The absolute best and most accurate way to listen to a soundtrack (or music recording for that matter) is to use absolutely no processing (not even THX), in the format which uses the least lossy compression. Then acoustically treat the room and set the speakers up in their intended, optimum positions instead of relying on Trinnov and Audyssey gizmos.

The Sound and Vision forums have excellent threads about proper acoustics management and speaker positioning.

Re Sony, I have two items, a VCR that I've almost never used since buying it a year or so ago and a CD carousel also little used since getting a Pioneer universal player that, by the way, has worked perfectly. The carousel had a problem while under warranty but the replacement unit has worked flawlessly, so my experience doesn't strongly support BloggingITGuy's opinions.
I find the whole discussion about the Trinnov optimizer literally unreal, since not one of us has heard it in action. If we're going to engage in this sort of thing why choose a historically respectable topic, like how many angels can dance on the point of a pin?

I have heard the Trinnov professional system.

Great - my apologies. How did it impress you (or not)?

It did it's job, but I still maintain that the best way to tune a room / system is with a skilled operator in conjunction with the proper RTA gear. Much of the details in tuning a room is knowing how, and how much to deviate from "ruler flat" in order to yield a system which sounds less "Hi-Fi" and more musical.

The programming in the Trinnov and Audyssey cannot possibly take into consideration the subtitles which must be considered to make a system be as good as it can be (no matter how powerful or trick the computer programming might be). Only a skilled and thinking human at the controls can do that.

Thanks for the quick reply, Altec. It does raise the question whether it's worth while to change from the 990 to the 997 and losing the phono input for the sake of something of such debatable benefit. (At least until one really needs three HDMI inputs.)

Re less "Hi-Fi" and more musical deviations from "ruler flat", is there any benefit to a 2-db-per-octave rolloff starting at 2 KHz? (That's about the same as -5 db at 10 KHz, which I think is settable on the 990.)

Re "take into consideration the subtitles", do you mean "subtleties"?

Your messages, and Gonk's of course, are among the most consistently interesting in this Saloon.

The rolloff your mentioned is close to the THX "X" curve recommendation. Generally, it is desirable to have a gradually falling response as measured at the listener's ears so that the high end is down a few dB. This balance gives the best, most natural sounding presentation. The exact amount of this rolloff is determined by the specifics of the acoustics of the room and the placement of the speakers.

You are always going to achieve better results by taking care of any "problems" with response etc. by making sure the acoustics of the room are in order. Trinnov and Audyssey (and EQ in general in anything other than an active system) are band-aids.

Altec,

I am not disagreeing with you, but I do want to point out something. Your comment reminds me very much of the fighter pilots I used to talk to who claimed that there was no way a computer was going to fly there plane better then they could. They all firmly believed that it would take a "skilled and thinking human at the controls" in order to fly the plane at its best. Well guess what, computers have come a long way baby and there isn't a snow balls chance in hell that those fighter pilots could fly there planes today without the computers making the actual decisions on which surface to move and to what degree. Now granted these are very different fields of engineering, but it won't be a surprise to me when computer based systems are doing a better job at room correction then we the "skilled and thinking" can ever do. I will admit that we might not be there yet, but I would bet that we will be before very long.

Happy New Year to You All!

I knew that somebody would bring up that argument. Trust me, it is not a grudge of mine against "automation". I'm all for computer integration whenever it can be done truly better than what a human could do.

In this case, we aren't there yet.........

Things are not necessarily as easy or clear cut as they may seem on the surface. In tuning a room / speaker interface, the devil is in the details...details only a human ear/brain can know and process. Tuning a room for best musical presentation is really equal parts science and art. Sorry, there isn't much "art" in the fighter pilot example you cited.

I think tuning a piano is more like tuning a room in that it requires some degree of independent intrepretation of both the technical data and the realities of how the system sounds to a real human ear.

Present day computers are not very good at the "art" part. They can only mimic. They are in a sense a blunt instrument which can only impress a pre-programmed set of instructions upon the data received - in this case by a relatively "dumb" sensor (the microphone array). The programmers who write the instructions cannot possibly know, or take into consideration the unlimited subtle variations in individual rooms, speakers, layouts, and yes, preferences of real humans with real ears.

Perhaps in a world a couple decades down the road when this can be done at a price that somebody other than the Pentagon can afford. But not today, not in a real-world consumer product.

In the meantime, my advise is still to optimize the room's acoustics and the layout of the speakers. Doing this will greatly reduce or eliminate the need for equalization and other DSP processing.

My greatest fear is that manufacturers will market devices like the Audyssey and Trinnov to consumers, giving them the false impression that they do not need to give any thought or concern to the acoustics of the room or where they place the speakers...that these gizmos will make everything "perfect".

That is the farthest thing from the truth, and is just as misleading as telling people they can eat all they want, and some "magic pill" will keep them from gaining weight.

It is a good discussion which won't be decided by anyone in the near future. I hope that the Trinnov systems graphical output will help a lot of us make better decisions as to room enhancements. It would really be useful if it allows adjustments to be displayed real time on the GUI so we can see the effects of some of the changes.
Right now I have a 9 foot fake Xmas tree right in my sound field and it sits in the exact spot where my usual listening area is. I recalibrated the 990 (after the wife recalibrated me)to try to account for it but I can't wait till it is gone