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The goals and functions of Mini DSP HD 2x4

warthor

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I am watching a youtube video from Home Theater Gurus on the use of the Mini DSP HD 2x4 and REW. I think I understand the steps to go through to help subwoofer placement and balance. But I am a bit confused on the purpose and its use, though. I am planning to purchase one of these devices to get into the measurement aspect of improving my own home theater.

1) Why is this DSP needed in addition to the room correction of the receiver? I can't tell the difference in what the room correction and DSP are doing.

2) I only have one subwoofer at the moment. Is this useful?

3) Can I use these tools to measure the performance of my front speakers, or is that a different tool (maybe just the umic-1)? The reason I ask is because home theater gurus just uses the hardware and software for subwoofer performance. I would also like to make sure my listening positions have equal SPL for more frequencies than just low- frequencies.

Thanks,
Warthor
 

MZKM

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Room correction is DSP. You can’t adjust room correction usually though, it does it’s thing and you are stuck with it. Audyssey on Denon/Marantz receivers does have a $20 app where you can tweak the room correction though.

If you have separates, you can also use the MiniDSP on your speakers, that’s what I do (I have a secondary setup besides the one with my AVR).

If you just want to measure, just buy the UMIK and use REW. That alone is awesome for subwoofer placement, speaker placement, etc.
 

racerxnet

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You can use your laptop or PC to measure with REW. The cost: Zero. Next is a Umic-1 to measure with. If your receiver has built in room correction, look to see if the sub can be connected to it as well. What receiver do you have?

MAK
 
OP
W

warthor

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Room correction is DSP. You can’t adjust room correction usually though, it does it’s thing and you are stuck with it. Audyssey on Denon/Marantz receivers does have a $20 app where you can tweak the room correction though.

If you have separates, you can also use the MiniDSP on your speakers, that’s what I do (I have a secondary setup besides the one with my AVR).

If you just want to measure, just buy the UMIK and use REW. That alone is awesome for subwoofer placement, speaker placement, etc.

Okay, thanks for your input here. I am starting to get the picture. It seems so odd to me to plug in a new DSP device to a DSP device (somewhat redundant in my mind). I have the Klipsch RP-280F tower speakers as fronts. When you say separates, do you mean having two Mini DSP 2X4 (one for the sub and one for the front speakers)?

I will definitely get a umic right away for speaker and sub placement (they just came out with the umic 2 by the looks of it!). What would the advantage of the MiniDSP HD 2x4 be?

You can use your laptop or PC to measure with REW. The cost: Zero. Next is a Umic-1 to measure with. If your receiver has built in room correction, look to see if the sub can be connected to it as well. What receiver do you have?

MAK

I have the Yamaha RX-A3070, which uses the YPAO software. So I would not have the ability add filters in my receiver. This software appears to work with the sub. I can look into that.
 

JoostE

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Question (kind of highjacking this thread but seems wastefull to create a new one), has Amir or anyone else done measurements on the DAC's in miniDSPs? Especially the older/original models?

I own a 4x10 and use it for active crossovers, but I am curious if the DACs (and ADC in case of analogue signal) in there are bottle necks, and if going to a digital minidsp with seperate dacs would be a valid upgrade (that is going to be 4 seperate dacs though lol)
 

onion

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miniDSP is really good for multiple subs. It's a bit pointless for a single sub setup if your AVR does bass correction.

For a two-sub setup, many AVRs have two sub connectors but they are not independent of each other - in this case, miniDSP is worth it too.
 

JoostE

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I use an active crossover in a 4 way system, so thats a different story I guess ;)
 

JoostE

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Thanks a lot! Very helpful :) Happy to see the 4x10HD is not that bad after all! I am certainly not going to change that to a digital approach.

Reading this part:
From the noise plot below, I conclude that if you are using the balanced outputs, use the low gain setting (4.0 V). However, if you are using the unbalanced outputs, use the high gain setting (2.0 V). These settings will result in the best SNR and gain structure for your setup.

Might switch the output gain stages though, that's very interesting! Not sure I follow the line of thinking there though, I am somewhat new to all the graphs used, but why does he recommend the 2V output for unbalanced? The noise seems higher, and less constant in the 2V unbalanced (moves significantly around 7kHz). Could anyone help me with that line of thinking?

Follow up question, the 4x10 has 2 digital outputs, so I could in theory put 1 out of my 4 way to a digital output with a seperate (better) DAC. Where would the most benefit lie? My feeling says in the treble region (tweeter), but on the other hand, I have been watching all of Amirs youtube videos, and the human hearing seems to be far more critical in the base regions...
 

andyc56

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Here's a review of the miniDSP 4x10 HD from a site called "DIY Geezer" that is now offline, but still available on the Wayback Machine. Scroll down to where they show the problems with inaccurate frequency responses of filters having a very low cutoff frequency. This is due to the fixed-point DSP of the unit. The 2x4 HD has floating-point DSP and is not subject to this problem. Even though the 4x10 HD has the "HD" designation, it has more in common with the non-HD 2x4 units that also have fixed-point processing than it does with the 2x4 HD.
 
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