Yamaha YPAO, just WOW!

[transmaster]

Used the Yamaha YPAO system for the first time. All I can say.....DAMN!...... The Audyssey system on the Onkyo never worked right it always showed an error in the front left speaker and terminated the test, I figured it just didn’t like the Polk Monitor 10B on that side. And a bunch of people were also complaining about the system not working for what ever reason so I just gave up. I started the YPAO and it cycled throught everything and it again showed an error in the front left speaker but unlike Audyssey the YPAO test showed the front left speaker was out of phase. I guess Audyssey expected me to read tea leaves. I quickly corrected it and now I am gobsmacked by the sound.

 

[whoaru99]

Upon receiving that message from either YPAO or Audyssey the recommendation is to check the wiring. If the wiring is correct, ignore the message (meaning don't change with wiring) and carry on.

 

[transmaster]

So many people were reporting problems at the time. I am very careful with the speaker wiring but it is apparent I blew it on the Left hand Monitor 10B. It isn’t easy to check them as the are hanging at the room corners 4 feet off the ground. I am going to address this. This is why I have the idea of a mini block and tackle I can adjust their height and lower them to get at their backs. With the present arrangement of the mancave I cannot set them on floor stands.

 

[whoaru99]

Not necessarily, unless you are saying for sure the speaker wiring polarity is physically incorrect, e.g. (+) to (-) instead of (+) to (+).

Because of the nature of acoustics, it is entirely possible for speakers to be wired correctly in polarity yet the analysis system report out of phase. In that case, as mentioned, leave the speakers wired correctly and ignore the out of phase message.

Of course, if the speakers are actually connected wrong, that should be made right.

 

[whoaru99]

Another thing, when using these systems, it is not unusual for them to determine inappropriate "size" of the speakers.

After running the calibration routine it is highly advised to check the settings for crossovers to ensure the cal. chose correctly for the system.

For example, with my Marantz, Audyssey detects a few of my speakers in a manner that sets the crossovers for them quite low. After the cal, I manually raise the crossovers for those speakers to 80Hz.

 

[transmaster]

Good information. There is a big discussion about this very thing over on the AVS Forum. I have not replaced the speaker wire on the Monitor 10B’s yet, the way I have them mounted makes this a Royal PIA. What I am trying to get straight is my subwoofer setup. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on that either. I notice in YPAO mode the Subwoofer in the straight DSP setting is not used. The 10B do have a good bottom end but moving everything from 80Hz down to the Klipsch SW does help them the passive woofer on the 10B’s just can not really do stuff well below 60Hz or so with control. You can really hear this with giant church organs recorded In a full dynamic digital way. Having said all of this those 10B’s are amazing. I was reading one journalist who writes on home theater systems and his personal system is front R/L 10B’s, surrounds Monitor 7’s, rear surrounds Monitor 4’s. Reading this really gave me a hmmmm moment.

 

[Raynald]

I have always been pleased with the results of YPAO on multiple AVRs I have set up. On my main HT system I just correct the main speaker setting to small since I have dual subs and that's it.

 

[StimpyWan]

YPAO, on my RX-A3030, reported my AR90's as being out of phase. While I knew the wiring was correct, I wondered if the 90's side-firing woofers were 'confusing' the software? So, as an experiment, I switched the wiring, not expecting any changes. But, after the change, I suddenly had BASS. Really good, deep bass. Up until then, I had always thought my 90's were a bit bass shy. Not now. The speakers are down, due to a refurb. Though, as soon as I finish rebuilding them, I'm definitely going to double-check all the internal wiring, to make sure it matches the crossover schematics? I'm really curious about why I got the results that I did?

 

[transmaster]

I was wondering the same thing. Both of the Polk Monitor 10B’s are totally rebuilt I was wonder if I did something when I rebuilt the crossovers. I don’t think so, but when I get the left side 10B down I am going to take a look at it’s internal plumbing. Like you after I switched the wires around I could not believe in improvement in sound.

Here is something you might find handy. I mounted the YPAO mic’ on this smart phone octo-stand. Both the Audyssey, and YPAO mic’s have a standard camera mount so you can screw them right on these stands. The flexible legs on these things let you stand or attach them to anything you want. I had it on like a hat. I figured the best place to position it was on the listener. These stands are cheap this one, from Amazon, was less then $20 bucks.

 

[whoaru99]

I use a camera tripod. The version of Audyssey on my Marantz will take up to 8 calibrations and average them. I move the tripod around the primary listening zone between calibrations. Not like all over the room, but a foot or two this way and that way around the prime location.

 

[whoaru99]

I was wondering the same thing. Both of the Polk Monitor 10B’s are totally rebuilt I was wonder if I did something when I rebuilt the crossovers. I don’t think so, but when I get the left side 10B down I am going to take a look at it’s internal plumbing. Like you after I switched the wires around I could not believe in improvement in sound.

The woofers are easy to confirm. Using a small battery to the external speaker wire connections, (+) to (+) and (-) to (-) should make the woofer move out on all the speakers. Mids and highs are harder because you generally can't see them move much, if at all. And, some types of crossover/speaker systems intentionally wire them reverse polarity to make smoother transition in the crossover zones.

 

[transmaster]

Here is the schematic for the Polk Monitor 10B. I replaced everything except the inductors, the caps were Axon’s for the C2, and C3, and a Sonicap Gen 1 for the C1, the resistors are Mills non-Inductive. I ended up replacing all of the drivers as well. The Tweeters were the SL2000’s one of them had a fatigue failure of the dome so both got replaced with the excellent RDO-194 from Polk, all four of the 6.5” mid-woofers were replaced, they had all been DC’ed to death. So when the smoke cleared I had a brand new set of 10B’s. Polk Audio has all of the replacement drivers.

 

[StimpyWan]

I use a camera tripod too, when running YPAO. Though, I've only tested from my listening position, since I'm selfish, and it's my music...! I do plan on trying the 3 recommended spots, on the Yamaha holding tray, one day. But everything sounded so good as-is, I haven't felt the need yet to try more locations.

As to the Polk Monitor 10B recap, nice work. That couldn't have been easy, as the Polk crossover boards are pretty tightly spaced. Plus, you must hang out at the Polk Audio Forum too, as they always suggest the use of SoniCaps. Those, or Clarity Caps. I did very similar on my AR90 recap, Mills resistors, and poly caps. I used Axon True Caps for the parallel shunt caps, and a mix of Mundorf EVO Oil and Mundorf Supreme & Supreme Silver/Oil for the series capacitors. I think "F1NUT" thought I was crazy, for using the Mundorf caps, but Jeff at Sonic Craft suggested them, and who was I to argue? As soon as I finish the cabinets, I'll get them together, and 'finally' get to listen to them...!!! I can't wait.

 

[bigx5murf]

I've also found YPAO to be better than similar systems. But there's still a few issues, mine will show error if I connect more than one sub, but that's expected since it only has one sub output. The other is it vastly over estimates the frequency range of my speakers. I had a few center channels it would rate as going down to 40hz (AJpioneer, JBL HLS), It'll do the same to just about any front speakers it considers "Large". The subwoofer also gets set 1-2db lower than I'd like, even though I run it with only one sub connected, then reconnect the 2nd sub afterwards. I also like to manually set the sub crossover 20hz higher than the lower limit of my mains.

 

[charles 1973]

I found the YPAO EQ system on my Rx-A770 in either stereo or the Dolby-EX 6.0 works great too. It sounds WAY better than when it is by-passed. I tried YPAO Flat and Natural settings and found them to be very close, and prefer the Natural setting. That YPAO volume (AKA Loudness) seems to be hit and miss. Sometimes It works great, Other times not so much.

The YPAO only has only 1 position for calibration on my A770. The multi-position function starts with the A870. The first time I set mine up with a tripod about where I sit it got the distance for a speaker at 26' instead of about 8'. So I moved the mike 1' and it pretty much nailed it. It also set my rear surrounds at full bandwidth, So I switched them over to 60 Hz. No sub yet.

 

[DeeCee]

I like YPAO too; I just bought my 2nd Yamaha receiver last week in my HT upgrade (installing next week).

Will be interesting to see if there will be changes between my new one and the old...

In the past I've had to tweak rear volume levels to get the sound field just right.