I feel fortunate to have been a loudspeaker engineer and one of the trained listeners who participated weekly in Floyd Toole's and Sean Olive's Multi-channel Listening Lab. Were I a full time audio writer talking about a solitary experience in the Listening Lab I doubt that I would have been converted so quickly to the absolute correctness of Floyd Toole's loudspeaker design dictum: "A truly good loudspeaker uniformly radiates its sound into the room at all frequencies (the Directivity Index). The on-axis and listening window curves will be smooth and flat. The early reflection and sound power curves will be smooth and gradually decreasing with higher frequencies."

(From: http://www.infinitysystems.com/homeaudio/technology/whitepapers/loudspeakers_rooms.pdf )

Why is this audio design truth so important to you, a custom installer or perspective purchaser of the Audyssey Sound Equalizer? The answer is simple. Tom Holman's protégés, the PhD level designers of the Audyssey technologies use this acoustically and psychoacoustically correct loudspeaker design criteria as part of MultEQ XT's and MultEQ Pro's target loudspeaker performance criteria.

The Audyssey system now reconstructs that phase-correct, flat on-axis response with an ever decreasing high energy (off-axis) power response target, as faithfully as its own fuzzy logic program says it can, into the acoustic bubble area defined by your customer's home environment. In other words, the optimized-at-one-meter, anechoic loudspeaker performance envelope is transported, as intact as possible, away from the room walls which are already coloring its sound and to the prescribed-by-the-customer acoustic bubble listening area.

If correct "performance envelope criteria" speakers have been placed according to ITU 775 (horizontal recommendations) and THX (vertical recommendations also) during the entire construction/installation phase, the Audyssey system is capable of transporting the listener/viewer back to the recording studio or sound stage, listening over the engineer's shoulder and hearing exactly what he heard.

When I first heard this phenomena in my own home, with whose acoustics I am intimately familiar, I was absolutely floored, in awe of what I realized is perhaps the biggest breakthrough in acoustic and psychoacoustic technology, applied to audio, in my career. I don't make that statement lightly. Done properly, with all speakers chosen for flat response (with smooth off-axis characteristics); positioned according to optimal layout, then driven by competent electronics, you too stand to be similarly floored.

It was on that first night with my wife dancing around just outside the measured perimeter of the acoustic bubble that it hit me. I'm not listening to the equipment! I can't hear what the (other) equipment might be "doing" to the system's sound.

Yes, the system's "sound" was there, 9 feet in front of me in the equipment rack; there in the left center rights and there in the surround speakers in our living room walls. But neither I nor my wife could "hear the system". All we could hear was what the great recording engineers had heard when they mixed the Motown and Orbison discs. Our "willing suspension of disbelief" was complete.

There is obviously a lot more ground to cover with the Audyssey Sound Equalizer. I plan a follow-on review which will cover this unit's construction and component parts as well as other installation tips I am learning day-by-day with this very versatile piece of gear.

Regarding construction: I can tell you the unit uses the best Burr-Brown A/Ds and D/As and the balance of parts making up the BOM are all selected and assembled to a MIL spec standard. Audyssey's meticulous attention to the unit's construction and parts quality is part of the reason I copped out on the unit's "sound". So far, I've not heard any sonic "character" I'd attribute to the sound Equalizer. It is that transparent. The unit is made in Southern California so Audyssey Co-founder and VP Engineering, Phil Hilmes, can closely monitor each hand assembled batch of product.

As well, I have a SmaartLive computer-based measurement system which is normally utilized to professionally set up and equalize small to large live venue music events. With the SmaartLive I hope to confirm frequency response from each of the speakers from my room's acoustic bubble positions and put some numbers on the x-y axes graphs for the more technically inclined.

Over the last several months Audyssey has been establishing a network of rep/distributors through which the Sound Equalizer will be available. Audyssey-certified installer/integrator companies will be the only dealers qualified to purchase this Audyssey-brand Sound Equalizer. Production is now fully ramped up so the Sound Equalizer pipeline should be filled by the time you read this.

I was so impressed with the Audyssey Sound Equalizer's acoustic and psychoacoustic performance that I have become a freelance Audyssey Sound Equalizer consultant/integrator for the Los Angeles/Orange County area. I offer consultation on both passive room treatments (if necessary) as well as Audyssey's active Sound Equalizer system integration. And using SmaartLive computerized software I can provide for both pre and post acoustic performance analysis.

MSRP: $2500