tmtomh
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Hello all,
As noted in another thread, I recently inherited a pair of Infinity Kappa 9 speakers, in excellent shape with replaced woofer surrounds and a drop-in replacement for the original polydome midrange. They are excellent speakers in some respects, but I am having a very difficult time trying to dial in their in-room frequency response - and I am getting extremely frustrated trying to use Dirac with a MiniDSP SHD to achieve proper response.
I've taken several sets of measurements, using 9 or 13 measurements as Dirac recommends, and also using fewer measurements as some folks here recommend. I've tried using Dirac correction only from 300Hz down, as some advise, and also using it full-range, as others here say they've done successfully. I've also tried in-between corrections, up to 700Hz and up to 4kHz.
Finally, I've tried using several different target curves: Dirac's new default, which appears to be a Harmen/Toole-esque curve with about 8dB bass boost at 20Hz and sloping to about -0.5dB at 20khz. I've also tried the so-called "Harman curves" that are floating around online (I know there's not really a Harman curve), with 6dB and 10dB boost at 20Hz, and I've tried tapering to -1.5dB, -3dB, and -6dB at 20kHz (while keeping the curve linear until about 2.5kHz).
With that said, here is what Dirac shows as the response from 13 measurements (top image) and from another, separate round of 7 measurements (bottom image). To be clear, these are the pre-correction responses.
Note not only the nonlinear response, but also that the scale is 10dB per vertical unit. According to Dirac, there's an 8dB dip at 5kHz compared to about 2.5Khz and about 7kHz. There's also about 4-5dB of nonlinearity at various points from the Schroeder frequency up to 1kHz.
This just seems awful - or am I expecting too much from a non-smoothed response graph of passive speakers with no built-in DSP?
Now, the speakers don't actually sound to me the way this curve suggests. But they don't necessarily sound quite right either. I don't even know exactly what Dirac is showing me here - is this an average of in-room response from all the measurements? Or has Dirac used those multiple measurements to calculate a quasi-gated or quasi-anechoic response curve for the speakers here? If I'm not supposed to use Dirac to flatten the response above about 300Hz, and I can't use these Dirac measurements as indicators of what my ears are actually hearing in-room, then how am I supposed to use PEQ to try to flatten the response?
Should I just give up and sell these speakers and get an active speaker with built-in DSP instead? I feel like I'm caught in a classic circle of confusion, no longer being able to tell with confidence if the tonality of my music is right or not, and seemingly having no dependable way to know how I should actually be EQ'ing these speakers above 300Hz for decently accurate response. I mean, can we simply not own speakers if they are too old to have spinorama data available?
As might be obvious from this post, I'm kind of at the end of my rope at this point. I feel I've tried my best here and I'm most definitely not having fun anymore at this point. I would be grateful for any perspective, guidance, advice, or helpful thoughts anyone can provide, to help me better understand what I'm looking at here and perhaps how I might come to an informed decision about continuing to work with these speakers versus giving up.
Thanks!
As noted in another thread, I recently inherited a pair of Infinity Kappa 9 speakers, in excellent shape with replaced woofer surrounds and a drop-in replacement for the original polydome midrange. They are excellent speakers in some respects, but I am having a very difficult time trying to dial in their in-room frequency response - and I am getting extremely frustrated trying to use Dirac with a MiniDSP SHD to achieve proper response.
I've taken several sets of measurements, using 9 or 13 measurements as Dirac recommends, and also using fewer measurements as some folks here recommend. I've tried using Dirac correction only from 300Hz down, as some advise, and also using it full-range, as others here say they've done successfully. I've also tried in-between corrections, up to 700Hz and up to 4kHz.
Finally, I've tried using several different target curves: Dirac's new default, which appears to be a Harmen/Toole-esque curve with about 8dB bass boost at 20Hz and sloping to about -0.5dB at 20khz. I've also tried the so-called "Harman curves" that are floating around online (I know there's not really a Harman curve), with 6dB and 10dB boost at 20Hz, and I've tried tapering to -1.5dB, -3dB, and -6dB at 20kHz (while keeping the curve linear until about 2.5kHz).
With that said, here is what Dirac shows as the response from 13 measurements (top image) and from another, separate round of 7 measurements (bottom image). To be clear, these are the pre-correction responses.
Note not only the nonlinear response, but also that the scale is 10dB per vertical unit. According to Dirac, there's an 8dB dip at 5kHz compared to about 2.5Khz and about 7kHz. There's also about 4-5dB of nonlinearity at various points from the Schroeder frequency up to 1kHz.
This just seems awful - or am I expecting too much from a non-smoothed response graph of passive speakers with no built-in DSP?
Now, the speakers don't actually sound to me the way this curve suggests. But they don't necessarily sound quite right either. I don't even know exactly what Dirac is showing me here - is this an average of in-room response from all the measurements? Or has Dirac used those multiple measurements to calculate a quasi-gated or quasi-anechoic response curve for the speakers here? If I'm not supposed to use Dirac to flatten the response above about 300Hz, and I can't use these Dirac measurements as indicators of what my ears are actually hearing in-room, then how am I supposed to use PEQ to try to flatten the response?
Should I just give up and sell these speakers and get an active speaker with built-in DSP instead? I feel like I'm caught in a classic circle of confusion, no longer being able to tell with confidence if the tonality of my music is right or not, and seemingly having no dependable way to know how I should actually be EQ'ing these speakers above 300Hz for decently accurate response. I mean, can we simply not own speakers if they are too old to have spinorama data available?
As might be obvious from this post, I'm kind of at the end of my rope at this point. I feel I've tried my best here and I'm most definitely not having fun anymore at this point. I would be grateful for any perspective, guidance, advice, or helpful thoughts anyone can provide, to help me better understand what I'm looking at here and perhaps how I might come to an informed decision about continuing to work with these speakers versus giving up.
Thanks!
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