TX-NR709 Audyssey Calibration Problem?

I am a long time Onyko AV receiver fan, having used these for the last ten years. When it was time to upgrade my older TX-SR804, I picked the TX-NR709, because I have a TX-NR708 in use in another room and really like it's performance. However, although the two receivers are almost clones, the TX-NR709 Audyssey calibration actually degrades performance, rather than improving it. Even with the latest firmware (December 2011) the calibration boosts the surround channels much higher in gain. The only way I can get things to sound normal is to reset the TX-NR709 to the factory default and to manually calibrate the speakers. I first thought it might be the fault of the setup microphone so I tried the setup mike from my TX-NR708. Same Problem! I called Onyko tech support to find out if others reported a similar problem. Not to their knowledge. Has anyone else had similar Audyssey calibration problems?

Yes I noticed the same thing, I went from an SR607 to an NR609 and the Audyssey first made the center speaker blast, then I updated the firmware and ran it again and it's fairly even but the surround side speakers are waaaay too dominant. I'll probably have to adjust them manually but it's somewhat expected as I use my 7.1 in a very small room and each of the side speakers are roughly 4 feet from each side of my head. One of the major things I noticed is when I listen to music in ProLogic IIx mode it really puts a lot of sound in the side speakers so I had to change the sound field in the audio adjust to -3 to push it away from my head and it sounds closer to what the 607 sounded like but it still seems like it's pushing a lot to the surround side speakers. As for the actual distance and crossover calculations it seems to be spot on, it's just that the levels seem a bit off for the surround, like you said.

Edit: I forgot to mention since I wrote down my settings from my old receiver I changed my levels to those after running audyssey and it sounded better. To change the levels manually, run audyssey and let it finish and then go to level calibration, to get to the surround speakers just press down til it changes page, then you can manually adjust them to a level you prefer.

The quickesi way around it for me, was to adjust the speaker distances (sides and fronts). I tweaked the levels as well.

After seeing two quick replies confirming the problem, it looks like this will happen to all who use the latest firmware update. Since my first post I have returned my TX-NR709 to Amazon and ordered a TX-NR809 as a replacement. I hope that one will not act the same way. But thanks for the work-arounds! Hopefully someone in Onyko reads these posts and passes info like this along the the engineers in Japan.

My first 709's rear left surround output stopped working after about a month, and I just received my new unit and immediately updated the firmware and ran Audyssey. The results were NOTHING like how my first 709 sounded - the center channel was hollow and tinny and the overall fidelity of all of the channels sounded like it was totally flat. After hearing Audyssey on my previous 709 i knew something was wrong, and a few other people on avsforum.com with new 709's are having the same exact tinny sound issue after calibrating with Audyssey.

I ran through the setup a few times, changed the crossovers and levels but nothing could come close to fixing it. Turning off audyssey totally fixes the issue. Sounds great now after a quick level calibration, so i'm fine leaving it off for now, but it seems like something was definitely crippled within the 709's firmware in regards to setting up Audyssey levels/eq. Hope they address this so i can start enjoying the option again!

OnkyoUSA wrote:Hi folks with the Audyssey issue,

We will take that up the chain of command for solutions to this issue. Hopefully we have an answer soon. Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

thanks.

i did a lot of troubleshooting and found an interesting result - after the calibration that yields the VERY tinny/hollow sound in the default MOVIE result, switching to MUSIC on the final save screen of the audyssey calibration yields great results.

switching back to MOVIE audyssey on any given source immediately changes the sound back the very strange sounding tin-can.

since i have heard that MOVIE rolls off the high end, it's almost like the curve is 100% upside down - rolling off everything BUT the very high end.

seems like some people have this issue and can't get it to sound normal in MOVIE mode either, but thought this info might help.

thanks!

FWIW, i have found a couple of more people with the same issue on the Audyssey forums (with a variety of onkyo receivers). it doesn't seem to be affecting everyone though.

one more followup, judging by some people who have chimes in on an audyssey forum, this is definitely not isolated to the 709 unit, a lot of onkyo owners finding their MOVIE mode Audyssey settings totally out of whack very recently.