I was playing around with the new beta version of REW today and did just a few more modifications/improvements. I don't know if this dark mode is new to this version, but it really looks great!
Initially, I've always wondered as to why I prefered to have the treble completely flat (in relation to the entire FR) instead of applying a bit of a curve contouring/shelving per standard recommendation for my KH120 monitors. And I think it must be because my room is just too damned dead. You see I have these thick foam wedges which I've brought along with me as remnants from our previous house. I actually put it into storage for about half-a-year or so, I think -- then decided to recycle it rather than throw it into the garbage. I could have just as easily made some better diy absorbers myself, but why waste stuff, eh?
I took some RT60 measurements and here are the results:
My guess is this is the reason why turning the surrounds ON improves the sense of "envelopment" and "space" sooo much. It adds more liveliness to the plain old stereo mix inside my already
over-dead room.
Also, since I'm using the surrounds quite a lot more now anyhows, I might as well try to get the treble balance right -- this has been bothering me anyway. Just a itty-bit more EQ and shelving in that specific region finally got me this:
So far my initial listening tests have been positive. And now... you improved the treble balance so why not the bass? Well, honestly, I really didn't want to do too much here so just three things were changed: boosted the bass volume by 4dB & the high pass from 20 to
34 Hz 26Hz, as well as added a +4 dB peak filter at 115 Hz. Hmmn,
but why increase the high pass filter?
Firstly (and likely an inconsequential/irrelevant reason), I just liked how it flattened out the distortion bump at the sub bass region. Secondly (and more importantly), after listening to a variety of bass heavy tracks, it does sound more balanced to me this way with the new added 10 dB slope from bass to treble -- whereas previously it was way overly flat. Of course, I can always disable this high pass filter when watching more modern movies with hard hitting bass notes -- that is, if I can remember to do so.
Added -4 dB at 2kHz high shelf and -2 dB peak at 15kHz for the LSR305s:
I'm not sure how a waterfall graph should be read or interpreted exactly, but what the heck -- it looks pretty with the black backgroud and rainbow colors
*I ultimately decided to extended the high pass from 34 to 26Hz instead. This at least lets me feel more of the
rumble in some tracks without it feeling too uncomfortable.
BTW, I mentioned before that I have a sit-stand desk... So to be clear, all measurements here are in the "standing"/high position. Although I do also use a high chair so there is not so much need to switch to the "sitting"/low position all the time. The measurements for the low position I will not bother to include here but they're pretty similar with everything except for the nulls in the bass region going quite a bit deeper.
Here's my sit/stand desk station that looks more like a dump than it normally is :
I was busy playing with REW so looks aren't at important!