etc...
Early on in this thread several users have asked about how these various 'automated' DRCs compare to filters generated by REW and loaded via EAPO or similar.
Since that time I've spent quite a lot of time fiddling with room EQ, DRCs and REW so I'd like to share some of my thoughts on the subject.
First of all, a big thanks to
@thewas whose suggestions and kind proposal to generate some REW filters for me pushed me in what I feel is a simpler and more efficient direction for in-room measurements and room EQ generation: using MMM instead of averaging of multiple sweep measurements as baseline for room EQ.
I know, this is probably obvious to many here, but I intuitively thought for some reason MMM would be more complicated to do, and the results less repeatable - which both turned out not to be the case
Anyway, this was my non-EQed in-room response measured with MMM:
View attachment 124824
This is repeated measurement with one of the filters generated by
@thewas applied:
View attachment 124825
Looks much nicer and sounds great!
Here's one for my nearfield setup (also compared to no EQ):
View attachment 124826
Same setup with Dirac Live correction:
View attachment 124827
We can see a lot of similarity visually, and truth-be-told both sounded great to my ears.
This motivated me to experiment with other room target curves (though I limited EQ correction to the bass range only), using cut-only filters and to also compare individual corrections for each speaker vs correcting a summed (L+R) response with a single filter. Here's an example of this:
View attachment 124834
In practice I found both approaches sounded pretty good - though it is interesting to see how EQing individual channels can manipulate phase enough to generate cancellation dips when both speakers are playing at the same time. This may be where phase-aligning the individual speaker response (or using linear phase filters) could help!
Recently we've also added a single sub (SVS SB-1000) to the Revels, and again I used REW to generate room correction EQ.
Here's an example of correction with the target set to the -0,8dB per octave downward slope (total of -8 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz):
View attachment 124839
Using REW to integrate the sub in the first place simplified the process tremendously
Conclusion
Here's what I take away from all my experiments with room correction to date:
- It is a pretty complicated topic with a lot of different approaches and schools of thought - I'm sure it may be intimidating to many trying it for the first time. This is where I feel automated DRC solutions come in really handy, especially those that are relatively simple to setup and use.
- Looking at just the audible results, I still feel one can get really good ones with most DRC solutions I tested if applied correctly. REW + EAPO is no exception, and REW generated filters are actually what I ended up using - though I'm applying them in my modified Fire TV stick with V4A rather than in EAPO.
- I love the flexibility of using REW, and if setup properly I don't really hear nor see any downsides to it vs any alternatives I tried. Phase/time correction that some others employ wasn't really audible to me in my system. However, I do feel phase corrections may help with cancellations that can happen when channels are not phase aligned; or to help with subwoofer integration - but haven't really verified this yet in practice.
- What I found worked best for me with REW was:
- Use MMM to take the in room measurements of each individual speakers and both playing at the same time.
- Generate cut-only filters, and only correct below the room transition frequency
- It may take some time to find a bass target that matches the speakers, room and individual preference. I found I liked several, but settled on either the -0,8dB per octave downward slope or, now with the sub, the B&K curve
- With the above approach I found it was equally quick and easy to get great sounding results in both my nearfield and main system
Anyway, although I'm sure all this is old news to many, I hope some may find it interesting