Denon Marantz speaker distance bug (fixed in 2023 avr-x800 models) - instructions to address in older AVRs

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FooBarFoo

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If you used measurements in your Denon or Marantz to set up speaker distances, speaker timing is off, and if your speakers are not equidistant, sound can be noticeably off. There's a fix.

TL/ DR - Denon and Marantz used the wrong calculation for the speed of sound, which screws up Atmos and multichannel. It's fixed in latest receivers. For everyone else, switching your speaker distances to meters and multiplying the distances by .874 will adjust the sound travel calculation back to 343 m/s vs the 300 m/s they used.

I have confirmed that timing gets incredibly close in REW and it's impressive.

Background:

Sound United support confirmed a longstanding bug with Denon and Marantz receivers and speaker distance calculations. It's fixed in the 2023 and later gear, but for the rest of us, I'll walk through the problem, how to verify it, and how to address it.

I can't take credit for this find- the folks over at AVS forum found it and have been discussing it for a while.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/au...ff-according-to-rew-impluse-readings.3243684/

Background: Atmos at home has been good, but it always sounded a little echoey/muddy, which I thought might be an artifact of recreating a theater environment. I ran across an article where someone ran Room EQ Wizard (REW) and discovered the timing of signal to the listerner was inaccurate if all your speakers are not equidistant to the main listening position (MLP). Mathematically, they found out that all the speakers were off because the constant used for the speed of sound was 300 m/s vs 343 m/s. Multiplying your speaker distance by .874 (as sound is traveling faster than the receiver thinks) fixes the issue in older receivers.

So if you used measurements in your Denon or Marantz to set up speaker distances, your speaker timing is off...

and if ALL your speakers are not equidistant to the listener, playback timing can be noticeably off, speaker to speaker.

Fix- I remeasured my speaker distances against my mlp, getting them as close as possible and confirming with a tape measure.

I adjusted all distances by multiplying .874

Result- Noticeable improvement. I'm going to re run REW this week and see if I can adjust even more, but the playback is tight and consistent between the front, back and height speakers.

Try it- you can write down all your original distances. Adjust them and see if it sounds better.

Now I need to do the upstairs Atmos setup!

Edit- issue is not Audyssey, but in Denon and Marantz speaker distance calculations- Audyssey just get applied against what is calculated in the AVR.
 
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Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

Also please note that the fix isn't in the $20 App Store app, but rather the $200 application that runs on windows.

Note: You do not need this $200 application to error correct this. It's just one way, or you can simply multiply your speaker distances by .874 and input those into your AVR and save $200.
 
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Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

Also please note that this isn't the $20 App Store app, but the $200 application that runs on windows that has the fix.

I have the $20 app, not the $200 version. So I guess I'd better check things out. I will eventually try the suggested Meters x 0.874 fix on my Marantz SR2013 and report back here.
 
I think I'll just buy a new AVR. lol :hi :LOL:
I just did, as a 65th birthday present to myself with a view to finally going Atmos having a 7.2.6 setup in the basement. Got a Denon AVR-X6800H for CAD$2938.

This was released late last year, so I presume it doesn't have the problem mentioned above, having been "fixed in the 2023 and later gear".
 
I thought I'd give it a try, didn't use a ruler, just guestimated the distances then multiplied by .874 and entering these figures, well as near as I could, and I'm sure it's made a difference, everything sounding a lot clearer, more defined and less "muddy" so I would recommend at least trying it, you can always go back.
 
I thought I'd give it a try, didn't use a ruler, just guestimated the distances then multiplied by .874 and entering these figures, well as near as I could, and I'm sure it's made a difference, everything sounding a lot clearer, more defined and less "muddy" so I would recommend at least trying it, you can always go back.

Glad to hear this. I assume that you used metric distances.

TL/ DR - Denon and Marantz used the wrong calculation for the speed of sound, which screws up Atmos and multichannel. It's fixed in latest receivers. For everyone else, switching your speaker distances to meters and multiplying the distances by .874 will adjust the sound travel calculation back to 343 m/s vs the 300 m/s they used.
I'm a bit at a loss as to why we would need to switch to metric distances first...Wouldn't the factor of 0.874 apply whether or not the distances are in meters or feet? Or perhaps is there some internal processing in the AVR that requires that everything be stated in meters?
 
Glad to hear this. I assume that you used metric distances.


I'm a bit at a loss as to why we would need to switch to metric distances first...Wouldn't the factor of 0.874 apply whether or not the distances are in meters or feet? Or perhaps is there some internal processing in the AVR that requires that everything be stated in meters?
I believe it's for accuracy.

If you use feet, you should convert feet to inches and use speed of sound as inches per second vs ft per second. Example- 12ft 9 inches is 12.75 feet... not big, but easy to make tiny mistakes.

I believe distances were all calculated in metric and converted to inches / feet in the AVR, so the idea is to save extra conversions.
 
Denon support confirmed the calculations as being incorrect and fixed it in later models. If it wasn't a bug, why change it?
Yeah, I wouldn't want to defend this but I assume the combination of: a) shame, the public exposure of the issue and b) later models had code rewrites and/or faster processors to deal with the issue.

As other members have pointed out, in an average listening room, the errors are very small. I actually did manual corrections on mine and I could not perceive a difference. YMMV
 
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