Most of our installs now have all equipment centrally located in a rack, including all av receivers. How are you all calibrating the rooms with the receivers internal calibration when the receiver may be located on a different floor hundreds of feet away? I was thinking about an extension for the mic, but that is not always feasible.

Those freebie mics that come with most AVRs are high impedence and extending them more than 25ish feet will be detrimental to the mic's ability to calibrate properly. It may be time for you to consider buying a kit and some training for such devices as the Audyssey.

Tweeterguy, Many receivers, like Yamaha, don't use Audyssey and are only set up using the included microphone. I have this exact problem at home. I tried extending the microphone with a length of cat6, and the results are OK, just not as good as I have heard with an unaltered mic.I actually brought this up to the Yamaha engineers at Cedia. They mentioned that they had heard this feedback already.

I have a powered balanced CATx extender that is use for this. I just connect up a spare cat cable and run it through. I haven't noticed any difference with this method versus doing it locally. I usually only install Marantz. If I feel it's a bit off, I whip out the SPL meter.

Get some speaker wire. Get some wire nuts. Move the receiver closer. Calibrate. Move the receiver back to the rack. :)

lippa's idea might work best. I tried using extension cables on the Audyssey mics before with mixed results.

Some day they will let you use your smart phone or tablet to do the calibrations. Plug a mic into the headphone jack or USB port. Run the calibration. Upload it to the AVR. Profit. In that order.

I extend mine the wrong way but my results have always been really good. I use some extension cables from Parts Express. I want to get the audyssey kit myself. Never thought i'd use it but I really could benefit from it today.

Maybe it is just me. Denon and Marantz are the only AVR makers that offer Audyssey anymore. Integra/Onkyo have AccuEQ now. Pioneer has MCACCACCAAC, Yamaha has YPAO, Sony has their own flavor. And only the top models from D&M support Audyssey Pro using the kit.

For those that are just extending the cable: How do you know your results are good and unaltered? I'll answer that for you: YOU DON'T!

The best advice I can give you, is learn how to properly adjust a system yourself.
I have NEVER used the built in calibration on receivers, they are never 100% accurate. They have gotten much better over the years but are still flawed, they will NOT get the adjustment 100% correct. There is always something that will be off on them, that has been my experience when I have tested them.
Go take the audio courses from THX and HAA, then get yourself some real test equipment and enjoy an eye opening experience of actually 'calibrating' an audio system.

 

Y'all are professionals. I can't believe you trust that $2 mic more than your ear

Forget it. THX has nothing scheduled and forget about HAA...they've had the same outdated info on the website for a couple of years.

where is the "LIKE" button!!!!!!

I use the calibration tools primarily for equalization, and manually tweak levels/distance. These tools are typically make a significant improvement in dialog intelligibility and general sound quality, and they do it in a small fraction of the amount of time it would take me with proper test equipment and source material.

You don't have to spend a whole lot of time calibrating the audio however. Unless you are charging for a full audio calibration session, you can do a minimum and match (or better) what the receiver does in about an hour.
In just an hour, it is amazing what you can do with a cheap RTA (something like a PAA3 $399), a good tape measure (Stanley FatMax $19), a calculator ($9), and a piece of paper to scribble on with the knowledge of the formulas you need (ohms law, 1125 ft/s, hypotenuse, etc...).
[note: a cell phone with RTA app is NOT a damn measurement tool, it is a gimmick]. The SPL apps can be useful for a down & dirty level 'balancing' however (not for sub). [A weighted pink noise please].

If you want to spend several hours doing a full calibration (and making the money for doing a full calibration), you'll need more and better equipment than that. But the end result you do for the client, will be way beyond what the adjustment in the receiver can do. As you will also be adjusting the room - moving things (speakers, seating location, objects in the room), adding things (drapes along this wall, acoustic treatments hear & there) and taking things away ("What do you mean I need to remove this mirrored wall behind me?").

Call them up and see what they are offering. The training was really good a decade ago - I took both and got something from both.

There are also other training avenues as well.
Gold-line use to have courses to take.
The ASA (Acoustical Society of America) has courses.
JBL has courses thru out the year, as do other manufactures and test equipment vendors.
It is best to start with courses geared toward "small room acoustics" however. Since that is what we deal with. And the THX & HAA courses do that perfectly. The other courses come in handy as well thou - outdoor sound systems, large venues you might work on, and an expanded acoustic knowledge in general.

I agree. I normally run the auto cal. and then check the results. I listen with and without it active and decide if it actually did any good with the EQ. If not, I set the levels and delays the old fashioned way and leave the EQ alone.