Suggestion for room correction hardware?

[board]

I'm one of those people who do believe that there are audible differences between many amplifiers (but not all), but that most of this is due to differences in frequency response, which comes from the loudspeaker load. I don't think there's anything magic or unexplainable in any of this.
SO, does anyone here, who might share my view, have an opinion about, preferably based on practical experience, whether or not all amplifiers would sound the same when room correction is applied, given that the same room correction (and the same curves) is used on the amplifiers, and given that the amplifiers are not driven into distortion?
If they would sound the same, if I then choose Dirac Live it wouldn't matter if I buy a separate room correction unit or an amplifier with the room correction built in if they both use Dirac Live.

 

[Purité Audio]

If the amplifier is clipping , (distorting) then EQ won’t fix that , but I suppose you could adjust for example a rolled off treble response.
Keith

 

[veeceem]

@board I don't think all amps sound the same when RC is applied. I was using a Denon 1520ae with Anthem STR preamp (ARC applied) to drive Tannoy Kensington GR while waiting for NAD M22 v2 to arrive, while the bass is good and I would have no complain if I was to keep it that way. BUT when the NAD M22 v2 arrived (few days ago), it makes a world of a difference in Bass control (with RC applied), the start-stop of the bass-related-notes/frequencies are much more well-controlled, the "waves" that comes to me is now more presence. The mid-high sounds the same to me (I think)
And for RC, I now always listen with RC turned on cuz it gives better (accurate) bass and less boomy, ect... Btw, I only apply RC to below 500hz, I read somewhere that anything above 500hz is better to be dealt with by your speakers, switch to a better speakers if you think the mid and high is not good ARC also recommend not to correct above 5kHz thou it can go as high as 20kHz.
Ppl mostly use RC to deal with the bass-range which is hard to be treated by room-treatments, anyway.

 

[Absolute]

After replacing the Kii Three with the far cheaper Klipsch RP160m (I use two subs), I ended up correcting the average speaker listening window response measured near-field with biquads generated in REW for the Minidsp 4x10hd, and then adding a gentle downward tilt using two high-shelf filters for a total of about 3 dB fall.
This sounds better than full-range room correction either by Audiolense or Dirac, and if I use Audiolense to correct up to 300-500 hz the sound is even better still.

So I would suggest a Minidsp first to try and see if you can achieve the desired result just by correcting the speaker response itself. Cheap, efficient and fairly straightforward.

If you have sensitive speakers you'll hear the hizz from Minidsp quite easily unless you have the new Minidsp SHD.

 

[bilzebubba]

ARCAM has revised their entire line and, afaik, the SR250 is discontinued.

I am interested in this receiver or amps with similar capability. Ideally, a 2 channel HT-ready amp with sub-outs and Dirac of course and also hopefully a Roon Endpoint (though I could always use the Chromecast audio I am currently using. Is Arcam replacing it at all, or are any other manufacturers doing a semi-high end video-friendly solution? Most AVRs have tested badly here...Additionally, is the ability to downmix or whatever (sorry, kinda a newbie) dolby etc 5.1 to 2-channel unique to AVRs and does it even matter? Cheers

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I don't follow 2 channel stuff closely but Arcam will/does have new models which I have not studied.
AFAIK, the ability to decode/play/downmix such codecs is pretty much restricted to AVRs and to software players.

 

[bilzebubba]

I don't follow 2 channel stuff closely but Arcam will/does have new models which I have not studied.
AFAIK, the ability to decode/play/downmix such codecs is pretty much restricted to AVRs and to software players.

Thanks Kal! I looked on the Arcam website and as far as I could see right now they have multichannel only. As for decoding, currently my Android box decodes any codecs and outputs PCM to my Cambridge CXA80's Dac, not sure if that 'good enough' or what. These Arcam SR250s pop up from time to time used on Canuckaudiomart, but they are not Roon ready, so I would have to keep using my CC Audio for that. (Perhaps wait and see if Arcam keeps going?)

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Thanks Kal! I looked on the Arcam website and as far as I could see right now they have multichannel only.

How about this: https://www.arcam.co.uk/products,HDA,Integrated-Amplifier,SA30.htm

 

[bilzebubba]

How about this: https://www.arcam.co.uk/products,HDA,Integrated-Amplifier,SA30.htm

Yeah, I saw that, but it lacks Dirac Live, having only 3 presets or something, so I assumed it wasn't actually measuring the room, unlike the SR250 Tanks though

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Yeah, I saw that, but it lacks Dirac Live, having only 3 presets or something, so I assumed it wasn't actually measuring the room, unlike the SR250 Tanks though

Wrong assumption. How can it have any Dirac presets without running DiracLive to construct them? See: https://news.harman.com/releases/arcam-launches-sa30-integrated-amplifier

 

[bilzebubba]

Oh that's great, thank you, sir!

 

[Severian]

I use a Dayton Audio DSP-408 for crossover and room correction. I do wish it had digital input to avoid the extra ADC step. On the other hand, I find it to be audibly transparent and I am able to use my Atom for volume control for the entire system. My biggest complaint is that it's unbalanced.

 

[sfdoddsy]

I'm one of those people who do believe that there are audible differences between many amplifiers (but not all), but that most of this is due to differences in frequency response, which comes from the loudspeaker load. I don't think there's anything magic or unexplainable in any of this.
SO, does anyone here, who might share my view, have an opinion about, preferably based on practical experience, whether or not all amplifiers would sound the same when room correction is applied, given that the same room correction (and the same curves) is used on the amplifiers, and given that the amplifiers are not driven into distortion?
If they would sound the same, if I then choose Dirac Live it wouldn't matter if I buy a separate room correction unit or an amplifier with the room correction built in if they both use Dirac Live.

Personally, I don’t believe there is a difference between well-designed amps.

These days (tube amps aside) if there is a measurable frequency response difference between such amps it is because they are badly designed.

However, if you feel there is such a difference, I don’t think room correction will swamp the differences you think you are hearing.

The response errors RC tries to correct are vastly larger than those even the crappiest single-ended tube amp causes.

Thus RC in an average room creates an obvious and measurable difference. Done well, this is usually an improvement.

But given the nebulous nature of subjectivity, there is still lots of room for sonic amp-rolling.

 

[board]

Wrong assumption. How can it have any Dirac presets without running DiracLive to construct them? See: https://news.harman.com/releases/arcam-launches-sa30-integrated-amplifier

Kal, I think you have some experience with room correction. Is it your experience that two amps that sound different then sound almost identical when room correction is applied?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Kal, I think you have some experience with room correction. Is it your experience that two amps that sound different then sound almost identical when room correction is applied?

I have not done that test. All my REQ comparisons, before and after, have been with speakers and, while REQ reduces the differences between speakers, it does not erase them. OTOH, all those effects simply swamp the small differences among accurate, well-behaved power amplifiers.