(Poll) When did you start using a measurement mic to tune your room and system?

[Midnight Audiophile]

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I'm amazed at the high level of fidelity you can get nowadays with inexpensive equipment and a measurement mic. I just started a using a UMIK-1 over the past couple of years to set up my room and system and the difference is night and day. Curious to see when others started doing this? Also, when did this technology become widely accessible with tools like a UMIK-1 and REW?

 

[Doodski]

I was using pink noise to equalize via I think it was the Technics SH-8055 in the ~early mid 80's. It came with a calibrated mic, plug in, engage pink noise and set levels accordingly or use a cal record to setup a turntable. A gimmick and a otherwise very nice EQ with a fluorescent display tube. This guy is a madman on the EQ settings.

 

[sq225917]

Think I borrowed a Trinnov off Keith at Purite, must be nine or ten years ago, I'd been doing sweeps before that with a calibrated mic and a sound card going back at least 15 years.

 

[sarumbear]

I started designing Silver 5L in 1992. Every stage of the design involved measurements. I purchased the best test devices available at the time: LMS, MLSSA and CLIO. You can see those measurements at the legacy website that I keep alive.

SILVER 5L | The Only Closefield Monitor In The World

silver5l.com

 

[Blumlein 88]

The idea seemed ripe for exploitation digitally way back in the 1990's. I read Kal Rubinson's review of the Tact RCS 2.0 in 2001, and it seemed to fit the bill. I forget now the name, but another company had a more expensive device doing the same thing and that is what I had my eye on. When the RCS became on my radar, it was a year later in 2002 when I acquired one for myself. They were frustrating to use, but very capable even by current standards.

You had the device emit some impulses for each channel which a measurement mike recorded. It gave you a read out of the response which you could then correct as you saw fit.

Prior to that I had been using warble tones or noise with SPL meters to make crude adjustments. In those cases I was not correcting, but merely adjusting the position and whatever speaker controls were available for best response.

 

[fpitas]

Calibrated ECM8000 from Cross-Spectrum, back when he still did those. Splurged on a cheap mic stand. Got an outboard soundcard for the laptop, and Holm Impulse.

 

[JPA]

I designed and built my own speakers about 20 years ago using CLIO. CLIO was also good for room measurements so I used it to equalize the subwoofer response in my HT.

 

[Timcognito]

When I got my first AVR 2007

 

[sarumbear]

I designed and built my own speakers about 20 years ago using CLIO. CLIO was also good for room measurements so I used it to equalize the subwoofer response in my HT.

Have you seen the new CLIO Pocket? So cute!

 

[JPA]

Have you seen the new CLIO Pocket? So cute!

No, I've moved on from CLIO. I'll use either REW or OmniMic for my next set of DIY speakers (coming soon...)

 

[LTig]

I bought the Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 in 2003 and shortly after the ECM8000. I used the DEQ2496 as DAC and for fixing a room resonance.

When I bought the Marantz AV7701 I used the included microphone and Audissey. After switching to the Classé Sigma SSP mk2 I bought the UMIK 1 and used REW to set the parametric EQ of the Classé, giving me the best SQ so far.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I bought a Behring DEQ 2496 and their measuring mic at the same time I bought my Benchmark DAC 1 and my Logitech Squeezbox--which was around 2004.

 

[warnerwh]

I also had a Behringer deq2496 and an ECM8000 microphone in about 2005. I ended up selling it after a year or so because I coudn't leave it alone. I had a fully treated listening room and was much more happy. Now I use a Denon x3400 and the app and the sound quality is excellent even without room treatments. I think I must have good acoustics but am not using REW and buying a mic again to find out.

 

[thewas]

I was using pink noise to equalize via I think it was the Technics SH-8055 in the ~early mid 80's. It came with a calibrated mic, plug in, engage pink noise and set levels accordingly or use a cal record to setup a turntable. A gimmick and a otherwise very nice EQ with a fluorescent display tube. This guy is a madman on the EQ settings.

Funnily I also started in the late 80s with a Marantz EQ-551 which had also a real time analyser, mic and pink noise generator and since 10 years even have the same Technics SH-8055 that you also have (in brown though) for my vintage Technics system.
In the late 90s I started equalising my and friend cars with a PC based system and even had several Blaupunkt car radios with 4x28 bands automatic measurement based EQs and in the early 2000s I started room correction of my home systems, also PC based.

 

[chych7]

When I set out to build my HT (covid project) and understand how to fix the bass response. My MLP was to be in the middle of the room, which isn't good for bass. But with multiple subwoofers, DSP integration, and lots of bass trapping, my bass is excellent at both the MLP (front row) and second row.

 

[Rednaxela]

This spring I did my first measurements using a UMIK-1 and REW. MMM in the living room - L, R and L+R. Plus quasi-anechoic speaker measurements outside.

Implemented the filters in EQAPO, limiting the set to what an RME ADI-2 supports, as a little POC for a potential purchase.

The effectiveness exceeded my expectations. It convinced me that digital EQ will be the next step forward in my system.

 

[Midnight Audiophile]

This spring I did my first measurements using a UMIK-1 and REW. MMM in the living room - L, R and L+R. Plus quasi-anechoic speaker measurements outside.

Implemented the filters in EQAPO, limiting the set to what an RME ADI-2 supports, as a little POC for a potential purchase.

The effectiveness exceeded my expectations. It convinced me that digital EQ will be the next step forward in my system.

I wasn't familiar with the RME ADi-2 but looked it up. Looks like it has a five band PEQ. I've been setting my PEQ filters two different ways. I'm on a Mac and use SoundSource so that I can put the PEQ filters as application specific or on the whole system. That's a nice way also to check the results in real time while doing a sweep in REW. The other way I've used them is in Audirvana. That's a pretty cool system they have and I like it for the remote I can use on my iPhone to control my desktop system.

 

[Chromatischism]

Started measuring in 2014 with a Cross Spectrum Labs UMIK-1 with Room EQ Wizard. I'm still using the same mic today, though it's been dropped many times and I even managed to damage the USB port. It's helped me dial in several systems pre and post-room correction.

 

[Rednaxela]

I wasn't familiar with the RME ADi-2 but looked it up. Looks like it has a five band PEQ.

Five or seven, depending on how you want to use the bass and treble controls. And per channel.

My use case is a shared living room system, with multiple sources and a family that needs to be able to operate it too. So no PC based EQ/DRC solutions for me. Not sadly though, I see it as a challenge.

Otherwise, the sky seems to be the limit, absolutely.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I got switched on to the idea after installing an Alpine system in my car about 12 years ago. It has a DSP and software with a mic you position at the seats and it builds profiles for each seat. It made such a noticeable difference. I’ve now gone for a set of Genelec in my office with GLM.