Audyssey Room EQ Review

[audioBliss]

Well, in my case the soundstage I'm hearing with good stereo recordings is of a full height and width of app 120 deg. I'm nost really sure how could it even be possible that sound is coming 90 deg aside from me or even behind me? There is no wall behind me but 5 meters of open space and then windows with thick drapery that don't reflect much backwards.

Well behind you isn't really possible(I might have exaggerated there if my description came off like that) but right above you, 90 degree to the side of you and right beside your head etc. is possible but you need a very good room. I've been in rooms that are way better than mine and it's truly breathtaking what is possible. But with all that said the majority of recordings are just too poor.

You can come very far by making your room as symmetrical as possible and be really precise when placing and toeing in your speakers(use laser or similar) and take care of first reflections. But even when doing this the room will be the ultimate limitation - most rooms it's just not possible regardless how good your speakers and placement is. This is getting off topic but the gist of it is that spending days to fine tune speaker and listening position is worth it! Just a few cm will make a difference!

Try the album Roger Waters - Amused to Death

Edit: Not until all that stuff is taken care of(first reflection points, days of fine tuning placement of speakers AND listening position) I would even think about room correction. Room correction is the icing on the cake but it can make a massive difference in the bass region, which in combination with the other stuff taken care of can result in a big difference.

 

[QMuse]

Well behind you isn't really possible(I might have exaggerated there if my description came off like that) but right above you, 90 degree to the side of you and right beside your head etc. is possible but you need a very good room. I've been in rooms that are way better than mine and it's truly breathtaking what is possible. But with all that said the majority of recordings are just too poor.

You can come very far by making your room as symmetrical as possible and be really precise when placing and toeing in your speakers(use laser or similar) and take care of first reflections. But even when doing this the room will be the ultimate limitation - most rooms it's just not possible regardless how good your speakers and placement is. This is getting off topic but the gist of it is that spending days to fine tune speaker and listening position is worth it! Just a few cm will make a difference!

Try the album Roger Waters - Amused to Death

Edit: Not until all that stuff is taken care of(first reflection points, days of fine tuning placement of speakers AND listening position) I would even think about room correction. Room correction is the icing on the cake but it can make a massive difference in the bass region, which in combination with the other stuff taken care of can result in a big difference.

Well, I'm not willing to turn my living room apart just to slightly improve the sound. And I certainly think that, considering "average" living room acoustic properties, proper room correction means far more than any room treatment.

I have remastered version from 2015, and have just listened "What God wants, part I" and indeed there is an impression that the sound is almost on top of my head and almost 90 deg sideways. That is really a superb recording!

 

[peng]

I have a far fetched wish, that it was intelligent enough to auto-adjust the Reference Offset, as music/movies/tv are listened to at different volume levels on my AVR (some music I can be at -30dB and it’s still sufficiently loud). This could be done by analyzing the RMS vs peak levels. I mean, the AVRs have Dynamic Volume, which sorta analyzes the same thing and applies DRC, so it’s not impossible.

My understanding is that DEQ in fact varies with level, while the offset is just that, an offset set to match the recording mix. So I think it was already "intelligent", at least claimed to be..

 

[mansr]

Well behind you isn't really possible(I might have exaggerated there if my description came off like that) but right above you, 90 degree to the side of you and right beside your head etc. is possible but you need a very good room. I've been in rooms that are way better than mine and it's truly breathtaking what is possible. But with all that said the majority of recordings are just too poor.

You can come very far by making your room as symmetrical as possible and be really precise when placing and toeing in your speakers(use laser or similar) and take care of first reflections. But even when doing this the room will be the ultimate limitation - most rooms it's just not possible regardless how good your speakers and placement is. This is getting off topic but the gist of it is that spending days to fine tune speaker and listening position is worth it! Just a few cm will make a difference!

Try the album Roger Waters - Amused to Death

Edit: Not until all that stuff is taken care of(first reflection points, days of fine tuning placement of speakers AND listening position) I would even think about room correction. Room correction is the icing on the cake but it can make a massive difference in the bass region, which in combination with the other stuff taken care of can result in a big difference.

DSP correction is always useful regardless of what else is done to the room. Although there are things it can't fix, those things don't prevent it improving other aspects.

 

[Lbstyling]

I'm using rePhase to mannualy create my filters and while it doesn't impose any limits pushing dips more than 6-8dB is simply counterprorductive and may lead to undesired effects. That is the reason why automated EQ solutions like Acourate, Dirac etc never do it.

It depends what caused the dip, but I take your point. If the null is in the sub frequencies, add a sub.
AVRs bring peaks down by more than this, so the dynamic range is still reduced making no difference to my point. We don't have any headroom on SINAD in the typical AVR for EQ to 'use up'. This renders distortion audiable in the typical room especially when we are talking about IMD with the complexities that happen here and the added complexities with 7th order or higher distortions. Using EQ in AVRs would in a practical sense reduce SINAD by 20db. And from a start point of 60 or 70db for a typical AVR, this is not good.

We need higher standards for AVR distortion products, not lower.

 

[QMuse]

AVRs bring peaks down by more than this, so the dynamic range is still reduced making no difference to my point. We don't have any headroom on SINAD in the typical AVR for EQ to 'use up'.

Pushing dips causes some headroom to be lost, pushing peaks down doesn't as these are resonances.

When dips are pushed up loosing headroom you loose ability to play loud and some distorion is introduced by loudspeaker as it is asked to play ouder to get the same SPL as before, but it doesn't really cause much stress to your AVR. Sure, it is also asked to push some frequenices harder where dips have been pushed up but this will not cause SINAD related problems as most amps have lower THD and lower SNR at higher power levels. Before clipping occurs, of course, but then - most AVRs have enough power to handle that demand.

In other words, SINAD of your AVR is typically not something you should ne concerned with when doing EQ.

 

[spacebar]

There’s a new kid in town. Room correction from Buchardt. Scroll down to Buchardt room correction for more information.
https://www.buchardtaudio.com/a500-detailed-description

 

[Mawclaw]

I have a question about the high frequency dip. It is also present in my measurements with a U-MIC and REW. Calibration does very little to change it using the minidsp calibration file. I use an old boom mic to make measurements. Why does this happen? I know it is not a big deal but it irritates my graph sensibilities.

Calibration-

No calibration-

 

[audioBliss]

DSP correction is always useful regardless of what else is done to the room. Although there are things it can't fix, those things don't prevent it improving other aspects.

Yes of course but placement of speakers and listening position can always be tuned regardless of restrictions in that particular room. I get it, most people use their living room but even then stuff can be done. What I'm saying is that don't force the room correction to have to try and fix everything. The more it has to fix the worse it will be able to correct. If one speaker is 10cm off or whatever or not toed in exactly like the other one good luck with imaging. You can get the speakers to image ok even in a living room but in a really good room this effect is increased many times over.

 

[QMuse]

I have a question about the high frequency dip. It is also present in my measurements with a U-MIC and REW. Calibration does very little to change it using the minidsp calibration file. I use an old boom mic to make measurements. Why does this happen? I know it is not a big deal but it irritates my graph sensibilities.

Calibration-
View attachment 59885
No calibration-
View attachment 59886

You probably measured response of both speakers with sine sweep. Use moving microphone method in RTA mode with pink noise, as described in this video.

 

[Mawclaw]

You probably measured response of both speakers with sine sweep. Use moving microphone method in RTA mode with pink noise, as described in this video.

I will try it later when my house is awake and ready to hear test tones all day. Why does this happen when measuring the summed output of a pair?

 

[audioBliss]

Well, I'm not willing to turn my living room apart just to slightly improve the sound. And I certainly think that, considering "average" living room acoustic properties, proper room correction means far more than any room treatment.

I have remastered version from 2015, and have just listened "What God wants, part I" and indeed there is an impression that the sound is almost on top of my head and almost 90 deg sideways. That is really a superb recording!

And that is ok that you are not willing but I'm just saying that this is what it takes and the difference can be extremely large. But all of us have some sort of limitation of the room so you just have to do what can be done for your situation. I'm just saying if you have the possibility it is worth it to take it as far as is possible in your room.

Proper room correction means a lot but there are certain things it cannot correct like early reflections. But these are very easy to fix compared to bass problems. Relatively thin treatments are needed, maybe only 10cm thick. Bass problems are a lot more of a mess to fix with room treatments but the good thing is that room correction like Dirac Live is very good at this. I use Dirac Live for the bass region and it is good. Not as good as the best passive treated rooms I have heard but it's good. Not having to rebuild your room to fix the bass is a massive deal even if you have a dedicated room. It get's better with passive treatments imo but Dirac Live gets you far.

 

[MZKM]

My understanding is that DEQ in fact varies with level, while the offset is just that, an offset set to match the recording mix. So I think it was already "intelligent", at least claimed to be..

Well, yes, it has to vary with level, or else it wouldn‘t be a worthwhile feature.

I’m talking about having it auto adjust the Reference Offset by analyzing the RMS and peak levels (Dolby/DTS audio in movies and television will have this data). DRC does this sort of.

 

[mansr]

Yes of course but placement of speakers and listening position can always be tuned regardless of restrictions in that particular room. I get it, most people use their living room but even then stuff can be done. What I'm saying is that don't force the room correction to have to try and fix everything. The more it has to fix the worse it will be able to correct. If one speaker is 10cm off or whatever or not toed in exactly like the other one good luck with imaging. You can get the speakers to image ok even in a living room but in a really good room this effect is increased many times over.

DSP correction and room treatments are not substitutes for one another. Both are useful, alone or together in whatever combination is practical and affordable. None of the main correction systems will ever make things worse, so suggesting people "not bother" until they've exhausted all other options is simply poor advice. If your AVR has room correction, use it. It will help even if the speakers are not in the ideal position or if some reflection could be reduced, and even the best room money can buy will still benefit.

 

[audioBliss]

DSP correction and room treatments are not substitutes for one another. Both are useful, alone or together in whatever combination is practical and affordable. None of the main correction systems will ever make things worse, so suggesting people "not bother" until they've exhausted all other options is simply poor advice. If your AVR has room correction, use it. It will help even if the speakers are not in the ideal position or if some reflection could be reduced, and even the best room money can buy will still benefit.

Agreed. I'm not saying don't bother though I'm saying it's worth your time and effort to setup everything you can before you run the room correction.

 

[mansr]

I'm not saying don't bother

Oh, but you did:

Not until all that stuff is taken care of(first reflection points, days of fine tuning placement of speakers AND listening position) I would even think about room correction.

 

[QMuse]

I will try it later when my house is awake and ready to hear test tones all day. Why does this happen when measuring the summed output of a pair?

Your microphone is not ideally in the middle between the speakers so at HF, when wavelength becomes small, it starts to matter and cancellation occurs.

 

[audioBliss]

Ok, whatever I mean everyone can do whatever they want. Just trying to help out.

 

[Mawclaw]

Your microphone is not ideally in the middle between the speakers so at HF, when wavelength becomes small, it starts to matter and cancellation occurs.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

 

[capt.s]

Not who you asked...but the solution I will be using in my next setup (assuming the X3600H does not satisfy for 2ch ... if it does I will stop and call it done):
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...dsp-shd-dac-dsp-and-streamer.4286/post-365964

Thanks - I hoping for the silver bullet solution that didn't require two manual switches..... I haven't found it yet.