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New Neumann MA 1 - Automatic Monitor Alignment

NoTBaTMaN

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Actually, I commented before seeing your photos. Those traps look thicker than what I meant by "typical bass traps", and they probably remain effective a little lower.
Yeah they are sheep wool filled too, I posted the link to them earlier. They have an alpha of 0,6 at 63 Hz, so not too bad.
I also have the sub active again, in manual mode, centered on the front wall. Much more bass than without it...I like it :p
 

DJBonoBobo

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Yeah sure :) See attached files. The pictures show the current situation right now, the 3D sktech is from the company where I ordered the acoustic treatment, they positioned the speakers differently and it also shows more treatment which I have yet to order. My head is about 1,85m distance from the front wall.

From my limited experience that looks a bit similar, but much better and more professional than my own mancave. I think you have all the hardware for a great sound. I don´t know what´s the problem there and i am curious what Neumann will answer. If i have time tomorrow i will make a comparison of the MA 1 microphone with my individually calibrated UMIK-1. Also i plan to compare again with AVAA on and off - i think they may be more effective with the new positions i found for the loudspeakers and i am curious if that´s true.
 

DJBonoBobo

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@NoTBaTMaN
I am not sure if i am seeing this right, but aren´t the MA1-measurements completely off - not only in bass but also in treble? They really look very wrong to me.
I don´t know if you wrote that already, but which interface did you use? Does it provide sufficient 48V phantom power? It seems the Beyerdynamic MM1 is less demanding than the MA1.
 

NoTBaTMaN

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@NoTBaTMaN
I am not sure if i am seeing this right, but aren´t the MA1-measurements completely off - not only in bass but also in treble? They really look very wrong to me.
I don´t know if you wrote that already, but which interface did you use? Does it provide sufficient 48V phantom power? It seems the Beyerdynamic MM1 is less demanding than the MA1.
I think so too, yes. The Beyerdynamic showed a very linear treble response, but it's hard to keep track of every variable all the time, especially when changing the listening/loudspeaker position.
I have a Focusrite Clarett 8PreX, I used the same input for all my measurements (Behringer, Beyerdynamic and Neumann). It does provide phantom power and should be up to the task.
What's interesting is that the Neumann MA-1 software never showed this big drop in bass SPL, I attached a comparison picture a few posts ago.
Only the uncalibrated REW measurements are off - I generally hope Neumann might be able to provide a calibration file on request for the MA-1.
 

NoTBaTMaN

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From my limited experience that looks a bit similar, but much better and more professional than my own mancave. I think you have all the hardware for a great sound. I don´t know what´s the problem there and i am curious what Neumann will answer. If i have time tomorrow i will make a comparison of the MA 1 microphone with my individually calibrated UMIK-1. Also i plan to compare again with AVAA on and off - i think they may be more effective with the new positions i found for the loudspeakers and i am curious if that´s true.
That would be great, thanks! Very interested in the AVAAs too :)
 

DJBonoBobo

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I made the promised measurements. I used the MMM method, so please do not overinterprete small differences between measurements. I am not competent enough for a proper review or comparison of microphones, so please take it as it is - my amateurish measurements as best as i could. I always measured L+sub und R+sub and then made an average of the 2.

As input devices i used the MA-1 (uncalibrated) with a MOTU M4 vs. a UMIK-1 (individually calibrated by the dealer (hifi-selbstbau.de, if you wanna know). Output device is a RME ADI-2 DAC in both cases. No smoothing. If you ask me i would say they are practically identical, if you consider i made those with the MMM-method.
If all units are like mine, my understanding is that this shows that the MA-1 can be used without calibration for room EQ-purposes without any concerns.

MA1 vs UMIK.png


Additionally and off topic, again the effect of the 2 PSI AVAA in my room which are at the back wall. Pretty much the same as in earlier measurements i posted.
Tiny improvements between 80-150Hz, much more effect around 25Hz (could be SBIR from back wall). Edit: just for clarification, i am only talking about dips. The elevations around 34Hz and 68Hz would have been flatted out by the MA 1 if i had done the room eq measurements without the AVAA. So i am showing the end-result of the measurements with AVAAs active vs. simply AVAA switched off afterwards. It is not meant as a serious evaluation of the capabilities of the AVAA, only a "quick and dirty" impression.
AVAA on vs off.png
 
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Man what weird introduction to Neumann I've had. Grabbed some KH80's and man they are really something special. Was all hyped to check out the DSP and more importantly turn down the damn brightness on the logo.

You need an ipad to anything.... I'm sorry who's idea was this? Only ipad? Is this some sort of joke? I guess when the sweetwater site said windows/android/ios/mac, so I guess that was a lie.

I emailed them and they just kinda said buy the MA-1 if you want to control them without an ipad (lol cool spend additional money to get advertised functionality), but it doesn't look like the MA-1 has the same functionality as the ipad app? Someone else will have to confirm that, since you can't move anywhere in the app without the mic serial. To me there is a huge dichotomy between the hardware and the software here. My lord the speakers are incredible and have made a massive impact on my ability to mix, but the software seems so poorly thought out. I can live without the DSP for now, but I can't live with the blinding logo when it's dark out. If you can adjust the logo in the MA-1 app, does someone want to do me a huge favor and let me use their mic serial to progress the app forward, hell I'll even pay ya.
 

DJBonoBobo

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If you can adjust the logo in the MA-1 app

Unfortunately this is not possible in the current version. As the iPad-app and the MA 1 app are not compatible at the moment, i don´t even know what happens with the logo brightness of the KH80 if you dim it with the iPad app and use the MA 1 afterwards. I guess it will stay in the last setting, but i don´t know for sure. If it works you could borrow an iPad from someone, dim the brightness once and you would never need the iPad again after that.
With the KH120 and 310 you can set the brightness with hardware switches at the backplate.

As i have just seen, Neumann added "important imformation" to their info-page (scroll down): https://en-de.neumann.com/ma-1
"Alignment settings are made via the MA 1 software. Other parameters (e.g. mute, volume, logo brightness, delay ...) cannot currently be controlled by the MA 1 software. "
And:
"If the loudspeakers were previously adjusted using the Neumann.Control iPad® app, their correction data will be overwritten by an alignment with the MA 1 software. If you open the Neumann.Control iPad® app again, the last data stored in the app is sent to the loudspeakers, thus overwriting the correction data generated by the MA 1. "

Since it only mentions "correction data", I assume that the brightness setting of the logo does not change.
 
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Lemarchand

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For those who are using the MA 1 software, are you using Windows or Mac? I am wondering if the software is the same stability-wise.
 

DJBonoBobo

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Windows
 

NoTBaTMaN

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I made the promised measurements. I used the MMM method, so please do not overinterprete small differences between measurements. I am not competent enough for a proper review or comparison of microphones, so please take it as it is - my amateurish measurements as best as i could. I always measured L+sub und R+sub and then made an average of the 2.

As input devices i used the MA-1 (uncalibrated) with a MOTU M4 vs. a UMIK-1 (individually calibrated by the dealer (hifi-selbstbau.de, if you wanna know). Output device is a RME ADI-2 DAC in both cases. No smoothing. If you ask me i would say they are practically identical, if you consider i made those with the MMM-method.
If all units are like mine, my understanding is that this shows that the MA-1 can be used without calibration for room EQ-purposes without any concerns.

View attachment 106479

Additionally and off topic, again the effect of the 2 PSI AVAA in my room which are at the back wall. Pretty much the same as in earlier measurements i posted.
Tiny improvements between 80-150Hz, much more effect around 25Hz (could be SBIR from back wall). Edit: just for clarification, i am only talking about dips. The elevations around 34Hz and 68Hz would have been flatted out by the MA 1 if i had done the room eq measurements without the AVAA. So i am showing the end-result of the measurements with AVAAs active vs. simply AVAA switched off afterwards. It is not meant as a serious evaluation of the capabilities of the AVAA, only a "quick and dirty" impression.
View attachment 106480
Very helpful, thanks :) I will send back my MA-1 and try another unit. Right now now I like my manual setting better anyway.
Just to verify a few things: The output level switch of each KH310A should be set at 100dB and the pot at 0dB, right?
 

NoTBaTMaN

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For those who are using the MA 1 software, are you using Windows or Mac? I am wondering if the software is the same stability-wise.
I'm on macOS, it's not the best user experience I've ever had. I would say the current MA-1 software is an alpha version at best, it can be really frustrating. It doesn't crash but a lot of issues with the automatic level setting and the subwoofer communication over ethernet.
 

NoTBaTMaN

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Holy shit guys, what I have to tell you is really embarassing, I am an absolute MORON LOL
Now as it turns out, I have not one but two microphones in my room...today I changed the physical input for the MA-1 on my audio interface but didn't change it in the software. I forgot about the whole thing because I was distracted in the meantime and continued with my measurements afterwards.
So I'm still suspicious because what I hear doesn't match the microphone and start to check my REW settings.
Then I realize and verifiy my mistake: I measured with my MacBook Pro 15" 2017 internal microphone all the time.
R0cDd9.gif

Sorry for wasting your time - I don't know when the REW settings changed but I suspect it was when I started REW without having my audio interface connected during the holidays...
With the MA-1, the measurements look a lot like the Beyerdynamic ones (even better probably due to the changed monitor position) - I can't tell you how relieved I am :)
I will post "REAL" measurements and comparisons as soon as possible...
 
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ernestcarl

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Now we are talking :D
https://gofile.io/d/FI9Qms
I have to say I am extremely impressed by these results.
And I have to admit that it's easy to like overhyped bass, I really could not trust my ears on the linearity ;)

1610865528564.png


Ditto. I'm quite impressed with the final result as well. Manual alignment looks difficult in this case, I think, with all those nodes in the way. Glad this was resolved.

BTW, the step for this one looks more "ideal". Dunno what exact parameter(s) caused the difference in this scenario.

1610866950127.png
 
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DJBonoBobo

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Then I realize and verifiy my mistake: I measured with my MacBook Pro 15" 2017 internal microphone all the time.

Glad to hear it's cleared up. This also happened to me once when I had a new webcam and didn't notice for hours that I had measured with the webcam... I had forgotten that.

Good thing you haven't ordered an AVAA yet. :)

Looking at your measurements, I see a similar dip (27Hz) to what I have - since our rooms are a similar size, I would imagine that could then be improved by the AVAAs in your case. But I honestly don't really think that justifies the money.
Nice to see that the one sub filled the huge gap between 70 and 100Hz quite well.
 

NoTBaTMaN

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Glad to hear it's cleared up. This also happened to me once when I had a new webcam and didn't notice for hours that I had measured with the webcam... I had forgotten that.

Good thing you haven't ordered an AVAA yet. :)

Looking at your measurements, I see a similar dip (27Hz) to what I have - since our rooms are a similar size, I would imagine that could then be improved by the AVAAs in your case. But I honestly don't really think that justifies the money.
Nice to see that the one sub filled the huge gap between 70 and 100Hz quite well.
I too think the AVAA would help with that.
I‘m still set on getting at least one AVAA to eat up the room mode at 34 Hz, I‘ve seen measurements where one AVAA placed in the center of the front or back wall did an amazing job. A second one however was not as effective reducing the decay time compared to the first: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=13096297&postcount=74
Do you notice an audible difference regarding the decay times in your room?, i.e, more defined bass?
 

DJBonoBobo

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I think the discussion about the AVAA is off topic here, so just one more response on that: In my room, 1 AVAA on the back wall has almost exactly half as much effect as (regarding frequency response, i don´t know for sure about decay) 2. The dip at 25Hz is roughly halved by 1 AVAA on the back wall, but is still noticeable. In my room, one AVAA is in the back corner, the other is about in the middle of the back wall. I can't place them any other way because in the other corner is the door and I also have a large closet there (the corner AVAA is on top of the closet). Both have about the same effect in my room, i think.

Whether I hear a difference, I can't really say. I first had only the KH310 and then purchased the AVAA because I wanted to close the gap between 70 and 100 Hz and hoped to get by without a subwoofer. The AVAA did not have this desired effect, but overall I liked the bass better than before and was too lazy to return them within the time limit. After that, I still bought the KH 750, which ultimately had much more effect. In the meantime, I am very satisfied. If I now turn off the AVAA, it sounds of course noticeably worse - you can see that in the comparison graph above. Above all, the increases at 34Hz and 68Hz are disturbing. But in order to really compare this, I would have to compare two calibration results (EQ filters), which were made once with and without AVAA. But that is not possible with the current setup. You can see that the AVAA clearly have a measurable effect, but you have to buy it very expensively.

In my other thread there was also feedback that the reduced reverberation in the bass may not really be audible. Also, it was noted that I probably would have gotten a better result with a multisub system much cheaper perhaps. I can not really judge that and would also reluctantly build a multisub system because of the many cables in my bedroom here. I'll leave it as it is for now.

Overall, my advice to you would be to look into the option with at least 2 subwoofers as well. Unfortunately, the MA-1 doesn't really support that yet, although there is a workaround from Neumann (but it requires all subs to be the same distance from the listening position, I believe).
 
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