For some this is a challenge by itself, so here are some tips. Remove any ticking clocks, turn off your fridge, air-conditioning, cell phone and dimmable lamps, close doors and windows, shut down heaters and stop breathing during set up.
I was stupid enough to run the setup during Friday evening rush hour. Just to make sure, I repeated the process on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
My efforts were in vane: the outcome was pretty much the same! Connect the supplied microphone, mount it on top of a tripod a cheap camera tripod will do and place it at ear level at the primary listening spot of your room. It will then measure acoustical room properties such as reverb time and bass response and the frequency response of the speakers.
It also checks for correct speaker polarity. Repeat measurements in different locations 6 to 8 points recommended to give Audyssey a more detailed sonic image of your room. I advice you to measure a second listening position and then continue the other measurements in between the primary and secondary positions.
Skynet, I mean Audyssey, will take control from now on. Reviewing Audyssey settings after set-up was a revelation and a lot of fun. I recently hired a professional to perform room acoustic measurements for future improvements I have planned. I am happy to say that Audyssey's "second opinion" matched up just fine! Firstly, speaker distance measuring was spot on. It "misread" one of the front speakers by just 10 cm! My left front speaker is closer to the wall than the right channel, because I have a non-symmetrical room.
This also means the stereo image is slightly of, which Audyssey now corrects. My subwoofer is located between the left front and left surround speaker. Audyssey's EQ tackles these issues by giving less bass to the left channels and a tad more highs for the right channels. Measure all you want.
I want to hear it! What kind of difference can all this equalizing possibly make? Well, it turns out the difference is night and day. The stereo image is a whole lot better and high frequencies are a lot brighter. In my case this translates into the main vocals being boosted quite a bit. Before, main vocals seemed to be hidden behind the music.
Now they correctly stand out again. Definitely two thumbs up. I also learnt Audyssey is not a silver bullet. I was taken aback by the channel level settings of the speakers. FL Audyssey lowers the maximum output of the unit by quite a few decibels, presumably for some more headroom.
I had to manually tweak channel levels a little bit for a dead-center stereo image. Before I tried Audyssey, both songs sound like the way my mornin' poop looks like all mashed up and one big pile. And after you ask? Same thing! So I guess it has nothing to do with EQ. Nice songs, sure, but obviously mastered by a deaf three year old. To me, this made a positive change to sound quality as well.
The new network functionalities are the primary reason why I upgraded from the SR Absolutely no manual set-up required. Do make sure your router has a DHCP-server built in. I checked the Internet Radio program of the AV and it automatically found stations!
The AV selects stations based on your geographic location. In my case: the Netherlands. All those world famous Dutch stations are included, along with loads of foreign ones as well. BCC, French stations, the Germans, you name it really. The best stations compare to FM, I suppose. FM stations here in the Netherlands have a tendency to pitch up songs, boost bass frequencies and compress the life out already overly compressed songs.
The same is true for Internet radio stations, unfortunately. I've read a few opinions here and there how it looks like an OSD from the 70's. But I'm ok with it. It's clean, simple, responsive and overall pretty well designed.
My Last. FM subscription just increased in value. The initial hype I had with Last. FM died down recently. I started thinking whether or not I should continue my subscription. The AV has a pretty cool Last. FM interface that gets the most out of my subscription.
Friend's radio channels, Artist channels, all easily selectable via the OSD interface. Skipping songs, "loving" and "banning" them are a breeze. Personally, I like it a lot more than the Last. FM app on my Macbook. From time to time the OSD seems a little bit slow to react but I suspect this has more to do with the network connection. FM, it won't connect. But, when using "source sel" on the remote and then selecting Last. FM, it connects just fine. Strange, huh? It produced a few weird noises while the AV simply displayed "Connecting.
Please standby" - or something similar. I ended up unplugging the HD and giving up. When informing Marantz about this issue they did state it's possible the problem could be related to non music related content on the HD causing this conflict. As expected, connecting my iPhone was a breeze! My iPhone 4 isn't listed in the manual as supported device but works flawlessly. The AV connects to iPods pretty much instantaneously. Again, I really dig the OSD interface, though the album art is a bit small.
When browsing a playlist, there are seven songs displayed alphabetically per page. Simple and effective, it beats Apple Front Row's solution that "glides" through a playlist. However, you will over shoot pages if you try to browse through them too quickly. Press twice for an alphanumerical bar that appears on top of the playlist.
No matter how many songs you have, you can quickly go from A to Z, selecting the letter of choice. It took me a while to figure this one out. After browsing a playlist, I have to wait a few seconds for it to display the current song. For an impatient guy like me it is asking quite a lot. For the European market, Flickr, Napster and Last. Marantz releases firmware and feature updates from time to time. Actually, checking for — and updating new — firmware should be on top of your list after installation.
The AV can automatically notify you whenever new software becomes available. If new services become available in the future, the AV might be able to support it. One of these highly anticipated feature updates is Apple Airplay , which allows iTunes streaming via the network without any detrimental effects on sound quality. Among other things, it means we can cut yet another wire from the system!
Browsing songs, playlists and stations using the OSD is easy, but response time could be a little bit faster and snappier. And this will happen sooner, rather than later. How to use the site: - If you landed here via any Search Engine, you will get what you searched for and you can search more using the search this blog feature provided by Google. Doing so it starts from the most recent post to the older post simple clicking on the Older Post button on the bottom of each page after reading , post after post.
You can even visit all posts, time to time, when reaching the bottom end of each page and click on the Older Post button. If you're pointing particular things it will search IT for you; or you can place a brand name in the search query at your choice and visit all results page by page. It's useful since the content of the site is very large. Note that if you don't find what you searched for, try it after a period of time; the site is a never ending job!
The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of todays funny gadgets low price has faded from memory Don't forget the past , the end of the world is upon us! Pretty soon it will all turn to dust! All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
Update to Latest Firmware AV This step shows you how to update your receiver to latest firmware before starting the upgrade. Your receiver will reboot automatically when finished.
Please do not turn off your receiver during update. Update may take longer than estimated download time. Press Enter to continue. Left Tip. This step shows you how to find your upgrade ID. Now you are ready for upgrade registration.
Please visit fill out the following form. You will be notified by email upon payment, at which time you can proceed to step 4 and follow the instructions to download your AirPlay upgrade.
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