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Foobar2000, MathAudio, and the Infinity R162

Erici

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I thought it might be of interest to post some measurements from my sound journey after purchasing the Infinity R162s (super deal at $159 for the pair by the way). I had been using Monitor Audio RS 6 speakers driven by an old Denon AVR-2809. The sound was great, but because of the room layout, the RS6s were both playing directly at my right ear. Not the best setup of course, but my best option with the room for floorstanders. I bought the R162s after reading Amir's excellent review. They sit on top of bookshelves and I sit directly between and below them, so the layout is much better for imaging.

Here is how my first REW measurement (using the Moving Mike Method) looked at the seating position.

R162 No Math Audio.jpg


Not too bad for no correction.

I loaded Foobar and MathAudio Room EQ and then ran the measurement process in MathAudio. Here is a Screenshot of the MathAudio application.

MathAudio Screenshot1.JPG


The measurement process is limited to static locations, but you can average as many measurement as you want. In my case I used 12 readings for each speaker.

So here is the end result after MathAudio correction measured in REW.

R162 MathAudio.jpg


Here is the overlay in REW. Green is before and Red is after correction.

R162 REW Measurement.jpg


The bass peaks were reduced and the brightness that Amir noted in his review was also tamed.

The process was fairly easy and the sound is much better now. Not bad for free applications and a first pass at room correction!
 

Guermantes

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What microphone did you use? I suppose it came with a calibration file, since one seems to be loaded in Room EQ.
 
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Erici

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I bought the USB UMIK-1 from miniDsp.

$75 and REW recognizes it and loads the calibration file.
 

Ron Texas

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Very nice, quick, dirty and effective.
 
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Erici

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Very nice, quick, dirty and effective.
Yes. Very fast and no messing around with filter files etc. I imagine Dirac or ARC does a better job, but this is free and a good start.

One cool feature is the ability to change the overall effect by using a slider to increase or decrease the correction! And then to bypass or listen the the correction easily.
 

LightninBoy

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Awesome. Thanks for sharing this! How did you take the "after" measurement in REW given the plugin was loaded into foobar? Did you play a white noise file in foobar?
 
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Erici

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I downloaded a pink noise file from this site: https://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_index.php
Then you need to open the RTA page in REW. Open the controls window and select RTA 1/48.
Play the pink noise file in Foobar.
Hit the record button in RTA. I use the moving mike method and wait for about 60 seconds.
Click the record button again and then the current button to save the reading in REW.
It's easy once you've done it a few times.
 
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Erici

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Forgot to note a couple of things about MathAudio Room EQ:

You can load a mic calibration file but it needs to be renamed Calibration.txt and put in the right directory.
It's free for use with Foobar but otherwise it costs $100 and works as a VST.
You can load a Harmon house curve, or any target curve you want.
It only decreases FR and no boost is used.
 

vavan

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it would be interesting to see the difference if you also generated correction filters in rew
 

LightninBoy

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it would be interesting to see the difference if you also generated correction filters in rew

I can add a little to the general differences between these two tools/approaches.

MathAudio takes a strict "reduce only" approach. You can get REW to generate the equivalent effective filters by setting the target response low enough. However, in my particular situation, I have a FR dip centered around 1500k that MathAudio didn't fix. This is very audible. REW fixed it by adding a slight boost there.

So, in my experience, MathAudio was super easy to use and convenient. I love that I can move the target response and hear the changes in real time. However, in my situation, I needed the extra flexibility of REW+Parametric EQ to fix all the ills in my system.
 

Snarfie

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Thanx for the overview. I'm also a Mathaudio user quite happy with it. As you noted it is so easy to implement up & running in minutes. Will have a try with REW too. By the way you are using the Normal resolution i'm using the High resolution resolution find it more detaild in mid & high frequencies.
 
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Erici

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it would be interesting to see the difference if you also generated correction filters in rew
Hi Vavan,
I've tried using REW and generating filters for each speaker. And then using EQ APO/Peace to apply the changes. So far I like the sound of the MathAudio filters better. I think there is more potential improvement using REW, but I need to become better educated in using REW to get the full improvement. I'll post a comparison of REW and MathAudio if I can improve my results.
 
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Erici

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Thanx for the overview. I'm also a Mathaudio user quite happy with it. As you noted it is so easy to implement up & running in minutes. Will have a try with REW too. By the way you are using the Normal resolution i'm using the High resolution resolution find it more detaild in mid & high frequencies.
Thanks Snarfie. I'll give the high resolution option a try.
 

Snarfie

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Thanks Snarfie. I'll give the high resolution option a try.
My findings are that when I make a 5x5 so 25 measurments over 1 meter 25cm each more detaild informatie is reveald. Measured in high resolution mode.
 
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Erici

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My findings are that when I make a 5x5 so 25 measurments over 1 meter 25cm each more detaild informatie is reveald. Measured in high resolution mode.
Thanks Snarfie. I used 12 readings for each speaker so I'll go at it again with 20+ measurements and see if it improves the FR for my room.
 
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Snarfie

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Thanks Snarfie. I used used 12 readings for each speaker so I'll go at it again with 20+ measurements and see if it improves the FR for my room.
I guess it depends how good or bad your current acoustics is if you hear differences. If you look at mine measurment it is sometimes almost 15db off so DSP is quite welcome in mine case. But if you have already a quite linear response/acoustics DSP has to do less so differences less noticeble.
qdNsv5F.png
 
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tades

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I thought it might be of interest to post some measurements from my sound journey after purchasing the Infinity R162s (super deal at $159 for the pair by the way). I had been using Monitor Audio RS 6 speakers driven by an old Denon AVR-2809. The sound was great, but because of the room layout, the RS6s were both playing directly at my right ear. Not the best setup of course, but my best option with the room for floorstanders. I bought the R162s after reading Amir's excellent review. They sit on top of bookshelves and I sit directly between and below them, so the layout is much better for imaging.

Here is how my first REW measurement (using the Moving Mike Method) looked at the seating position.

View attachment 72343

Not too bad for no correction.

I loaded Foobar and MathAudio Room EQ and then ran the measurement process in MathAudio. Here is a Screenshot of the MathAudio application.

View attachment 72344

The measurement process is limited to static locations, but you can average as many measurement as you want. In my case I used 12 readings for each speaker.

So here is the end result after MathAudio correction measured in REW.

View attachment 72345

Here is the overlay in REW. Green is before and Red is after correction.

View attachment 72346

The bass peaks were reduced and the brightness that Amir noted in his review was also tamed.

The process was fairly easy and the sound is much better now. Not bad for free applications and a first pass at room correction!

Implementation of Math Audio in Fb2k with miniDSP UMK 1 is guided by this french commercial site. Hope Google trad helps you to understand operations :
https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/blog...plugin-mathaudio-room-eq-pour-foobar2000.html
 
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