Dont like the sound of room correction

[Geert]

Using your voice to find room modes and resonances.

Barry White is alive, and he's on the forum.

 

[QMuse]

I noticed nobody quoted Toole for quite a long time, so what the heck.. :-D

Toole, F. E. (2015). “The Measurement and Calibration of Sound Reproducing Systems”, J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 63, pp.512-541. This is an open-access paper available to non-members at http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17839

Research has shown that approximately 30% of one's judgment of sound quality is a reaction to bass performance - both extension and smoothness. Given this, if one has selected well-designed loudspeakers, the dominant problems are likely to be associated with the room itself and the physical arrangement of loudspeakers and listeners within it - i.e. the bass.

Conclusion: full bandwidth equalization may not be desirable, especially if any significant portion of the target curve is flat. On the other hand, some amount of bass equalization is almost unavoidable, and will be most effective in multiple sub systems (Chapter8). It is useful if the EQ algorithm can be disabled at frequencies above about 400-500 Hz. There should be no difference to equalization for music or movies. Good sound is good sound, and listeners tell us that the most preferred sound is "neutral".

 

[fredoamigo]

yes Floyd Toole sums up very well here too

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...cal-music-pros-using.12225/page-4#post-358277
""The widespread belief that "room EQ" is the final arbiter of sound quality is the final nail in the coffin of standardized sound quality""

 

[SpoOokY]

There should be no difference to equalization for music or movies. Good sound is good sound, and listeners tell us that the most preferred sound is "neutral".

I would not accept that as a general rule. The surround impression suffers from tonal discrepancies between different speaker sets. Full freq EQ helps with narrowing the sound signature and creating an immersive surround sound.
For Music I also think EQ to approx 500 Hz is best.

 

[QMuse]

yes Floyd Toole sums up very well here too

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...cal-music-pros-using.12225/page-4#post-358277
""The widespread belief that "room EQ" is the final arbiter of sound quality is the final nail in the coffin of standardized sound quality""

We are here talking about room EQ in the modal region, which is the absolute necessity and that is what most automated EQ systems are doing reasonably well. Correcting respoonse above modal region, or at least above 900Hz, based on in-room measurements is a tricky thing and this is where automated EQ solutions mostly fail as it is very hard to get correct speaker response in that range based on measurements taken from LP. To be able to do that separate mesurements should be taken using pseudo-anechoic technique (putting speaker at the center of the room, measuring from app 1m and then apply FDW and/or gating), but to my knowedge no automated EQ system is asking users to do such measurements. Hence many of them fail to do a good job there..

 

[restorer-john]

Correcting respoonse above modal region, or at least above 900Hz, based on in-room measurements is a tricky thing and this is where automated EQ solutions mostly fail as it is very hard to get correct speaker response in that range based on measurements taken from LP.

Marantz in 1994 released a product that could do all that and a whole lot more, right up to 16KHz.

https://audio-database.com/MARANTZ/etc/ax1000-e.html
https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/marantz_ax1000_audio_computer/

 

[Geert]

I pretty well never use my room compensation when listening to music, only when watching films, it doesn't make that much difference anyway.

Just to give you an idea of what the effect can be in other settings; At home I use stand mount speakers with a 7" woofer. If you would hear them in my room I can guaranty you would be looking around to see where I've hidden the sub woofers. You won't believe what you're hearing. The bass you experience corresponds perfectly with the measurements, which show a broad 18dB peak at 32hz. Without DRC it's just impossible to enjoy music over here. And there's nothing exceptional about this type of room or speaker setup.

 

[Geert]

Marantz in 1994 released a product that could do all that and a whole lot more, right up to 16KHz.
https://audio-database.com/MARANTZ/etc/ax1000-e.html
https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/marantz_ax1000_audio_computer/

Which is the perfect example of a solution that would fail for sure. Been there, done that ...

 

[restorer-john]

Which is the perfect example of a solution that would fail for sure.

Right. OK.

If you'd used, or even seen one, you'd be singing a totally different tune. It cost 1.9million yen and all the resources of Philips and Marantz produced arguably the most sophisticated digital processing product ever, 26 years ago.

Go do some research.

 

[Willem]

That Philips/Marantz unit serves to show how sad it was that Philips and its world class research facilities abandoned audio.

 

[Snarfie]

So I have tried now 5 differend avr/processor.

i have used audyssey, anthem room correction, Dirac with arcam now dirac with monolith.

i own Kef R series mains and center, kef in ceiling, kef rears T series (slim) and 2 rel T5i subs

despite multiple permutations and combinations, i still feel the natural sound coming from the Kef R series is still better than the same speaker with room correction of any type

does anyone have the same experience? Or is this nonsensical?

sound with all types of room correction doesnt sound as natural

and ive tries narrow windows with minimal correction vs full range

still feel same way

Don't know how your room acoustic looks like but if it looks like mine i can assure you that your corrected sound will be about 70% better.

If your room has already a flat response you probably will not get much improvement. For me using mathaudio that corrected mine acoustic was the biggest positive change/upgrade i notice in 50 years time.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Just to give you an idea of what the effect can be in other settings; At home I use stand mount speakers with a 7" woofer. If you would hear them in my room I can guaranty you would be looking around to see where I've hidden the sub woofers. You won't believe what you're hearing. The bass you experience corresponds perfectly with the measurements, which show a broad 18dB peak at 32hz. Without DRC it's just impossible to enjoy music over here. And there's nothing exceptional about this type of room or speaker setup.

Well for the first 30 years I was putting speakers in my unexceptional rooms I would not have left speakers where they produced an 18dB peak, but I have an understanding wife.
About 20 years ago we built another bedroom for our growing family which justified an extra downstairs room which I put my hifi in, I positioned my speakers by ear, as I always had before then had a specialist fine tune the position. I had a screen and projector added too so i could watch the tv but get rid of the eyesore when not watching (I don't watch much). Some years later I added centre and surround speakers and processor for films.
Later based on favourable impressions here I bought a Marantz processor. I have tried both DSPeaker anti-mode (which I didn't like) and Audyssey using the app to set the curve. The 5dB extra level in the frequently recommended curve completely muddies the sound of the music I listen to so I just leave the B&K like slope I have been targeting for decades.

 

[Geert]

Right. OK. If you'd used, or even seen one, you'd be singing a totally different tune. It cost 1.9million yen and all the resources of Philips and Marantz produced arguably the most sophisticated digital processing product ever, 26 years ago.
Go do some research.

So tell me, what can it do that Dirac Live can't (regarding DRC, not talking about the reverb, dynamics and surround stuff)? Can it do FIR filter (linear phase filters) or time alignment? Can it make quasi anechoic loudspeaker measurements?

The technical capabilities of an EQ or DSP are not the point of discussion here. Successfully applying DRC is mainly about determining which corrections are beneficial. It's about applying scientific work about small room acoustics and hearing (of people like Toole and Olive) in practice. I'm happy to discuss some research on that.

 

[Geert]

Well for the first 30 years I was putting speakers in my unexceptional rooms I would not have left speakers where they produced an 18dB peak, but I have an understanding wife.

Lucky you, but I'm not in a situation where I can build my living room around my hifi set. Which goes for most people I know.

Later based on favourable impressions here I bought a Marantz processor. I have tried both DSPeaker anti-mode (which I didn't like) and Audyssey using the app to set the curve. The 5dB extra level in the frequently recommended curve completely muddies the sound of the music I listen to so I just leave the B&K like slope I have been targeting for decades.

Which overall target curve to apply is a separate discussion and to some extend a matter of preference. What we're trying to clarify here is the value of addressing the worst room modes.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Lucky you, but I'm not in a situation where I can build my living room around my hifi set. Which goes for most people I know.


Which overall target curve to apply is a separate discussion and to some extend a matter of preference. What we're trying to clarify here is the value of addressing the worst room modes.

I have done it by speaker positioning for the last 50 years. Everybody had to in the past, and that goes for everybody I know.
Young folk are lucky these days because they can get reasonable results at low cost with little effort or knowledge.
Like everything.

 

[Geert]

I have done it by speaker positioning for the last 50 years. Everybody had to in the past, and that goes for everybody I know.

Everyone you know has the freedom to place his speakers and/or listening position more than meter from any room boundaries? Are you a royalty?

And actually, that's not how it has been done for 50 years. Instead a lot of speakers are designed to be placed close to the front wall. They are bass shy.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Everyone you know has the freedom to place his speakers and/or listening position more than meter from any room boundaries? Are you a royalty?

No, back when I was new to the hobby (1968) I had plenty of friends who were too. We pretty well all were prepared to sacrifice a bit to get the best sound we could in our hovels.
Nowadays I only know a couple of people who are still into hifi and care what the sound quality is like. Most of my old friends and my children's generation are unwilling to make any of the visual or spatial sacrifices we used to make, and now with TV, computers, games consoles, tablets and smart phones there is a lot more to spend money on and it turns out a lot of people were gadget fans rather than music lovers so they have a massively bigger choice of gadgets to spend their cash on.
We chose not to afford a TV so we could listen to a better music system, all the other shiny things hadn't come to exist yet, all the money went on an LP a week which used up about 20% of my income.

 

[Geert]

Nowadays I only know a couple of people who are still into hifi and care what the sound quality is like. Most of my old friends and my children's generation are unwilling to make any of the visual or spatial sacrifices we used to make.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm active on different forums and every week there are new topics of people struggling with their setup because moving everything around or installing acoustic treatment is simply not an option. I've seen more than a hundred pictures and floor plans. It even has a name now; 'Wife Acceptance Factor' (WAF). So we probably agree on how it should be fixed in an ideal world, but in practise DRC is the only effective option for most people (in Europe at least). And for room modes it actually is a very good option (the main drawback being it is restricted to a certain listening area).

 

[Frank Dernie]

struggling with their setup because moving everything around or installing acoustic treatment is simply not an option

It used to be the only option when I started and anybody not prepared to do it didn't want high quality music reproduction enough.
I would argue the same today. I have had this discussion with my grown up children, despite two of them being musicians and having heard how good it can be they have all decided top quality sound is not worth making any compromises for, for them. It still is for me.
They tend to listen to spotify on headphones most of the time.

 

[Newman]

I don't think that how FIR works is "widely known". As a BScEE I learned about FIR during my college education but I had to learn more later on when I needed to use it in practice - so it's defintely a no, the way how FIR works is not widely known.

Take you, for example.. You don't seem to understand the difference between FIR and IIR filters. You also don't seem to know there are minimum-phase and linear-phase FIR filters, and that in the case of former no pre-ringing is introduced at all. You also don't seem to know that correction of speaker's phase doesn't affect it's amplitude response. Finally, you don't seem to understand that amplitude and phase correction equally affect direct sound and reflected sound, meaning that if you, for example, apply a filter to a speaker and then measure it's spinorama curves again you will find that ON, LW, ER and SP are equally affected by the filter.

Btw, pre-ringing and post-ringing do not "sum", they are perceived separately and while the latter is masked with the signal the former is of course not, so use of linear phase filters and/or phase correction should be done very carefully in order to avoid audible pre-ringing.
I advise you to read this post where I explained and showed pre-ringing and post-ringing effects with minimum-phase and linear-phase FIR filters.

P.S. I especially liked the part when you said "deconvolution has been done for the other ear". Do you care to elaborate what is that exactly supposed to mean? Are you aware that convolution is a process where input signal is multiplied with filter impulse response? So, in that context, what would "deconvolution for the other ear" mean?

No, let’s not “take me for example”.

Clearly I seem to have touched a raw nerve. Please confirm that you have made a commitment to the use of FIR. Are you using FIR in your audio playback chain? If yes, I may call a halt to it right there unless I get some thus-far-missing reassurance that you are genuinely interested in what I have to say. Because....

Your unimpressive combination of Appeal to Authority (especially when it is oneself) and ASS-U-mption-based ad hominem attacks, in bold above, constitute crooked debating tactics, where something other than facts are brought into a discussion. It is not appreciated, it is not helpful, and it makes you look bad in public.

So please at least try to calm down.

Meanwhile, you can share with us the placebo-controlled, double-blind, statistically conclusive research evidence on FIR room EQ algorithms in popular use, and compare the perceptual limits on time artefacts with the maximum ever produced by popular algorithms.

Until I see that, and it falls conclusively in favour of FIR, then my stated position (that you attacked with a selection of underhanded and non-objective, non-evidence-based techniques) is 100% warranted: the risk is too high.

cheers