tallbeardedone
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2022
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Hey guys, I've spent a lot of time Optimizing my Speaker Positioning using REW and after weeks of tweaking my current set-up has the following psychoacoustically smoothed frequency response at the listening position as measured by a Umik-1 microphone:
As you can see I've got a wonderfully flat response overall, with no extreme bass nodes at all, and only small peaks centered at 65hz, 850Hz, and 3500Hz respectively.
I quite like the 65Hz modal peak (which is a room dependant anti-node across the 5.6m width of my room, regardless of speaker positioning), as it adds slam and meat the bones and to my ears still sounds fast without too much bloom (although the waterfall does show a bit).
This leaves only the other two minor peaks at 850Hz and 3500Hz. To attenuate these I used the parametric EQ inside my Auralic Aries G1 streamer. The details of each band, including center frequency, dB attenuation, and Q value, are shown below:
Results:
I've been teaching myself to critically listen using soundgym and audiocheck and I believe that the peak at 3500Hz in the high midrange presence region may cause a bit of listening fatigue over time, so that attenuation in particular appears (at least psychosomatically) to allow me to listen longer and at higher average volume without fatigue. The attenuation at 850Hz is very difficult to hear and I'm not confident that I could pick it out in a blind ABX test with someone else switching the EQ on and off. To be honest the same can probably be said for the 3500Hz band but the mind is a funny thing and when sighted I feel I can hear the difference quite clearly as there's a slightly sharpness I feel in my ear drums over time that is attenuated with the filter in place.
Recently I tried adding Dirac to my room with a miniDSP SHD added to my digital chain between streamer and DAC, but my initial results were underwhelming. Dirac seemed to over correct problems that, to my ears, weren't there. My imaging and holographic soundstaging, which are specific strengths of my Monitor Audio gold 300's, may have sharpened slightly, but also FLATTENED, and the immersive 3-D effect I get when siting slightly nearfield, along with the WOW factor of "seeing" the performance in three-dimensional auditory space, disappeared somewhat. I'm going to do a more precise re-measure with Dirac soon and report back, but at this stage the simple EQ filters from my Auralic produce more pleasing results in my listening room.
TLDR; Two small EQ bands produces better auditory results than Dirac to my already excellent raw frequency response in my listening room.
@amirm I'm wondering what you think of the specific bands and if I should adjust either their frequency, dB, or Q-value. I'm after a flat response (outside of the 60hz bass boost) as opposed to a sloping Harmon curve, due to personal preference. Thanks!
As you can see I've got a wonderfully flat response overall, with no extreme bass nodes at all, and only small peaks centered at 65hz, 850Hz, and 3500Hz respectively.
I quite like the 65Hz modal peak (which is a room dependant anti-node across the 5.6m width of my room, regardless of speaker positioning), as it adds slam and meat the bones and to my ears still sounds fast without too much bloom (although the waterfall does show a bit).
This leaves only the other two minor peaks at 850Hz and 3500Hz. To attenuate these I used the parametric EQ inside my Auralic Aries G1 streamer. The details of each band, including center frequency, dB attenuation, and Q value, are shown below:
Results:
I've been teaching myself to critically listen using soundgym and audiocheck and I believe that the peak at 3500Hz in the high midrange presence region may cause a bit of listening fatigue over time, so that attenuation in particular appears (at least psychosomatically) to allow me to listen longer and at higher average volume without fatigue. The attenuation at 850Hz is very difficult to hear and I'm not confident that I could pick it out in a blind ABX test with someone else switching the EQ on and off. To be honest the same can probably be said for the 3500Hz band but the mind is a funny thing and when sighted I feel I can hear the difference quite clearly as there's a slightly sharpness I feel in my ear drums over time that is attenuated with the filter in place.
Recently I tried adding Dirac to my room with a miniDSP SHD added to my digital chain between streamer and DAC, but my initial results were underwhelming. Dirac seemed to over correct problems that, to my ears, weren't there. My imaging and holographic soundstaging, which are specific strengths of my Monitor Audio gold 300's, may have sharpened slightly, but also FLATTENED, and the immersive 3-D effect I get when siting slightly nearfield, along with the WOW factor of "seeing" the performance in three-dimensional auditory space, disappeared somewhat. I'm going to do a more precise re-measure with Dirac soon and report back, but at this stage the simple EQ filters from my Auralic produce more pleasing results in my listening room.
TLDR; Two small EQ bands produces better auditory results than Dirac to my already excellent raw frequency response in my listening room.
@amirm I'm wondering what you think of the specific bands and if I should adjust either their frequency, dB, or Q-value. I'm after a flat response (outside of the 60hz bass boost) as opposed to a sloping Harmon curve, due to personal preference. Thanks!
