What is the purpose of THX audio mode in Razer Nommo Pro?

I just got the speakers a couple of days ago. For the love of anyone with functional ears I have no idea what/who the THX mode is supposed to be for.

The THX certification is nice and all but the speakers come with THX mode pre-enabled. However, the THX mode flushes out any mid- and higher- frequencies from audio, basically making it sound muffled (like many people commented on in a bunch of threads over at reddit). Yes I tried it with different content types and sources (Optical/BT/PC)

Dolby is better but there's an issue of metallic ringing sound when high frequencies are in sound, reported by multiple people, which most recent firmware doesn't fix

As much as I could skip (painfully, I'd like to try virtual Dolby surround over optical DD...) over the Dolby implementation as flawed, this basically leaves anyone who gets the speakers to resort to setting Flat custom EQ to get sound that's great for everyday stuff (I'm comparing to a pair of Google Home Maxes which have fantastic, clear sound). Multiple reviews mention the same, and honestly custom flat-EQ (or a variation of it) makes the speakers sound absolutely phenomenal. Minus the virtualisation and THX factor of course

So, does anyone know what THX mode is for? Are we just "using it wrong"?

+ Bonus points if anyone can explain why the ringing occurs in Dolby, this never occurred on my Leviathan with Dolby enabled for movies

I'm in touch with Razer support but after quickly getting FW updater to try out (thanks!), the last thing suggested was a copy-paste from user's guide to move my subwoofer around "to get the sound that works best for me".

Yeah, that's not it boys

P.S. If anyone wants to read my mini-review, here it is

EDIT: just wanted to mention that I'm using these speakers in my living room on top of my entertainment unit, not sure if relevant (is THX mode supposed to be close to your face, like, just on your desk, 50cm from you?)

 

I guess thread bumps are frowned upon here. Though, dear evil moderator (lol jk it's fair I guess), whatever the wording would be, the purpose would be the same. A "bump" is just simpler. But I digress because I actually have more info about the Dolby issue and I can post it here for others to read

I figured out the exact frequency this is happening on (and after getting more feedback from another user, I have to admit it sounds more like a tambourine than "ringing")

Not sure how much it tells people but in Dolby mode, 8kHz frequency is very overblown for some reason (up to +14dB ;O) which seems to be the cause of the tambourine sound. It seems to be a firmware bug unless Dolby is handled by some closed-source chip

I made a setup of a Razer Seiren microphone in center, made a bunch of recordings in Audacity at 48kHz 16-bit with Flat EQ and Dolby, cut, de-noised and normalized all recordings and then ran a frequency analysis over the exact same 5s long fragment and exported data to a chart. The results are interesting:

https://i.imgur.com/KMrQuvY.png

Notice how sound levels in both modes go hand in hand more or less, but around 8000 Hz the sound level for Dolby is much, much higher than for flat EQ. The discrepancy is huge and it seems that's what is causing the tambourine sound.

After applying a graphical EQ to my Dolby audio sample of -12dB to 8kHz, the sound indeed lost the tambourine-effect.

That said, I'm still interested in people's views on this and usage on THX

 

I have no idea what are you talking about. It's too deep for me hahaha. Sir, do you know what is THX Spatial for on the sound option on taskbar and how to use it? I currently uses Razer Nommo Chroma.

 

@okonietoperza
If your audio sounds too muffled try this thread, it might have the solution. (Though, that is for Headphones, don't know how well it would help you with speakers.) best of luck though!

 

@Configure_Terminal
Thanks but that's not very relevant to what I'm trying to discuss in this thread. Glad you were able to get your headphones sound the way you like though!

@kennethyha this is a perfect question for Razer Support to handle

 

I use Dolby Music mode for my music and Dolby Movie for games (yea doesn't match). The THX seems to distort or alter the mids and instruments and doesn't sound natural. I recommend either keep it on Dolby Music or Custom EQ to see what fits your listening tastes. Still, for Dolby, these speakers sound really good.

My Bose Companion 5 speakers make it all easy and I think are just as comparable if not slightly better for gaming and movies. Both sets are amazing.