Denon 3805 Auto Set-up/Room EQ

I have owned the Denon AVR 3805 for a couple of months now and I have been quite pleased with it's overall performance. The features are cool and I thought the sound was great.

I have always been quite meticulous in setting up my systems, reading the manual and checking everything out, it is part of the fun for me. I use a tape measure to measure the distances from the various speakers to the main listening postion and to make sure that the main L & R speakers are equal distance from the rear wall. I use a Radio Shack digital spl meter to set levels for all channels. I thought I did a good job and enjoyed the sound.

I finally decided to take advantage of the Auto Set-Up/Room EQ feature by buying the optional microphone. It was incredibly easy to use. I just set it up on a camera tripod (the microphone accepts a tripod thread) in the main listening position and turn on the automatic features. I went through the auto set-up twice as recommended in the manual.

I had written down my manual settings for speaker level and distance. I compared these to the auto set-up. My manual settings were not too far off the mark of the auto set-up. I was set a little high on the front L & R main speakers and the Center channel, about 2 db on the mains and 1.5 db on the center. My rear settings matched dead-on with the auto settings. My sub was 3.5 db higher than the auto setting. With regards to the delay times for the speakers established by speaker distance I was anywhere from .20 meter to .50 meter off. All in all I thought I had done a pretty good job manually.

But, when I turned on the music, WOW! What an incredible difference. I have always struggled with the sound of the center channel in my system. It always sounded "high" and indeed it is well above the mains atop my 56" rptv Toshiba. In addition I never felt it quite blended with the fronts in a seamless soundstage, but now it did. The rears also were not just the way I would want them. Again I sort of wrote this off to the limitations I had in speaker placement, but now rather than the left surround dominating (although the levels were matched) they too seem to complete a more "whole" surround, no "hole" in the middle if you will. In addition the top end seemed smoother, although I have always liked the top end of my Paradigm Studio 60s (my center is the CC450 which has the same driver configuration as the 60s). The bass had tightened up and I never had complaints about that either. Finally the mid-range just came more alive, more forward.

I couldn't figure out why. My measurements were quite close to those of the Auto Set-Up. Then I remembered the Room EQ. Once I started looking at the adjustments by frequency that had been applied to each speaker I immediately could tell why these changes seem so dramatic. Now I could see how the top end had been smoothed, the bottom tightened and the mid-range given focus. I love it!!

I don't know about anyone else's experience with this feature but as for me I highly recommend spending the $65 for the microphone to use the Auto Set-Up/Room EQ function of the Denon 3805.

How easy was that!

 

Thanks for sharing. I have long felt that auto-room-EQ was the last step to providing a great HT experience. I remember setting up the Pioneer VSX49TX w/ room correction and getting nice results.

I'm almost to the point now where I won't upgrade my HT processor, the capable Lexicon DC-1, unless a new model has room EQ.

 

Now if Denon would only release a HDMI capable reciever....I'd be set.

Thanks for the great info on the 3805.

 

Hello Mikek

What kind of test signal does it use for rom eq? is it a sweep, a pulse or both?