Measure your C50 in REW and tell us how your bass sounds!

[Tim Link]

You are amazing! I think you are right about the bass. I probably did the sweep above 100 Hz. The room is very much damped as I use variable reverberation via 26 additional speakers. The RT60 can go higher than 4s.

So the measurements can vary depending on the reverbs like here

Well that explains it! Not the part about me being amazing, but the part about you having a heavily damped room with 26 additional speakers for artificial reverb. That's amazing.

 

[STC]

Well that explains it! Not the part about me being amazing, but the part about you having a heavily damped room with 26 additional speakers for artificial reverb. That's amazing.

Despite been using REW since around 2008, I never understood the measurements nor it correlates with what I hear in the room. I have clean bass but measurements always showing a bump. I just don’t know how to measure because all sound is accompanied by a trailing sound delayed by less than 100 μs which is inverted ( for crosstalk cancellation) so I just do not know how to measure correctly as I cannot use the standard method. The ears process the simultaneous in and out of phase differently compared to the mic, I think.

I also realized that I use external method to record and the recorded file was automatically normalized. The input was 24/96 format and the output was 24/44.1 format. I think this also would have made huge difference with the accuracy of the measurement.

 

[ozzy9832001]

Despite been using REW since around 2008, I never understood the measurements nor it correlates with what I hear in the room. I have clean bass but measurements always showing a bump. I just don’t know how to measure because all sound is accompanied by a trailing sound delayed by less than 100 μs which is inverted ( for crosstalk cancellation) so I just do not know how to measure correctly as I cannot use the standard method. The ears process the simultaneous in and out of phase differently compared to the mic, I think.

I also realized that I use external method to record and the recorded file was automatically normalized. The input was 24/96 format and the output was 24/44.1 format. I think this also would have made huge difference with the accuracy of the measurement.

A bump as in a boost in the FR?

We perceive low frequencies different than the mids. So, a bump may just be making it sound as loud as the rest of the mids. My bass is typically about 6dB higher @ 83dB. It is closer to 10dB higher when the volume is turned down. So at 70dB from 120hz and below, I perceive to be about as loud as 60dB in the mids.

 

[STC]

A bump as in a boost in the FR?

We perceive low frequencies different than the mids. So, a bump may just be making it sound as loud as the rest of the mids. My bass is typically about 6dB higher @ 83dB. It is closer to 10dB higher when the volume is turned down. So at 70dB from 120hz and below, I perceive to be about as loud as 60dB in the mids.

Using standard measurement it was pretty flat as the room is heavily damped with 1 foot thick wall made of 4 inch brick, 4 inch void and 4 inch rockwool. But I guess the Sound Lab dipole speakers and large surface area confuses the measurement. I never understood.

 

[NIN]

decay graph. Rising frequency starting from 200hz to 20hz

very short decay time. rise at higher frequency by using many diffuser. diffuabosorber types.


View attachment 312338

topt dropping as low as 50ms. V shape curve.

Nice low decay time.
I really like low decay time.

 

[Martigane]

Here is my contribution, right on topic of what @Tim Link was looking for.

3 way DIY speakers "Saisho" (introduced and compared to KH310 in here: #1,089)
4m * 5m room, acoustically treated (not perfect yet, on the dead side)
Position adjusted to minimize room modes and optimize Impulse Response.
2.2m measuring distance, at listening position.
Clarity is very high, hovering between 30dB and 35dB.
Subjectively, the bass sounds extremely good: punchier, deeper, cleaner, more textured than on my HD58x headphones.

See more data of the same measurement:

-----
Interestingly, the exact same speaker measured in my living room gives a much lower clarity:
Subjectively, the low bass sounds muddy, but this can easily be explained by the strong room mode at 42Hz (see waterfall).

Lower clarity was expected because the decay energy/time is very different:

 

[Tim Link]

Here is my contribution, right on topic of what @Tim Link was looking for.

3 way DIY speakers "Saisho" (introduced and compared to KH310 in here: #1,089)
4m * 5m room, acoustically treated (not perfect yet, on the dead side)
Position adjusted to minimize room modes and optimize Impulse Response.
2.2m measuring distance, at listening position.
Clarity is very high, hovering between 30dB and 35dB.
Subjectively, the bass sounds extremely good: punchier, deeper, cleaner, more textured than on my HD58x headphones.

View attachment 323597
See more data of the same measurement:

View attachment 323598


-----
Interestingly, the exact same speaker measured in my living room gives a much lower clarity:
Subjectively, the low bass sounds muddy, but this can easily be explained by the strong room mode at 42Hz (see waterfall).
View attachment 323599
Lower clarity was expected because the decay energy/time is very different:

View attachment 323608

View attachment 323603

Both of those rooms look really good. The early decay time in both rooms is super low even in the bass. The RT60 down at 100 in the lab is considered lower than what I've been told is recommended. I wonder if a room like that could use some artificial ambience to bring up the RT60 in the mids and highs without bringing up the early decay time. I think it's otherwise hard to do without a really big room. I just added some delayed ambient side channels to my setup and I'm really liking it. Just two delayed side channels right now. I'm thinking of adding more if I can figure out where to put them.
Do you have pictures of those spaces?

 

[NIN]

I wonder if a room like that could use some artificial ambience to bring up the RT60 in the mids and highs without bringing up the early decay time. I think it's otherwise hard to do without a really big room.

I wonder why you want to use artificial ambience?
I also have low RT60 and I love it.

 

[Martigane]

Both of those rooms look really good. The early decay time in both rooms is super low even in the bass. The RT60 down at 100 in the lab is considered lower than what I've been told is recommended. I wonder if a room like that could use some artificial ambience to bring up the RT60 in the mids and highs without bringing up the early decay time. I think it's otherwise hard to do without a really big room. I just added some delayed ambient side channels to my setup and I'm really liking it. Just two delayed side channels right now. I'm thinking of adding more if I can figure out where to put them.
Do you have pictures of those spaces?

Well, those are the result of careful speaker/listener positioning.
Earlier setups did not measure that well, and in both cases, the sweet spot is quite narrow, due to both room modes and reflections.

Sorry, difficult to share pictures without confidentiality issues. (work & private)
Actually, in the lab, I would ideally like to have faster decay in the lows, and more constant RT60 across frequencies. Below 0.1s is indeed not recommended, but sounds great to me . My speakers were also designed to have an extremely fast attack & decay, so I guess that a low RT60 further highlight this strentgh.
Adding diffraction did not have a big impact, so I'll try other things.

My living room has a lot of glass windows, and the listening spot is not symmetrical.
It definitely sounds a lot better in the lab, I am not really convinced that there's such a thin as an overly dead/damp room.

I also have low RT60 and I love it.

Now, that's an impressively good RT60!
I also would not try to add delayed ambient speakers.

 

[Tim Link]

I wonder why you want to use artificial ambience?

You may not want to. It's a preference thing. With a standard two speaker arrangement it is found by some to not light up the ears from enough different angles to be satisfying. The problem is the early ambience like you get in a small room tends to be too soon, ruining imaging and clarity. A little more delay and the ambience can have a nice, open effect without messing up the imaging and clarity. But - I think it will always sound purer if you listen in a relatively anechoic environment. So it really depends on what you like. Most people would like a little room ambience. In a really low RT60 room with artificial ambience you can add it as you see fit, with adequate time delay.
What I'm doing is not really so much ambience as just a kicker signal, no reverb effects added, just a reinforcing kicker that I think does something nice. I tried adding reverb effects and playing around with mixing surround processing effects. I didn't hear anything I liked with any of that.

 

[NIN]

I agree, it is a subjective preference.