Understanding the state of the DSP market

[LionIT]

Why is that a problem for you?

Today a software continually needs to be maintained given the functional/security updates of frameworks and operating systems, and if for any reason he stops to do so... my money are gone in to the trash if something breaks.

 

[gnarly]

What's not usually pointed out hard enough is data acquisition. Bad data equals bad results no matter what any of the solutions do afterwards.

I could not agree more !!!

And the first decision is what data do I want for what purpose?

Is it data to correct my speaker in any room it goes in, like a manufacturers' anechoic data, or a DIY speaker builders' needed measurements?
Is it data to put an already fully anechoic optimized into a room?
Or in most all home-audio cases, is it an attempt to both of the above, in one step?

- ditching everything, hiring pros or back to first square doing everything "fresh" but without a way to get those precious reliable, useful data so the loophole goes on.

Yep. I ditched the idea I knew enough to make good measurements after a few years, and decided to hire pros.
But for education on how to measure, not to come to my house and set up my systems. So I've attended 8 days of formal training with Smaart, and for the last year or so attend weekly training classes on what i feel is the most advanced prosound measurement & simulation software I've found, Crosslite+.

My purpose is DIY speaker building. How I wish I had a good sized anechoic chamber...I'd take it over a Kippel NFS.
Good data to tune a speaker with is so hard to acquire without either of those ime/imo, because It's like being a backyard auto-mechanic....literally!
(good data by my definition, is repeatable and holds up spatially)

My best backyard chamber Lol. Multiple mics vertically on mast, speaker sits on turntable. About 25ms reflection free.
Subs get tested ground plane on driveway.

 

[Sokel]

What is bad data? Or when is data bad?

With pros you mean speaker manufacturers?

I mean acoustic scientists and engineers with formal education.

 

[gnarly]

What is bad data? Or when is data bad?

With pros you mean speaker manufacturers?
IF so why should i decipher and replicate what these pros do, given the huge differences in speakers?

For me, bad data:
is not repeatable,
or varies with relatively small changes in measurement position,
lacks coherence (which is an indicator of multiple arrivals making the data kind of worthless to act on,
or is unsuitable for the task at hand...like trying take take a room impulse response, with a RTA.

I hope by pros, it's meant as proaudio.....live, install, and commercial studio.
Much more consistent there, than home audio, ime/imo.

 

[DWPress]

What I find even more ironic is that an even smaller number of people are willing to use a free DSP tool. It seems that a product only gains respect when there’s a price tag attached. This is likely because only paid products get proper promotion on these platforms, but it’s still noticeable.

I think REW is mentioned more here on ASR than the automated $ystems, maybe it's just the threads I read. Specifically people ask how to interpret results, usually were presented with a smoothed response with no other information to go on and a few pages later we finally get some information needed to actually be helpul.

But like @Sokel said, there's just not enough reliable, accessible information on HOW to do the measurement in the first place. There are endless guides and videos, some completely wrong, that walk through what to do with that flawed measurement once you have it. I know it took me years to establish controls in my method to get repeatable results with my DIY speakers IN my room and there are still plenty of things I could obsess over though with diminishing returns.

Perhaps we should start a thread here on best practices for in-room measurements we can direct people to.

 

[Mort]

Are in-room measurements really that difficult?

 

[Purité Audio]

Are in-room measurements really that difficult?

No.
Keith

 

[DWPress]

Are in-room measurements really that difficult?

They certainly are if you haven't done it before.

 

[Mort]

They certainly are if you haven't done it before.

Sure, but all the debate above seems to imply it's hopeless for a consumer to get good in-room results. I have not found that it's that difficult.

 

[Digital_Thor]

Are in-room measurements really that difficult?

It depends - Murphy's law is very much a thing

 

[DWPress]

Sure, but all the debate above seems to imply it's hopeless for a consumer to get good in-room results. I have not found that it's that difficult.

It's not, but you have the knowledge to do it. Changing the oil in a vehicle is even more trivial but very few do it themselves for lack of proper tools and knowledge.

 

[Purité Audio]

USB microphone and a laptop.
Keith

 

[DWPress]

USB microphone and a laptop.

Those are the tools. If I set my microphone on a pillow at LP (like I see so often) am I going to get a reliable repeatable result?

That's why I suggested a thread defining best practices for in-room measurements. I'll freely admit I'm not qualified to start such a thread.

 

[Purité Audio]

You are only going to be correcting low bass, so that will be fine, don’t move the microphone between measurements.
Keith

 

[Sokel]

You are only going to be correcting low bass, so that will be fine, don’t move the microphone between measurements.
Keith

Time?
Phase?
Subs - mains interaction? (that's building a speaker essentially)
One seat? Many seats?
Asymmetric room or room furniture?

That's what people are asking for, not cutting couple of peaks below 80Hz.

 

[Mort]

I dunno. This seems like a form of gatekeeping.
"No one can really do this well enough on their own. Nothing will be precise enough."
There's no crisis in Room Correction for consumers.

 

[Purité Audio]

Mort said ‘good in room results’ which rather implies a finished speaker in room.
Krith

 

[Sokel]

Mort said ‘good in room results’ which rather implies a finished speaker in room.
Krith

Mort has Genelec sub with GLM if I'm not mistaken, he has this covered.
Tell that to the rest of the people who mix'n'match and want decent results.

DSP is a tool, we read just yesterday someone here crossing its sub at 200Hz (!) to get this nice advertised flat line.

Don't you think is time to stop praising it so much (this flat Harman "target" ) and land in real world?

 

[Mort]

Yes, I have GLM and DiracLive and REW for checking. I'm no expert.
I guess I don't know what the basis of comparison is.

 

[gnarly]

Sure, but all the debate above seems to imply it's hopeless for a consumer to get good in-room results. I have not found that it's that difficult.

I apologize for no doubt being one of the folks talking about the difficultly.
As I strongly encourage folks to measure, and hopefully have fun getting ever better results.

My experience is it is fairly easy to get a good measurements to a spot...just keep measuring and fiddling with corrections until all looks and sounds better than before.
So yes to not difficult.

Here's the problem for me though.... i do it all again, do the same thing and again get good looking measurements (and pleasing sound! ).
Then I see how well the measurement sets match. Never really all that close.
Then I say to self, oh well, I can measure better than what I can't hear.
So I take the time to make processor presets to A/B between the corrections each measurement set produced.
Ugh, I can hear a difference....and one doesn't sound as good (but both measurements looked good???!!!.)

How much dart throwing, self-confirmation am I doing? A lot it seems...