How to correct seat-seat variation?

[Bimbleton]

Hello,

I’ve got a Revel C208 crossed over at 60Hz. Center is about ~6inches away from the wall, with some 2” foam panels covering the wall behind the center.

Seating is a three seat couch. Audyssey is limited to only correcting until 80Hz on the center — the reason is, any further correction leads to a very “chesty” sound at MLP.

I’ve noticed that at MLP, there’s a boost around 100Hz, and ultimately things are relatively balanced. However, the Left and Right seats have a significant -6db dip in 100-140Hz, resulting in some lack of authority in male voices.

I think this is a room acoustics problem. How can I regain the 100-140Hz in my left/right seats without making MLP sound too “chesty”?

Thanks. Below is a psychoacoustic smoothed REW response. Red is MLP

 

[abdo123]

Can you upload the .mdat files here? (Please zip them first)

In general there is nothing you can do about seat to seat variation. Well except maybe treating significant portions of the wall(s), what people usually do is build fake walls in home cinemas.

People compromise sometimes with VERY steep crossovers to subwoofers and distribute subs across the room. That can work, but any crossover above 100Hz is a huge compromise.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Only for lower frequencies (below ca 250hz) by adding more subs and properly aligning them. Higher frequencies- see abdo123 post above.

 

[Bimbleton]

Alright this may be the best that I can do. Did some more tinkering and got a slightly more even response across 3 seats (Psychoacoustic smoothing) while avoiding chestiness. Dynamic EQ 5 and Dynamic Volume Light are both engaged in these measurements, because I always have both of these engaged, and thus is a more accurate representation of how I will listen (don't hate).

I'm trying to export the mdat file as a zip, but it's still too large even with max compression (8000+kb)

 

[kiwifi]

Have you looked at Multi-Sub Optimizer (MSO)? It can calculate PEQ and delays for an even response across multiple seats.

 

[Bimbleton]

Have you looked at Multi-Sub Optimizer (MSO)? It can calculate PEQ and delays for an even response across multiple seats.

Unfortunately I don’t have a MiniDSP, and don’t know how to convert delays to “feet” as Denon calculates it.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Unfortunately I don’t have a MiniDSP, and don’t know how to convert delays to “feet” as Denon calculates it.

1ms per foot.

 

[ernestcarl]

Seating is a three seat couch. Audyssey is limited to only correcting until 80Hz on the center — the reason is, any further correction leads to a very “chesty” sound at MLP.

What does the (higher than 80Hz) auto corrected FR look like?

It would be easier to understand what’s going on if you can isolate the problem frequencies, speakers, and boundary surfaces likely involved.

My own measurements across the length of my listening couch varies much more than yours in the bass partly due to left and right corner seats being very close against adjacent sidewalls and a very short ceiling.

Equalizing a larger space often means weighing your “correction” to get the best compromise.

To me, just looking at the steady state curves does not reveal much here … more information is needed.

 

[Bimbleton]

OP here.

You know what, some of the ~100Hz issues ended up being phase alignment issues. Didn’t realize phase alignment differs seat to seat for certain frequencies.

Messing with the distances yielded the graph above. I’m happy with it!

 

[abdo123]

Alright this may be the best that I can do. Did some more tinkering and got a slightly more even response across 3 seats (Psychoacoustic smoothing) while avoiding chestiness. Dynamic EQ 5 and Dynamic Volume Light are both engaged in these measurements, because I always have both of these engaged, and thus is a more accurate representation of how I will listen (don't hate).

I'm trying to export the mdat file as a zip, but it's still too large even with max compression (8000+kb)

You can upload it somewhere on a hosting service no worries.