I follow the recommendation to use an extension cable and was unsuccessful. I don't have, nor are the Denon receiver's I'm programming, compatible with the Audessey pro Mic. What are your thoughts on using an audio balun to extend it over cat6. I'm looking to extend about 40 feet.

Thanks

Craig

I wouldn't and you don't need a balun. It comes with a LowZ mic- just get some mic cable, two XLR ends and make a cable- being LowZ, it won't be affected by the additional length and in fact, the Denon trainers say the regular mic can be extended by 50' but the LowZ mic is better.

I happen to have a whack of mic cable. But just to be sure we are talking about the same mic, this is the little piramid thing with a 3.5mm mono connector. No XLRs here. I think I must have the regular mic?

The receivers are AVR-X2400h and 3400h.

Craig

I should also mention that I got lazy and used a 50ft IR emitter extension, as I had it with me. Nothing shielded.

Well, using an emitter extension is only 2 conductor, ie: signal and ground.

The mic requires 3 conductor, ie: +, - and ground.

Probably why it didn't work in the first place.

The one that came with this receiver is a mono connection. Tip and ring.

Craig

Craig and lippa don't agree on how many terminals there are. I'd say no, we can't figure out how to extend it.

There's nothing to agree on. The mic included with the receiver is mono.

Craig

Hi,

Did you try a plain old two conductor shielded extension cable with the appropriate connectors?

Nothing special about these mics.

Frederick

You dont have a basic DB meter and a tape measure?

Set the room up manually and tweak it so it sounds good. the Audissey mics are OK for DIY's, but pros should be able to tweak a system so the owner is thrilled.

You have the regular mic that comes with AVRs, not the Pro mic, as you wrote in the original post.

You used a 3.5mm-3.5mm cable (like a headphone extension cable)? Those ARE shielded. If it wasn't and you look at the EQ curve, you'll probably see a deep notch at 60Hz. You need shielded any time you use a mic.

Odd. Will not argue with what you see, but. Microphone principals require 3 conductor. Not sure what the hell they are doing with these then.

Probably why most auto setups are way off to begin with!!

I always tune a room using Impaqts advice, ie: DB meter and measuring tape.

No more sitting around quietly waiting for the test tones to finish, then the damn dog starts barking or baby is crying. F that!!

Nobody said it was stereo and a three conductor cable is for shielded balanced connections.

Those mics are pretty cheap, but they work well for this.

Download a good RTA app or use Room EQ Wizard if you don't want to use Audyssey but don't expect to be able to do as much in the low frequencies. However, you WILL be able to see the difference between the speaker distance settings in the menu- always set the increments to .1 feet- if you use the distance settings for each speaker, a change of .1' is audible and visible on Room EQ Wizard.

Frederick,

I did just that this morning and I’m working on posting some screen shots so that I can show the results.


IMPAQT,

I do have an SPL meter and using it is an option for sure and I agree with what you said. I always do Audyssey first and then follow up by confirming the measurements and tuning by ear. What I like about Audyssey is that the EQ will do its best to balance all of the channels so they sound similar to one another. Still might not be correct, but that has more to do with personal taste anyway. After I'm done this I go through and use a couple of my favorite movies and CDs to tweak.

Highfigh,


I did not say I was using the pro mic.

The cable I used was a un-shielded, un-twisted Xantech 50ft mono IR extension as I didn’t have time to go get, or make a shielded extension. This is an ongoing project so I figured I would give it a try. Aaaaaand it failed. A cable run through the halls from the two rooms to the basement would be almost 100ft in one case and about 70ft in the other. So I’m fishing the extension cable through conduit that’s behind the TVs which keeps the extension length to just over 40ft.

My thoughts about using a balun over Cat6 is that I have unused cat6, run from both rooms that need tuning to a rack in the basement, which would make connection very simple. If that were to work, in projects where equipment is rack mounted else where, I could install a couple of double ended RJ45 jacks for the purpose of using a balun on the mic, or maybe even a couple of 3.5mm keystones.

Lippavisual,

You made me laugh. I had to repeat some tests I did this morning because my dogs went mental.

Highfigh,

I have Room EQ Wizard and a good calibrated mic. I had considered going channel by channel, however I’ll be faced with extending my computer’s output down to the rack so I can hear the generated tones, which, while a much better option than this stupid mic, is still concerning me that due to the extension and any alteration to the signal that may introduce, all of the extra time spent tuning each channel separately will be for not.

Thanks very much for the tip about the .1ft increments. This will prove to be very useful in the future.

As I mentioned up top, I did make a simple mono extension using a shielded mic cable (based on an earlier suggestion - thank you). I did three tests. A new baseline with Audyssey as is, a second with the extension using just the two conductors, and a third with the same but the drain wire attached to the sleeve.
At a quick glance I can say that it correctly (meaning same as the baseline) set all distances, levels and cross over points, however the EQ was off from the baseline. Low and mid-range frequencies were similar but my surrounds got some major adjustment above about 5k, as much as 10dB as it got to 20k, so obviously there was some major roll off in the higher frequencies. (I think – difficult to say swiping between photos).

After revisiting the balun/keystone idea in my reply to Highfigh up top, I think I'll do another test using 50ft of cat6 and see how that compares as well.

Anyway like I said I will post photos of the results. Might not get to it until after Christmas though.

And thanks very much everyone for chiming in. Your input, both positive and negative is useful and appreciated.

Have to go grocery shop for Christmas. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday.

Craig

It sounds like you have placed the receiver such that the speaker wires have to run quite a distance, not 100ft and 70 ft, but not 15 to 30 either. Is that wise?

How about taking the receiver into the room and connecting to the speaker wires locally? If you can't do this because the wires are buried, maybe those of us who have to do such things should create a pull box or something where we can connect the receiver near the speakers for Audyssey setup.
Why?
These are CHEAP mics. We have no idea whether their response turns to crap if the wire is extended. Someone should do an Audyssey setup with the receiver near the speakers, then try various cable setups until a setup with extension cables gives the same results as without.

And we can't tell if these mics' response falls of HARD below 50 Hz (for instance) and Audyssey is set up to get less audio down there and compensate for it... meaning if we substitute another mic, we have no idea whether we're getting what Audyssey would give us.


Just as we don't know about the frequency response of these mics, we don't KNOW about their impedance. All we can tell is whether they're balanced or unbalanced. The rest is pure assumptions.


This is why trying out the setup with and without an extension cable is a good idea. Sooner or later someone has to do it!



Here we go! This is what's needed.

Print out the photos. If the two methods did give such different results, we'll have to consider admitting that you can't extend the mic cable.


This will be interesting to see.

Thanks for getting into this in this amount of needed detail!

You too!