• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Is using Roon's DSP for my sub crossover a bad idea, or perfectly OK?

dadregga

Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
154
Likes
340
I currently have a 5.1 music setup that goes from Roon via a small fanless PC to an older Denon (1612, don't judge) with "plain/bad Audessy" via HDMI.

For budgetary reasons I'm stuck with the Denon for now, it's otherwise fine for my needs - but I wondered if I could use Roon's digital DSP to bypass all the AVR's processing. Seems like it should be totally possible, and potentially be higher quality than the AVR's internal processing, given how well Roon's digital DSP seems to work.

There are already good walkthroughs for using REW and such to do room correction with Roon's DSP filters, which I'm not asking about because that's fairly straightforward/well-documented.

The question I'm asking is this - is there any downside to doing my sub crossover from within Roon's DSP and bypassing the internal AVR digital crossover, versus letting the AVR's internal processing do it?


I've currently managed to do this in Roon's DSP engine with a combination of

- the Speaker Setup processor (to duplicate the outputs of all speakers to the LFE channel)
- a High-pass filter @80hz with a 12db slope via the Procedural EQ processor, applied to all channels except LFE
- a Low-pass filter @80hz with a 24db slope via the Procedural EQ processor, applied to the LFE channel only

This seems to work pretty well honestly and from what I can tell more or less equates to what Audessy/the AVR crossover would do internally - but I'm looking for someone smarter than me to validate what I'm doing here and tell me if I'm being extremely thickheaded or missing something, or if there are downsides to this approach that I'm missing.
 
Last edited:

Drengur

Active Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 17, 2021
Messages
150
Likes
412
The answer is most likely "no, there is no downside in terms of quality". There might be downsides in implementing this though. AV receivers are meant to be easy (many have failed.) I have done something similar with JRiver and was happy with the results.
 

phoenixdogfan

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 6, 2018
Messages
3,294
Likes
5,070
Location
Nashville
I currently have a 5.1 music setup that goes from Roon via a small fanless PC to an older Denon (1612, don't judge) with "plain/bad Audessy" via HDMI.

For budgetary reasons I'm stuck with the Denon for now, it's otherwise fine for my needs - but I wondered if I could use Roon's digital DSP to bypass all the AVR's processing. Seems like it should be totally possible, and potentially be higher quality than the AVR's internal processing, given how well Roon's digital DSP seems to work.

There are already good walkthroughs for using REW and such to do room correction with Roon's DSP filters, which I'm not asking about because that's fairly straightforward/well-documented.

The question I'm asking is this - is there any downside to doing my sub crossover from within Roon's DSP and bypassing the internal AVR digital crossover, versus letting the AVR's internal processing do it?


I've currently managed to do this in Roon's DSP engine with a combination of

- the Speaker Setup processor (to duplicate the outputs of all speakers to the LFE channel)
- a High-pass filter @80hz with a 12db slope via the Procedural EQ processor, applied to all channels except LFE
- a Low-pass filter @80hz with a 24db slope via the Procedural EQ processor, applied to the LFE channel only

This seems to work pretty well honestly and from what I can tell more or less equates to what Audessy/the AVR crossover would do internally - but I'm looking for someone smarter than me to validate what I'm doing here and tell me if I'm being extremely thickheaded or missing something, or if there are downsides to this approach that I'm missing.
Software crossovers are fine IMHO. I've implemented one for 4.1 multichannel in JRiver and I'm happy with the results. I've also done one with Dephonica which is free ware, for my 2 channel listening. Both are fine. I would imagine Roon, with a reputation it needs to protect given it;s cost is good as well.

You can always buy a Unik microphone, and learn to use REW and take some in room MMM measurements to verify Roon is working as it should.
 
OP
D

dadregga

Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
154
Likes
340
You can always buy a Unik microphone, and learn to use REW and take some in room MMM measurements to verify Roon is working as it should.

This is something I plan to do eventually for room correction purposes, for sure.

I've been listening to this setup for some time, and am relatively happy with the results versus what the non-XT32 version of Audessy on this receiver came up with, at least.
 

antcollinet

Master Contributor
Joined
Sep 4, 2021
Messages
7,408
Likes
12,291
Location
UK/Cheshire
What is the benefit of doing it in roon compared with the AVR. I get that the AVR might not do EQ very well, but crossover is not EQ.
 
OP
D

dadregga

Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
154
Likes
340
What is the benefit of doing it in roon compared with the AVR. I get that the AVR might not do EQ very well, but crossover is not EQ.

No real benefit other than the fact that Roon's DSP (which handles crossover and EQ) is likely far more capable and performant than my old AVR's DSP (which probably downsamples everything, among other limitations), and I wanted to prove out using Roon's DSP as a one-stop shop for crossover and (eventually) EQ so I could, for instance, ditch the AVR and get a multichannel DAC or something.

Generally I'd rather just set my AVR to Direct mode and do DSP in the mini-PC plugged into my AVR anyway, since the mini-PC and a good software solution should be higher quality, far more capable, and eventually more flexible.
 

abdo123

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 15, 2020
Messages
7,423
Likes
7,940
Location
Brussels, Belgium
No real benefit other than the fact that Roon's DSP (which handles crossover and EQ) is likely far more capable and performant than my old AVR's DSP (which probably downsamples everything, among other limitations), and I wanted to prove out using Roon's DSP as a one-stop shop for crossover and (eventually) EQ so I could, for instance, ditch the AVR and get a multichannel DAC or something.

Generally I'd rather just set my AVR to Direct mode and do DSP in the mini-PC plugged into my AVR anyway, since the mini-PC and a good software solution should be higher quality, far more capable, and eventually more flexible.

Is there a way to make a routing matrix in Roon (basically bass management)? where will the subwoofer channel come from?
 
OP
D

dadregga

Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
154
Likes
340
Is there a way to make a routing matrix in Roon (basically bass management)? where will the subwoofer channel come from?

Yes - I use the Procedural EQ filter and then add a Mix filter to that chain - mapping all channels to output to the LFE as well as to their "normal" outputs, then I put LPF/HPF immediately after that in the chain.

So the LFE gets everything 80hz or below, as well as the LFE channel, if it's there - which is more or less exactly what the AVR would do with the sub crossover+LFE channel, as far as I know.

It works, but I'm not entirely sure it's intended to, hence this post :D
 
Top Bottom