I think you guys are talking about different 1)s. There were two in the post earlier.
-
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!
Dirac and similar
- Thread starter Willem
- Start date
I think you guys are talking about different 1)s. There were two in the post earlier.
LOL
I'm talking about this one: "1. 20Hz to Schroeder frequency (usually somewhere between 200 and 300Hz) range"
What's the other one?
The mics don't have to be good as long as their faults are calibrated to the receiver.
Ditto apps that use the ****** mic in your iPhone.
The little pucks that come with Audyssey are awful if you use them with anything else, but their awfulness is allowed for by the AVR.
I use Anthem's ARC and the mic is somewhat better than an Audyssey puck, but I tried it once with REW and the response was all over the place.
You'd get somewhat better resolution from using a proper mic like a UMIK with a MiniDSP Dirac, but I doubt it would make a massive difference.
If your room EQ is making changes (especially for higher frequencies) that require that extra resolution it is probably doing the wrong thing.
Ditto apps that use the ****** mic in your iPhone.
The little pucks that come with Audyssey are awful if you use them with anything else, but their awfulness is allowed for by the AVR.
I use Anthem's ARC and the mic is somewhat better than an Audyssey puck, but I tried it once with REW and the response was all over the place.
You'd get somewhat better resolution from using a proper mic like a UMIK with a MiniDSP Dirac, but I doubt it would make a massive difference.
If your room EQ is making changes (especially for higher frequencies) that require that extra resolution it is probably doing the wrong thing.
Last edited:
ernestcarl
Major Contributor
I've used Dirac, Arc, Sonarworks, various equalizer VSTs, miniDSP... right now, have all disabled/uninstalled except for a few mild EQ adjustments below 100Hz to cut out some peaks, as well as some delay settings -- but that's it. As amir mentioned before, enabling correction above the transition can be a mixed bag -- seems to improve sound sometimes, and sometimes it just seems to make things worse. I'd rather just spend money and time investing in more room treatments (or better yet, a larger room/house!). Besides, I already use monitors that are already adequately linear enough, I would think (mostly use the kh120). When it comes to headphone gear, though, I use EQ as much as as possible. Sonarworks for headphones is great too.
There is no guesswork when it comes to room EQ if you measure the results after the correction.
ernestcarl
Major Contributor
This is true, and I do use REW and have a couple calibration mics -- in fact, I have the umik 1 beside me right now. HOWEVER, I have found my objective corrections to not always correspond with my subjective opinion about the sound. That is why in the end, I always do manual EQ adjustments. Also, I must be going deaf in my right ear as I always find myself increasing the volume of my right monitors over the left by about a decibel and a half despite having already three measurement mics telling me that the volume is the same. To my ears, they are not the same same level.
I don’t know if the Yamaha software allows you to look at the raw (averaged and smoothed) measurement curves within its system, If it does, then use the mic attached to REW, average over multiple readings at the same positions as the Yamaha procedure and see if they roughly correspond. They don’t need to be exact but should exhibit similar characteristics in peaks and valleys and roll-offs.
I have been experimenting with the ARC mic that comes with the Paradigm PW link quite a bit over the last few days using REW and Equalizer APO for a PC based multi-channel DRC. Works just fine for my purposes. I was even able to reproduce the exact sound that ARC’s auto-correction generates through the PW for the L and R speakers by looking at the curves generated by ARC in their software. I intend to do the same for the other speakers by connecting them two at a time as L and R for ARC through PW link and copying the target curves and getting the filters close to the corrected curves on ARC. Much easier and better results than starting from scratch with REW.
The Yamaha and earlier Audyssey pucks weren’t great but the latest “cone” version shipped with Audyssey xt 32 is much better. ARC mic seems better than both.
As the reply above said, a mic’s calibration file is needed for precise measurement but is not critical for the kind of correction one is likely to do as long as the variation from a calibrated mic is within the variance of measurements taken multiple times over multiple position and then averaged. This variance is quite large in higher frequencies. The average measurement curves generated using the ARC mic in REW in my case were close enough to the curves displayed by ARC Genesis. There was considerable disagreement below 30hz and above 16khz but you are unlikely to do anything in those parts anyway.
If you can borrow a calibrated mic with its calibration files for use with REW, you can calibrate any mic you have by comparing the deltas from measurements at same position from both. REW will even calculate the deltas for two curves. You can then add/subtract those deltas from the calibration files for the reference mic and get calibration files for your mic. This is good enough but even this may not be necessary depending on how well the mic without calibration tracks the measurement without calibration.
Hipper
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Could be deafness or an imbalance of the left and right side of the room.
To test your ears get some test tones and use headphones. Whilst I don't have a balance problem with my ears, one ear can't hear 7kHz at all and both ears can't hear above 10kHz and are weak between 6-8kHz. I'm 66 years old though.
If you correct anything at higher frequencies than about 80 Hz, the sound will be worse. Room correction done right always corrects the room resonances, that is, the reflections between two walls. There are only three main resonance reflections in a normal rektangular room that you can correct. All of them is beyond 80 Hz.
ernestcarl
Major Contributor
Already done that. With headphones and speakers I can tell there is an imbalance with my hearing at different frequency ranges. I've tabulated it in a notepad a while back but have lost track of where I put it. At least I can still here around 16kHz though. My young brother only hears right up to between 13 and 14 kHz.
ernestcarl
Major Contributor
I'm not sure I agree with that 80 Hz cut off.
The sympathetic surface resonances I speak of concerns mostly the front and side walls. Room correction will not correct that. Frankly I'd have to physically tear down my walls and rebuild the room to get rid of it. No amount of software DSP is going to fix that.
I use mathaudio Room EQ too with amazing results all of my old music comes alive more blanced/itimate.. Most important you don't need a bachelor to setup the measurments.
That is simply not true. Room affects FR heavilly up to the Schroeder frequency (typically 250-300Hz), and moderately in the range up to 500-600Hz. Room affects frequencies above that as well but not in a resonant fashion.
You can make adequate corrections in the entire range assuming your measurements are accurate (and spatial) enough.
Last edited:
Have a try with mathaudio it is free as add-inn with Foobar2000. I'm curious with your findings.You all have me intrigued now. So I'm purchasing a calibrated measurement microphone next week...
Last edited:
Its very important to understand what a room correction does. Its not correcting the loudspeakers- Its correcting the room !
The resonances between two surfaces. The floor- ceiling, walls .
If youre correcting frequencies say around 120 Hz, youre correcting wall-reflections that bounces coming FROM the loudspeakers. That means that you will only hear a corrected sound exactly att the listening position! 20 cm away from the listening position the frequencies that needs to be corrected are at another frequensy. This can easily be shown with a microphone.
Most room correction softwares is wrongly constructed. The only correction system that is functioning correctly is Linns space-system. Its a system where you simply measure your room dimensions old fashion way. And no- I dont own a Linn system. Theres much confusion about this . All home cinema solutions are wrongly constructed, the Dirak as well, Im sorry to say.
Last edited:
Similar threads
