New Neumann MA 1 - Automatic Monitor Alignment

[NoTBaTMaN]

In my experience, the second sub can only make a difference at a single listening position, if you find a position for it that helps smoothing out deficiencies of the other.

These are my subs before and after correction (ignore SPL), but i needed a lot of trial and error to find the best positions.:
View attachment 306485

Thanks for sharing your experience!
I don't really have many other options for placement, the subs are currently placed against the wall behind the main loudspeakers, at 1/4 and 3/4 of the room length, were they should work best in theory at least.
I had/have an issue with a null at around 80 Hz which was and is way more pronounced on the left speaker. I was able to fill most of the null by removing (!) the bass-traps behind the mains, the right speaker was very flat from about 30Hz to 100Hz.
It came back when I moved my desk with the mains closer to the wall to improve the low-mids (SBIR), but only after recalibration, probably because the time-alignment was off and MA-1 corrected that.
Somehow I thought that the much deeper null on the left speaker had something to do with the subwoofer being on the right and that a second one would help to fix that.
I'm going to experiment some more and report back with my measurements.

 

[alexrossuk]

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem with my MA 1 installation on a Mac. I emailed Neumann and described the problem and they said they would get back to me by phone, which they never did. :-(

As a workaround, you can edit your measurement, disable the alignment and reenable it. Then the sub should be fine again. But there's still no way to use the bass management.

Glad im not alone! i contacted Neumann support and to be fair to them they were very helpful. They are well aware of the issue and are patching it as we speak apparently. They said as a short term work around you can go into the "eEdit Alignment" window and the sub will work. OR you can go back to 1.6.0 software and it should work fine as the bug fixes 1.7.0 are minimal and would have no affect.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Thanks for sharing your experience!
I don't really have many other options for placement, the subs are currently placed against the wall behind the main loudspeakers, at 1/4 and 3/4 of the room length, were they should work best in theory at least.
I had/have an issue with a null at around 80 Hz which was and is way more pronounced on the left speaker. I was able to fill most of the null by removing (!) the bass-traps behind the mains, the right speaker was very flat from about 30Hz to 100Hz.
It came back when I moved my desk with the mains closer to the wall to improve the low-mids (SBIR), but only after recalibration, probably because the time-alignment was off and MA-1 corrected that.
Somehow I thought that the much deeper null on the left speaker had something to do with the subwoofer being on the right and that a second one would help to fix that.
I'm going to experiment some more and report back with my measurements.

You could also try turning the subs (change face to front, left or right and find what works best). In my room 1/4 and 3/4 are not the best positions. I also tried lifting the subs to 1/4 of room height, but this was impractical.

Edit: I had the same problem with the 80Hz dip. Only corner postions + a different listening position helped reducing it. I tried for many months until i managed to reduce this dip... I even bought 2 PSI AVAAs, but they did not help much either with this.

 

[NoTBaTMaN]

You could also try turning the subs (change face to front, left or right and find what works best). In my room 1/4 and 3/4 are not the best positions. I also tried lifting the subs to 1/4 of room height, but this was impractical.

Edit: I had the same problem with the 80Hz dip. Only corner postions + a different listening position helped reducing it. I tried for many months until i managed to reduce this dip... I even bought 2 PSI AVAAs, but they did not help much either with this.

I think I've read your thread about the 80 Hz null. Didn't we have somewhat similar room dimensions (mine is (490x352x240) cm)?
I also tried the lifting my single sub, but it gave me worse results IIRC.
I did go back to my position which eliminated the deep 80 Hz null with my single sub and did an alignment for both subs in this exact position too.
I used my old aligment for the single sub setup, so I won't outright claim that the second sub made things worse, but this my measurements give a strong clue that this might be the case. Something funky is going on, maybe it's also a bug with the MA-1 alignment algorithm.
EDIT: I'm going to attach some pictures, MDAT file is too large apparently
EDIT2:
Var-smoothing on all graphs

EDIT3: After listening a little bit, I noticed that the second sub improves the stereo image/localization, just the right sub results in certain bass notes shifted to the right in the stereo image. That alone might be the reason to find a solution for the null again...

 

[DJBonoBobo]

I think I've read your thread about the 80 Hz null. Didn't we have somewhat similar room dimensions (mine is (490x352x240) cm)?
I also tried the lifting my single sub, but it gave me worse results IIRC.
I did go back to my position which eliminated the deep 80 Hz null with my single sub and did an alignment for both subs in this exact position too.
I used my old aligment for the single sub setup, so I won't outright claim that the second sub made things worse, but this my measurements give a strong clue that this might be the case. Something funky is going on, maybe it's also a bug with the MA-1 alignment algorithm.
EDIT: I'm going to attach some pictures, MDAT file is too large apparently
EDIT2:
Var-smoothing on all graphs

View attachment 306518
View attachment 306519View attachment 306520

I am not 100% sure i understand what exactly you did, but
1. the single sub measurement looks very good, not much to improve. BTW i am pretty sure the 28hz null is the SBIR from your back wall.
2. The 2 sub measurement looks bad indeed. I also got something like this sometimes, so the MA1 algorithm don't seem to work perfectly in every position. It probably tried getting the best result out of the situation (positions of mains, subs and mic), but was not very successful.
IMHO you can only change that by a) trying different positions, b) settle with 1 sub or c) try a different software.

 

[NoTBaTMaN]

I am not 100% sure i understand what exactly you did, but
1. the single sub measurement looks very good, not much to improve. BTW i am pretty sure the 28hz null is the SBIR from your back wall.
2. The 2 sub measurement looks bad indeed. I also got something like this sometimes, so the MA1 algorithm don't seem to work perfectly in every position. It probably tried getting the best result out of the situation (positions of mains, subs and mic), but was not very successful.
IMHO you can only change that by a) trying different positions, b) settle with 1 sub or c) try a different software.

I fully agree.
According to the measurements you did in your room, I'd probably need two AVAAs to lessen the impact of the 28 Hz null (which I don't really care about).
I have much more important things that need improvement in my studio, so dropping that amount of cash is not an option.
I'm going to play around with the positions, if that doesn't result in performance similar to a single sub, I'm going for option b).

 

[NoTBaTMaN]

Good news: I found a position where the deep 78 Hz is eliminated, I pushed both subs as far to the corners as possible, facing my 40cm thick basstraps.
Group delay looks good also, better than with the single sub.
For me, the biggest improvement is the stereo image though, the bass is now exactly centered.
I knew something was wrong but I'm quite surprised how drastic the difference is in direct A/B comparison. Can't go back from that.
Thanks again @DJBonoBobo !

 

[coctostan]

I apologize if this has already been covered, but can MA-1 handle 3 KH120II's used as left, center, right? If so, how does that work? Looking at the software, it only allows the options of stereo and stereo with bass management?

 

[badboygolf16v]

2.2 is the most MA 1 can do.

 

[coctostan]

2.2 is the most MA 1 can do.

So I couldn't measure and tune a single center channel KH120 separately from the left and right KH120s? What if I simply want to skip the MA-1 measurements, can I at least make some PEQ settings for the solo center channel?

I'm not interested in the Neumann subwoofers. I will handle that separately.

 

[mj30250]

Does anyone know if it's possible to save an MA 1 alignment via a config file or similar and transfer it to another PC? I've built a new computer with a clean Windows 11 installation and it would be great if I could just access my alignment without having to run through the measurement process (and its many restart-forcing bugs) again. Thanks.

 

[alexrossuk]

Does anyone know if it's possible to save an MA 1 alignment via a config file or similar and transfer it to another PC? I've built a new computer with a clean Windows 11 installation and it would be great if I could just access my alignment without having to run through the measurement process (and its many restart-forcing bugs) again. Thanks.

It is, i already asked the question. The only thing is, they told me the instructions for mac not windows. But here was the file
Path for mac, hopefully its similar for windows!
machd>Users>.local(Hidden)>alignment.

 

[mj30250]

It is, i already asked the question. The only thing is, they told me the instructions for mac not windows. But here was the file
Path for mac, hopefully its similar for windows!
machd>Users>.local(Hidden)>alignment.

Thanks! It's definitely a different path for Windows but I found a couple things that might be what I need. I will await confirmation from Neumann. At least it's good to know that it's possible.

 

[SlothRock]

Just got my second KH750 in and ran it through the MA 1 - along with the KH120's, it really feels like a complete system now. Only thing I want to do is dial in a bit of a bass boost as the MA1 doesn't dial it in high enough for me. Anyone dial a bass boost that works really well? Would love to see what you did as I'm playing with things, if so. Currently just adding some increased gain to the low shelf which sounds fine enough but not sure that's the optimal way to be thinking about it

 

[NeoZs99]

I updated to the latest version and well I regret it now. Whenever I try to edit an alignment, it's stuck on the "Initializing algorithm alignment window..". My sub is disabled too. Should I revert to an earlier version of the MA 1? Also how could I still save my measurements for windows while reverting to an earlier version?

Help please anyone

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Also how could I still save my measurements for windows while reverting to an earlier version?

The app data is stored here:
macOs: /Users/<USERNAME>/Library/Containers/com.neumann.alignment/Data/.local/share/Automatic Alignment
Windows: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Automatic Alignment

As far as i can see the measurements are stored in the "sounds" subfolder and the alignments in the "constellations" subfolder. Some settings are stored in the "preferences" folder. It is all pretty plain/transparent.

You can try backing the whole folder up and use it with an older version. Or try resetting your speakers and reinstalling the current version again. Or ask Neumann directly. I personally did not try reverting to an older version, so i can give no guarantee.

 

[NeoZs99]

Thank you.. Also is there anyone on 1.8 beta by any chance?

 

[NeoZs99]

Alright I had a hard disk backup where I was able to retrieve both an earlier version of the MA1 and my measurements. When you update to the latest firmware (1.7) , I guess it changes the measurement/alignment .json files in some way where you can't use them on an earlier firmware (on mine anyway). I was able to retrieve both thankfully and the bass management button is back.

 

[Gammon2004]

I updated to the latest version and well I regret it now. Whenever I try to edit an alignment, it's stuck on the "Initializing algorithm alignment window..". My sub is disabled too. Should I revert to an earlier version of the MA 1? Also how could I still save my measurements for windows while reverting to an earlier version?

Help please anyone

Yes, this exact thing is happening to me as well. In my case it happens with both 1.6 and 1.7.

 

[jmf11]

Hello,

I have KH80 combined with a SVS-1000 subwoofer. The SVS subwoofer is doing the filtering: 80Hz lowpass and KH80 high pass for the KH80. Filters slope is at 12dB/octave.

With such a set-up can I benefit from the MA1 system? I believe not really as:

• MA1 can configure the KH80 but they only kick in above 80Hz,
• MA1 can't correct the part done by the SVS subwoofer.

But maybe there are MA1 features or use cases I'm not aware of and that could allow to workaround my hybrid set-up?

I have a Umik microphone and some experience with REW, so it is my way to go. But the good results achieved with MA1 looks really interesting, so if I miss something, then good to know.

JMF