would consider are the ADA and the Classe [which he owns]....the reason being that no other processors' EQ is sufficient for his needs menaing that he too is advocating the use of EQ above and beyond that which Meridian offers...does this make hima bad guy?

PPPS. And, thankfully, finally...ADA's MACH IV B has a built in PEQ yet ADA offers the TEQ [as an external box / offering only] and, most notably, the TEQ-12 so that all channels are run through the external DSP engine...the conclusion being, that they too feel that the beenfits of external EQ outweight the related cons...

I don't know if Dennis knows how it's hooked up today and he may of not hooked it up that way. And he may not have known what he was replying too. If Dennis knows Ken is running ALL channels through the QSC and still thinks QSC won't do any harm he is absolutely dead wrong. If only the sub channel was passed through QCS 48Khz won't hurt. Ken didn't prove a thing here. And he either posted out of context that 48khz resampling is ok or he knew the context (all channels resampled) and he posted mis information. It took a few posts to convince Frank of that but he came around

But Dennis or who ever came to Ken's defense should know what the heck they are defending. But Ken has a butchered system. Who got it this final way I have no idea. And who know's Ken may not even be giving correct info. Making Dennis look bad. But someone dragged Dennis into this.

It does not have to be Meridian way to be right. I said numerous times all large vs Multiple Mono subs is a respectable debate.

But I think any respectible high end SSP vender would agree Ken's setup is far from optimal.

I suspect the TEQ-12 is targeted for non ADA processors and the TEQ-4 is designed to be an addon to the Mark-IV. So that way you don't have to resample ALL the main channels and still get complete EQ. If you can avoid resampling AT ALL you should. Let alone poorly.

And this is not George's camp. EvdBerg and Frank agree and I suspect many more. And it's not because they are Meridian huggers. I'm just too stupid to not let it slide.

I will not respond to the first part of your post because I am too tired of this debate but again their is misunderstanding here and, yet gain, we should talk about facts and not supposition.

1. The TEQ-12 is targeted to work on all 8 of the ADA MACH IV's output channels and this I know because Richard who is ADA COO personally communicated this to me...so, that said, this makes ADA wrong as well.

2. The term "George's camp" was not meant to be exclusive of others [i.e. Evdberg, Frank and whoever else] but simply to express the position that you are putting forward.

*I am exhausted by all of this and am out of here/this forum* PM me if and when this discussion gets back on track which to me means that i) Dennis/Adam whover present their math and their suporting references and ii) Evdberg/Frank/you/et. al. start ripping it apart.

I am disappointed that the dicsussion has taken this route because after either side of 10 years of contributing, learning and reading this forum I am surprised that the disucssion has at times gotten this personal; in fact, one of the reasons I came here in the first place was the level of civility.

Again I said, I suspect, geesh. I'm used to well thought out logial ways of doing something and I assumed ADA would do such a thing (been around Meridian too long I guess). I'm not going to read the manual. I said I SUSPECT that a TEQ-4 might work in tandem with Mark-IV (which would be IDEAL). If ADA MUST resample everything to get it all to work, I don't think it's an ideal design (because they don't have to). But if it resamples at a higher rate than the QSC it will certainly be better than that QSC box and if it does require resampling everything, yes he would need the TEQ-12 (with a ton of redundant hardware at $15,000 list).

This is not my way or Meridian way.

It's just logical sound ways of doing things.

EQ loops have been done before the Volume for 40 years.

Every time you add a box in analog you degrade it.

Resampling should be avoided when possible.

Downsampling should not happen at all.

Your system is only as good as the weakest link.

Sometimes less is more.

I won't let someone slam Meridian on false information.

I won't have someone tell me I have Nyquist wrong and then someone else tell me they successfully proved I was wrong.

I won't spend all this time and let someone come along and say it's a 5% tweak, Who's winning, a fanboy fued or pepsi vs coke. I spend too much time on this forum thread to let folks walk away thinking that. Some of these serious flaws.

I'm actually surprized this was not better moderated because it should of been split and the forum lacks moderation on the USA side. Sorry I just could not do it any more.

Topics should have been:

All Large vs Multiple Mono subs and it's effects on Directionality.
Managing multiple mono subs (if that is the direction you so desire)
A lesson in Nyquist theory.

But I suspect UK folks were overwhelmed by morning

I apoligize to any and all Professionals involved if Ken has mispresented things.