Pioneer VSX-59TXi Professional Acoustic Calibration EQ, How to interpret the graphical output

The Surround Setup menu 07

3Select CUSTOM1 or CUSTOM2 then use the (cursor left/right) hard keys to select the setting you want to copy.

2.4. Acoustic Cal EQ			2.4. Acoustic	Cal	EQ
		Manual	A.Cal EQ Data Copy
			To	←	From
[	CUSTOM1	]	CUSTOM1	[	ALL ADJ	]
A[	CUSTOM2	]	CUSTOM2		[CUSTOM2	]
			[Copy OK]
[Return]			[Cancel]

•You can also copy from one custom setting to another. For more on the ALL CH ADJ and FRONT CH ALIGN settings, see Setting the Acoustic Calibration EQ automatically above.

4Select ‘Copy OK’ and press ENTER to confirm. You will be taken to the Acoustic Calibration EQ settings menu. Select Return then press ENTER to go back to the Surround Setup menu.

Professional Acoustic Calibration EQ

This setup minimizes the unwanted effects of room reverberation by calibrating your system based on the direct sound coming from the speakers. It can also provide you with a graphical output of the frequency response of your room.

Note

•Before setting up with Professional Acoustic Calibration EQ, you should finish calibrating using the Auto Surround Setup on page 39.

How to use Professional Acoustic Calibration EQ

If you find that lower frequencies seem overly reverberant in your listening room (i.e. it sounds ‘boomy’), or that different channels seem to exhibit different reverb characteristics, use the auto pro setup to calibrate the room automatically. This should provide a more balanced calibration than simply using the standard Acoustic Calibration EQ. The manual setup allows you to customize your system calibration with the help of a graphical output that can be displayed on-screen, or using a computer (with software available from Pioneer—see Connecting a PC for Advanced MCACC output on page 88 for more on this).

How to interpret the graphical output

The graph shows decibels on the vertical axis and time (in milliseconds) on the horizontal axis. A straight line indicates a flat-response room (no reverb), whereas a sloping line indicates the presence of reverberation when outputting test tones. The sloping line will eventually flatten out when the reverberant sound stabilizes (this usually takes about 100ms or so).

By analyzing the graph, you should be able to see how your room is responding to certain frequencies. Differences in channel level and speaker distance are taken into account automatically (compensation is provided for comparison purposes), but the frequency measurements are always shown without the equalization performed by this receiver.

Note that due to an effect known as ‘group delay’, lower frequencies will take longer to be generated than higher frequencies (this is most obvious when comparing the frequencies at 0ms). This initial slope is not a problem (i.e. excessive reverb) with your listening room.

Setting Professional Acoustic Calibration EQ according to your room characteristics

Using the manual setup, you can set the time period at which the frequency response is analyzed for calibration. You can pinpoint the time that is best for calibration of the system for your particular room characteristics. The graph below shows the difference between standard acoustic calibration and professional calibration (the gray circles represent the point at which the microphone captures the sound for frequency analysis).

Level
			Test tone
	Acoustic Cal. EQ Pro	Standard Acoustic Cal.
	calibration range	EQ calibration range
			Time
0	80	160	(in msec.)

As soon as audio is output from your speaker system, it is influenced by room characteristics, such as walls, furniture, and the dimensions of the room. The sooner the frequency analysis, the less it is influenced by the room. We recommend an earlier time setting of 20–40ms to compensate for two major factors that will influence the sound of most rooms:

•Reverberance of high vs. low frequencies – Depending on your room, you may find that lower frequencies seem overly reverberant compared to higher frequencies (i.e. your room sounds ‘boomy’). This may result in a skewed frequency analysis if the measurement is done too late.

Level			Low
			frequencies
			High
			frequencies
	Acoustic Cal. EQ Pro	Standard Acoustic Cal.
	calibration range	EQ calibration range
				Time
0	80	160		(in msec.)

63

En