Comparison of DRCs: Dirac Live for Studio, IK Multimedia ARC System 3 and Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio edition

[Snarfie]

Ah, the old illuminated drum trick. Looks good. Perhaps a Les Paul hanging up there too.

No a fake Fender Jazz Bass which sound actual quite good will be at a wall an can easily be detached if i have the urge to play.
Further more a man need a descent (drum) side table for his double espresso at arm length an height. Even my ancient Vinyl record from Joe Jackson - look Sharp has a purpose now.
A few weeks ago i stumbled on a perfect working Tascam DA-30 DAT recorder for 25,- euro i couldn't resist to leave it. Man that is digital stuff which is completely obsolete by now an is used as decoration in/on my bookcase. Maybe suitable to put an DAT tape in bringing back the Pulp Fiction vibe "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon"

Also a 32 channel analog mixing-desk is needed as a Diffusion panel. Will be attached at the wall behind my head.

So Audio Mancave in progress an must be a place for fun. Mabey a idea for a new Topic.?

 

[radio3]

I wish I could find a clear explanation from somewhere or someone on what Dirac does exactly that is different from other room corrections. I guess it has something to do with “impulse response”? My concept of impulse response is just what you get before any reflections. That term itself doesn’t tell me what Dirac does exactly.

If anyone would be willing to help me understand, I would be very appreciative. Then there is also the question of whether or not theoretical differences are actually perceivable in real life. Somehow room correction remains somewhat cloaked in mystery for me. How well do they really work beyond just correcting room nodes etc? Somehow, I am not very clear on that, even as much as I do believe the PEQ and time alignment benefits alone make them a must-have.

 

[Robbo99999]

Why is there a drum levitating in your room?

Hehe, I've been watching too many late night paranormal rubbish! (But I have seen ghosts I tell you, but not for quite a few years!)

 

[dominikz]

Several members suggested to have a look at other DRC SW like Audiolense, Acourate and MathAudio, as well as comparisons with manual EQ via REW, e.g.:
{....huge original post cut-out for brevity...}

Here's part two of my look at MathAudio Room EQ - living-room edition

To set the stage - the tests were done with our living room stereo system, based around two Revel M16 bookshelfs with the main listening position (MLP) at around ~2,3m / 7,5" from either speaker (mid-field or far-field?). So a pretty different environment vs my nearfield desk setup, with more influence of the reflected sound at the listening position.

I'll start by saying that this was a bit of a sobering experience for me with regard to MathAudio Room EQ - I was (and am) quite pleased with results I was able to get quite quickly in my nearfield setup, but the living room setup proved to be more challenging to get right with MathAudio. Here's how it went.

Measurements and configuration
In our living room MLP is middle seat of our couch, but I also wanted to see if EQ could work on a wider area (hopefully the whole couch). So I again did two measurement types:
a) single-point measurement for the MLP only:

b) a multi-point measurement that favours the MLP, but goes a bit wider than that:

The resulting curves look roughly in line to what I was getting with REW and other DRCs. Obviously the multi-point measurement has some averaging so looks smoother.

Single-point measurement results
Let me show this first, as I spent much less time on it in the end.
After the single measurement was done at MLP, I proceeded to load the curve I usually liked with this system (Harman curve with +6 dB bass boost and the HF downward slope that roughly follows the speaker's measured in-room response). Then I pulled the target as far down as I felt comfortable to see if I can get away with an approach I used previously with JBL LSR305s in nearfield:

Then I proceeded to do some in-room measurements - results at MLP looked impressive at first:

But then it fell apart when I did a 5 measurement average around the MLP - this resulted with peaks at ~200Hz, ~380Hz and ~600Hz:

At this point I abandoned the single-point measurement approach with MathAudio Room EQ.

Multi-point measurement results
Hoping room correction with MathAudio Room EQ would be as simple a task as it was in the nearfield, I tested the multi-point measurement and loaded the same curve as before (Harman curve with +6 dB bass boost and the HF downward slope that roughly follows the speaker's measured in-room response):

(Note: Here I also realized that, except loading saved projects, you can also just load any pre-configured target curves using the load preset button. Quite handy!)
Then I pulled the target way down again:

The null on the left speaker is much deeper than on the right, but I decided not to go any deeper with the target than this, as it covers most of the response anyway.
Next I did some listening and initially thought it was sounding good. Soon however I noticed some harshness and, surprisingly, also some feeling of loss of bass. I did several A/B comparison and definitely decided it is doing too much like this. The result reminded me a lot of what I was hearing with Reference 4 in my initial comparison of Dirac, ARC3 and Reference 4 - which I didn't like all that much.

Still, I did some in-room measurements with REW:

Before/after picture looks nice, but unfortunately didn't sound right to me

This is what the corresponding filters looked like in loopback vs Dirac Live with a similar curve:

There is some similarity but the overlap doesn't look as close as it was with e.g. Dirac and ARC3. Note that Dirac and ARC3 were quite close even though different measurement points are used for each (see post #1 of this thread).

Next I tried to keep the same level of correction, but to see if I can get better results if the target follows the rough shape of the original speaker's in-room response. As I noticed before, following the speaker's natural curve that seemed to give better results when using full-range correction. So I drew up this:

This time around it sounded a bit better to me - but when A/B-in vs bypass on some tracks I still heard a bit of that harshness and somehow still some loss of bass.
Did a REW measurement for a single position and it looked more or less as expected:

LF response is smoothened nicely as before, but the HF response looks now more similar to the original.

At this point I was close to calling it a day and to decide MathAudio may not be a very good choice for me in this setup. The thought passed and I tried several more target curve variations anyway (including switching between 'normal' and 'high' resolution filters), and came up with two IMHO relatively benign corrections:
a) This one only took down the main problem area resonances a bit (like correction range limiting):

This one reduced some of the occasional muddiness, but didn't impact the loudspeaker's natural sound signature.

b) This next one is based on the Harman curve again, but with more HF slope (20kHz at -9 dB) and with less overall correction than I tried initially:

The above curve I felt solved a lot of the resonances without changing the original sound signature too much and I was happy to proceed and do some casual music enjoyment with it.

For these last two targets unfortunately I didn't do any REW measurements of resulting in room response

Conclusion
After these new tests my initial excitement about MathAudio Room EQ subsided a bit. I found it harder to get good results with it on our main system than with either Dirac Live or ARC3. However I did like MathAudio Room EQ better than I did Reference 4.

My main problem with MathAudio Room EQ is probably the fact that correction range limiting is not built into the application natively. You can somewhat work around that by drawing various partial curves manually, but depending on what you're trying to achieve it may or may not work very well. There's not a whole lot of configuration and fine-tuning flexibility in MathAudio Room EQ - which can be both a blessing and a curse

Note that MathAudio Room EQ doesn't use boost filters, so if you want to fill some dips you will need to set the target low so the SW will take down the surrounding response a lot. Depending on how much you go down, you might end up sending much more LF signal than usual to the speaker which I suppose in extreme cases could make it possible to accidentally hit speaker's excursion limits and maybe even cause damage. So I'd definitely suggest some caution.

On the other hand, as said previously, I feel MathAudio Room EQ worked very well on my desktop setup - maybe the reason for that is one (or all) of the following:

• I have a much worse situation acoustically at my desktop setup than I have in the living-room. With more problems there's more value in room correction so any trade-offs become more acceptable
• Nearfield listening gives more emphasis to on-axis sound, which has less downward slope so maybe that was easier for me to nail with correction filters
• My nearfield speakers are in general not as nice sounding as my main pair

In summary I'd still recommend trying MathAudio Room EQ out. If you use foobar2000 you're in luck since the full-featured plugin is free to use. So it's a great deal and a cost effective way to play with room EQ.

My personal DRC SW ranking is currently as follows (from best to least good ):

1. Dirac Live 3 for Studio - I found it easy to use and got quick, great sounding results in both nearfield and living room setups with minimum fiddling. Best target curve configuration flexibility of the bunch.
2. IK Multimedia ARC System 3 - Was able to get great sounds in both setups as well, but it was a bit more tedious to get it right than with Dirac. Less target curve flexibility
3. MathAudio Room EQ - Loved the simplicity and quick, good sounding results in my nearfield setup. In the living-room I felt some limitations and had to work harder to get results I felt comfortable with. In my opinion it lacks a dedicated correction range control feature. However it also offers a free, fully functional foobar2000 plugin version - so value really is pretty good. I'm sure many people are happy with this and have no real need for anything more.
4. Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio Edition - Nice UI and features, perfectly OK sounding in my nearfield setup with some tweaking. Couldn't get it sound right in the living-room though, and I thought target curve configuration is oversimplified.

 

[dominikz]

I wish I could find a clear explanation from somewhere or someone on what Dirac does exactly that is different from other room corrections. I guess it has something to do with “impulse response”? My concept of impulse response is just what you get before any reflections. That term itself doesn’t tell me what Dirac does exactly.

If anyone would be willing to help me understand, I would be very appreciative. Then there is also the question of whether or not theoretical differences are actually perceivable in real life. Somehow room correction remains somewhat cloaked in mystery for me. How well do they really work beyond just correcting room nodes etc? Somehow, I am not very clear on that, even as much as I do believe the PEQ and time alignment benefits alone make them a must-have.

Based on my tests, this is what I feel are the main differences:

1. I found Dirac Live pretty easy to use and IMHO it has best target curve editing capabilities of the ones I tested. For me it was usually easiest to get good results quick with Dirac.
2. Looking at the basic EQ filters themselves, Dirac and ARC3 seemed to generate surprisingly similar ones. MathAudio Room EQ seems to be close as well. Reference 4 was noticeably different.
3. Dirac Live 3 was the only one that did phase response correction / time-domain correction. In very simplified terms, we can say it tries to make all frequencies generated by the speaker arrive at the same time to the main listening position. However audibility of this seems questionable. You can see some more information on this several posts earlier in this thread, if you're interested.

To be honest, IMHO you can probably get quite close to the same target sound with most of these tools, and probably even with just some PEQ, if you give it enough time and effort. Dirac simplifies this process, which is what I feel is its main strength.

 

[Olli]

Several members suggested to have a look at other DRC SW like Audiolense, Acourate and MathAudio, as well as comparisons with manual EQ via REW, e.g.:




So I ventured to have a look at all of them, with limited success sadly :

• Audiolense - Went for this one first but didn't get very far Chrome flags the JuiceHiFi website as hosting potentially malicious SW, and even if I go around that, it blocks the Audiolense SW download as potentially malicious. Being my usually cautious self, I decided to wait until they sort all that out before trying to actually install the SW

Can‘t remember a warning when using Firefox. There also is a 3 months money back policy if you don‘t like the results, so don’t worry.

However, you‘ll get a hardware bound license by email when buying AL. This may take a day or so.

I can only again encourage you to check it out. It was by far my best audio investment yet.

 

[dominikz]

Can‘t remember a warning when using Firefox. There also is a 3 months money back policy if you don‘t like the results, so don’t worry.

However, you‘ll get a hardware bound license by email when buying AL. This may take a day or so.

I can only again encourage you to check it out. It was by far my best audio investment yet.

Thanks - will definitely give it a try at some point!

 

[mitchco]

Thanks - will definitely give it a try at some point!

@Olli knows Nice comparison @dominikz, but you are leaving out the state of the art. You won't be able to achieve results like this or this with the current products. There is a considerable technical gap between the products tested and the state of the art in DRC. While it may take more effort learning the variables/complexities of these custom FIR filter designers, the audible (and measurable) results speak for themselves. I hope you get to try them out.

Good luck!

 

[dominikz]

Based on suggestions from @Olli and @mitchco I did a quick test of Audiolense XO trial in my nearfield setup just now. Hopefully Chrome security warnings I was shown again are just false-positives

Anyway, IMHO the SW itself is not too difficult to use and I found my way around it quite quickly. Unfortunately I didn't find a way to import my previous REW generated IRs so I had to do another measurement
@mitchco & @Olli Do you know if there is a way to do this kind of import by any chance? Would really like to avoid exposing my family to more sweeps as I play with this

Next I did the measured response smoothing, drew a simple target curve and generated the filters based on it:

In the trial version there is no way to export filters, but you can convolute 90 sec of any wav track for testing. So I did that for a few tracks and did some A/B testing vs the same tracks exported through MathAudio REQ with a similar target.
To be honest both sounded quite good to me and I feel like I would need to do an ABX test to be sure if I can even distinguish between them. Also, probably they could be made more similar by tuning target curves more closely.

However, as I mentioned before, I found all of the DRCs I tested to work quite well in my nearfield setup - so I guess a proper test would be to try this out through my living room system. There I found it more difficult to get results I was happy with, so I feel it would probably be a better test of Audiolense capabilities.

Unfortunately I will not be able to post any measurements since the trial only allows me to process audio files.

All in all, another positive experience as far as I'm concerned

 

[sweetchaos]

Hopefully Chrome security warnings I was shown again are just false-positives

1. I'm seeing the 'virus' warning when I visited the website using Chrome, and then again when I finished downloading the installation file.
2. But when I visited using Firefox, no warnings came up and no warnings when I downloaded the file.
3. Windows 10's antivirus engine doesn't block this file. So you can install it with no problems.
3. I uploaded the installation file (64bit latest version) through 68 antivirus engines using virustotal.com. Result? Nothing malicious.
4. I uploaded the same file to hybrid-analysis.com. This took about 20 minutes to analyze the file, as a normal user would, but in an automated system inside a virtual machine. Result? 1 of 93 (specifically the Dr.Web vxCube) antivirus engines flagged this as malicious. Full report.

That's a false positive. Nothing to worry about.

 

[Rottmannash]

Several members suggested to have a look at other DRC SW like Audiolense, Acourate and MathAudio, as well as comparisons with manual EQ via REW, e.g.:

8


So I ventured to have a look at all of them, with limited success sadly :

• Audiolense - Went for this one first but didn't get very far Chrome flags the JuiceHiFi website as hosting potentially malicious SW, and even if I go around that, it blocks the Audiolense SW download as potentially malicious. Being my usually cautious self, I decided to wait until they sort all that out before trying to actually install the SW
• Acourate - This is the next one I tried. Not the most user-friendly program to use, but not too difficult either to do basic stuff. Managed to do the in-room measurement and got all the way to successfully creating the inversion vs a target curve as basis for filter generation - alas trial version doesn't let you generate the actual filters from there, so I couldn't test the end-result. This was where I called it quits
• REW + EAPO - Tested this again, and remembered why I gave up last time Anyway got some OK results fairly quickly this time, but only if I avoided EQ boosts. If I used those, listening impressions went south for me quite quickly - and I did try several approaches. Which is quite interesting since I didn't have issues with boosts applied by DRC SW automatically. My takeaway is that either my room EQ skills are still not good enough or my expectation bias is acting up Either way, I'll for sure keep fiddling with it on and off For now I feel there's nothing valuable or new I could report so decided not to do any more writeup on it.
• MathAudio Room EQ - This one I managed to test, some results follow.

MathAudio Room EQ
Tested so far only in my nearfield setup with JBL LSR305s, where I tried a few variants - single-point and multi-point measurements, foobar2000 plugin and running systemwide as a VST plugin in EAPO. First I have to say I loved the usability and simple, easy-to-understand, utilitarian UI.

Measurements and configuration
Running a single-point measurement at MLP I got a similar result as with other tools:
View attachment 101683
Multi-point measurement across 5 positions around the main listening position was similar:View attachment 101684

The tool lets you select two default targets ('Reference'):
"Bright" (flat):
View attachment 101685
"Neutral" (downward sloping):
View attachment 101686
But you can also draw your own, which is what I did:
View attachment 101687
You draw the target curve with the mouse manually in that small window, so you can't really be very precise - but the way it is done is still not too bad and you can do minor corrections to just parts of the curve easily. I tried to follow the natural slope of the speakers, and since this is nearfield, just left a dB or two of low-bass boost.

To my understanding, the SW only corrects the parts of the curve that are above the target, and you should pull it down with the slider on the right until you're happy with the results. I said 'the heck with it' and went all in for my test :
View attachment 101689
Note that this reduces the overall output by about 12-13dB. The SW allows you to set the bypass signal volume to match this, so you can compare the result with and without the correction with little difference in perceived loudness (depending on how well you tune it).

Listening impressions
First I did some listening and decided I quite enjoyed the initial results. Since MathAudio Room EQ is designed as a full-range correction plugin, it does change the overall sound signature a bit - just like the other DRCs I tried when running them full-range.
Since Dirac Live and ARC3 trials expired for me, I could only compare with Reference 4. So I did a quick compare and I must admit that both Reference 4 and MathAudio sounded comparable to me in this nearfield setup. Not necessarily the same, but both pretty good. Problems area in the bass was much improved in both cases, and the effect on the rest of the spectrum was non-destructive IMHO. The comparison was not blind, nor was the switch between the two easy to do the way I tested, so do take this with a grain of salt.
As mentioned already - you do lose a lot of volume if you run MathAudio with a lot of correction (as I did here) but that is to be expected of any such SW.
Subjectively I was quite impressed - as I expected an over-processed mess considering how much correction I went with - but instead got what I consider fairly natural and

@Olli knows Nice comparison @dominikz, but you are leaving out the state of the art. You won't be able to achieve results like this or this with the current products. There is a considerable technical gap between the products tested and the state of the art in DRC. While it may take more effort learning the variables/complexities of these custom FIR filter designers, the audible (and measurable) results speak for themselves. I hope you get to try them out.

Good luck!

So Audiolense is superior to Dirac live?

 

[Snarfie]

Is it important how to do a measurement with DSP software as ARC, Mathaudio or any other brand. For instance Sonarworks, Lyngdorf an ARC insist that you do a vertical measurement as Mathaudio insist to do a vertical measurement for best results.. Suppose you do it vertical instead of the advised horizontal placement will that have a impact on the result measurement an sound? Could it be that their algo's are dealing differently whit wall refection if you position your Mic vertical of horizontal for the best result?. I guess the manufactures will not tell us but we can hear it probably obviously. Any insights, suggestion or experience would be welcome. I did a test an there was a diffrence but probably higly subjective.

 

[Xombul]

As I am not very familiar with these softwares, I have (many) many stupid questions :

1. How do we apply the settings on a Windows-based system : do we really need to install a VST host and virtual cable ?
2. Same question for a Linux-based system (I believe it is not possible?)
3. Is it possible to generate a *.wav file which can be used in a third-part convolver ? (like BruteFir) or in EAPO?
4. Is it possible to generate a text file for the filters which can be used in EAPO (same as REW)
5. Is it possible to use the VST plugin in MusicBee? Foobar ? (I know the answer for mathaudio... )?
6. Same question with JRiver ?

 

[dominikz]

Based on suggestions from @Olli and @mitchco I did a quick test of Audiolense XO trial in my nearfield setup just now. Hopefully Chrome security warnings I was shown again are just false-positives

Anyway, IMHO the SW itself is not too difficult to use and I found my way around it quite quickly. Unfortunately I didn't find a way to import my previous REW generated IRs so I had to do another measurement
@mitchco & @Olli Do you know if there is a way to do this kind of import by any chance? Would really like to avoid exposing my family to more sweeps as I play with this

Next I did the measured response smoothing, drew a simple target curve and generated the filters based on it:
View attachment 102133

In the trial version there is no way to export filters, but you can convolute 90 sec of any wav track for testing. So I did that for a few tracks and did some A/B testing vs the same tracks exported through MathAudio REQ with a similar target.
To be honest both sounded quite good to me and I feel like I would need to do an ABX test to be sure if I can even distinguish between them. Also, probably they could be made more similar by tuning target curves more closely.

However, as I mentioned before, I found all of the DRCs I tested to work quite well in my nearfield setup - so I guess a proper test would be to try this out through my living room system. There I found it more difficult to get results I was happy with, so I feel it would probably be a better test of Audiolense capabilities.

Unfortunately I will not be able to post any measurements since the trial only allows me to process audio files.

All in all, another positive experience as far as I'm concerned

So I thought about this some more and realised I could in fact measure results post-Audiolense-correction by being just a tiny bit creative To do so I generated a 90s fullrange pink-noise stereo sample in REW as a WAV file, and processed it via the Audiolense trial filter. Then I used REW RTA function, played the processed file and measured the response using the moving microphone method (MMM) with slow spiral movements around the MLP and typically 40-60 averages (by which time the curve became quite stable). I used vertical microphone orientation with 90 degree calibration curve applied. Playback level was not very loud (which can be seen in LF noise level in measurements below) but SNR was apparently good enough as results were very much repeatable.

So this is the Audiolense single-point sweep measurement and predicted/calculated response based on the filters I used to generate the test file:

And these are the MMM measurement results with 1/12 smoothing:

We can see the response is reasonably smooth, though not as text-book perfect as predicted by the SW. However MMM is by its nature a spatial average response, while Audiolense was a single-point measurement - I assume this explains most of the difference.

Here's before-and-after-correction measurements for each speaker individually:

...and for both of them together:

In the above three graphs we can see how much work Audiolense really did to tame the terrible room response.

Next I also did the same with MathAudio Room EQ to have something to compare directly with. This is what I used to process the pink-noise file (i.e. same settings that I used before):

Here's how the response with MathAudio looks with the same 1/12 smoothing and measured with moving mic method in the same way:

And now direct comparisons between MathAudio Room EQ and Audiolense XO for each speaker (again 1/12 smoothing):

Looks like MathAudio Room EQ tracks Audiolense XO quite closely for the right channel through most of the range (even with my eye-balled target curves), with some slightly bigger differences in the left channel (e.g. MathAudio REQ seems to have flattened the peak at 80Hz but has one at 40Hz that Audiolense doesn't).
Note that MathAudio Room EQ correction is based on a multi-point measurement while Audiolense correction is just a single-point measurement at the MLP!

Looking at the original and processed pink noise files we can calculate how much RMS level reduction is applied by each DRC for the above processing examples:

1. Original (unprocessed) file => -5,9 dBFS RMS (either ch)
2. AudiolenseXO processed file => -20,2 dBFS RMS (left ch) / -22,6 dBFS RMS (right ch) => ~15,5 dB reduction in average loudness
3. MathAudio Room EQ => -17,1 dBFS RMS (left ch) / -17,4 dBFS RMS (right ch) => ~11,5 dB reduction in average loudness

Still, the real test of Audiolense for me will be in my living room setup - unfortunately I haven't yet gotten around to doing that.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

I wish I could find a clear explanation from somewhere or someone on what Dirac does exactly that is different from other room corrections. I guess it has something to do with “impulse response”? My concept of impulse response is just what you get before any reflections. That term itself doesn’t tell me what Dirac does exactly.

If anyone would be willing to help me understand, I would be very appreciative. Then there is also the question of whether or not theoretical differences are actually perceivable in real life. Somehow room correction remains somewhat cloaked in mystery for me. How well do they really work beyond just correcting room nodes etc? Somehow, I am not very clear on that, even as much as I do believe the PEQ and time alignment benefits alone make them a must-have.

It's just marketing. Dirac is not smart. It will over correct room modes and applies target curve regardless of direct and early reflection response.

 

[thewas]

First of all congrats on the nice reviews.

1. AudiolenseXO processed file => -20,2 dBFS RMS (left ch) / -22,6 dBFS RMS (right ch) => ~15,5 dB reduction in average loudness
2. MathAudio Room EQ => -17,1 dBFS RMS (left ch) / -17,4 dBFS RMS (right ch) => ~11,5 dB reduction in average loudness

Personally I wouldn't put the target curve so low though to try to fully fill any bass dip but rather maximum around 6dB which is already 4 times the power needed as otherwise you will drive loudspeakers distortions unnecessarily up and also dips are not as much audible as peaks.
By the way from amplitude response point of view you can get similar results to both also directly with REW EQ filter section, the superiority of Audiolense XO is in the phase correction though for which you would need additionally Rephase if we are talking about freeware solutions.

 

[tecnogadget]

@dominikz Impressive work! Thanks for taking the time with empirical experimentation and sharing it. Measurements are always appreciated.

 

[dominikz]

First of all congrats on the nice reviews.

Personally I wouldn't put the target curve so low though to try to fully fill any bass dip but rather maximum around 6dB which is already 4 times the power needed as otherwise you will drive loudspeakers distortions unnecessarily up and also dips are not as much audible as peaks.
By the way from amplitude response point of view you can get similar results to both also directly with REW EQ filter section, the superiority of Audiolense XO is in the phase correction though for which you would need additionally Rephase if we are talking about freeware solutions.

Thanks!
Normally I agree - what I'm showing above is quite extreme amount of correction and one could normally get away with much less.
There's a few reasons why I went with so much for these tests though:

• To be able to compare I wanted to have some kind of consistency vs other automated DRCs I tested, most of which apply high amounts of EQ boost.
• I also tried a higher setting of the target, but depending on where I put it, Audiolense seems to bring it down automatically to the point you see above. I guess it has some optimization algorythm and just wants to fill the dip at some point.
• The dip I have in the nearfield is quite serious and definitely audible if not corrected at least somewhat.

Additionally, IMHO these gross levels of correction can work OK at times, but not at others. As you see in my previous posts, my feeling ATM is that in the nearfield one can get away with much more EQ correction than would work in the far-field.

 

[thewas]

The dip I have in the nearfield is quite serious and definitely audible if not corrected at least somewhat.

Of course, but not as said I wouldn't correct it fully.
Also interesting that Audiolense brings it down so much, that is quite unusual for an automatic DRC choice.

 

[mitchco]

The reason for the attenuation is that there is a 30 dB peak to peak variation on the left speaker and 25 dB p-to-p on the right. That huge narrow peak on both speakers at around 125 Hz looks unusual to me. The dip is wider and makes sense acoustically, but curious about that big narrow peak.
@dominikz is there an explanation for that in your setup?

Also, to be consistent, I see some REW charts with var smoothing and others with 1/12 oct smoothing. Maybe choose one like 1/12 for all charts for consistency. As @thewas alluded to in an earlier post, lets have a look at the timing response like acoustic step response and phase in the low end. The excess phase correction, should show a much improved measured phase response in the low end and should sound clearer to boot.