Wharfedale Linton Heritage with Audiophonics HPA-S250NC first REW meauserements

[PeterNL]

Hi ASR community. I have recently changed my whole audio setup, went from Topping D10s, Moon I-1 (Moon 250i) and Audio Physic Yara Evolution to SMSL Sanskrit 10th mk2, Audiophonics HPA-S250NC and Wharfedale Linton Heritage.
I am very happy of my new setup but my room i just a small living room where I enjoy my time with my wife and daughter. Room is with open kitchen, not acoustically treated.
Please look at the graphs if you have a time, does it look very bad ?
I have also Dirac Live standalone, which i`m going to use in the future, already using it with my Kali LP6v2 in my other room.
In advance thanks for any advice and comments.
BTW thank you ASR for every information, great community which helped me to choose the right path in my audio experience and also helped saving a lot of money and protect me from BS and snake oil things.

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[PeterNL]

Speakers distance from front wall is 67 cm.
Distance between the speakers is 230 cm.
Distance from sofa/listening position is 410 cm.
Sofa is unfortunately situated close against rear wall.

 

[_thelaughingman]

Kudos, that's a great setup and love the ambient lighting.

 

[PeterNL]

For comparison I'm going to add my previous meauserments of Audio Physic Yara Evolution, measured from closer distance (midfield):

 

[PeterNL]

 

[PeterNL]

View attachment 296129

 

[Matias]

I suggest using Var smoothing and 60 dB range on the Y-axis, this is more common used and easier to evaluate as far as I know.

 

[PeterNL]

So looking at all the graphs, also Audio Physic with and without Dirac room correction, probably I will be able to correct FR (also clarity as well as decay times) of Lintons using Dirac Room Correction. I only have to figure out which curve I will use, like +6dB Harman Curve but it might be a bit bass heavy with Lintons.

 

[PeterNL]

I am streaming audio from PC NUC (Jriver, Qobuz, Foobar and YT), use no other sources.
Is smsl Sanskrit 10th MK2 good enough ? Probably good DAC with good SINAD, but is it good enough as pre/volume control for Audiophonics HPA-S250NC ? Volume control in smsl has 40 steps (-40 to 0), i'm listening at -20 -10 (very loud). Best performance is at 0dB (2.1Vrms), don't know how much dynamic range and sinad i'm loosing at lower volume levels.
I would be able to stretch my budget and buy better pre/DAC like RME, Schiit Freya, Topping PRE90 but looking at price paid for this setup (1100euro which is great value), paying another 700-900 euro for preamp/dac only doesn't make a sense or i see it wrong and advantage of better pre will be big ?

 

[PeterNL]

Today I did Dirac adjustment, just standard Dirac curve and +2.5dB to -2,5dB curve:

What do you think guys ?

 

[ZolaIII]

I don't know, does it sound bright like that? It douse looks like it. How about that you push them to the back wall as much as you can? As I imagine pushing them more out (100~120 cm all together) is out of the question. Then measure the L-R chenels independently and correct mayor bass peaks with PEQ, sort of to get them close to each other (L & R chenel response) and only then apply Dirac over it. When you are done do JRiver white noise calibration to 83 dB mono (86 or a bit more stereo) and then enable WDM driver and Loudness in JRiver and control volume trough it (that's what I am doing anyway).
REW target I am certain using is: LF rise start 160 Hz, end 57 Hz, LF slope 1.7 dB (per octave), HF fall start 1000 Hz, HF slope 1.4 dB and it works pretty good for me. It looks like this (with my speakers and sub of course):

 

[PeterNL]

As you can see there is a pretty big 150-400Hz dip, I don't want to try to fix it using EQ, maybe i will try to use/make some rockwool panels and place it behind the speakers.

 

[ZolaIII]

As you can see there is a pretty big 150-400Hz dip, I don't want to try to fix it using EQ, maybe i will try to use/make some rockwool panels and place it behind the speakers.

Try to fix what you can by placement first, I patched mine partly by placing them to the wall. It would be better if I could move them out meter or more but it's a small room and extremely unpractical however half way is the worst. Now I feel a little bit hole around 200 Hz still keeping distortion under control and it works and sounds nice. To really improve ISO 3382-1 early-to-late arriving sound energy in lows you need much more than 4~5" absorber panels (you need 12~13" cages and with speaker out 1m or more). So minimal time together is your better bet. Yust try it out, it doesn't cost you nothing more than a little of your time and effort.
Edit: when you do L and R measurements with speakers to the wall post them I would like to see them.

 

[TurtlePaul]

I would try to add a + 6dB / 225 hz / Q 1.5 filter to try to fix the midbass and add some texture to the low bass. However, I am too lazy to make panels and you need big ones to fix 200 hz anyways. It looks too impractical to solve further from the wall or via absorption. Maybe all the way up against the wall is the right move.

 

[PeterNL]

I would try to add a + 6dB / 225 hz / Q 1.5 filter to try to fix the midbass and add some texture to the low bass. However, I am too lazy to make panels and you need big ones to fix 200 hz anyways. It looks too impractical to solve further from the wall or via absorption. Maybe all the way up against the wall is the right move.

Thank You for advice but i'm afraid that bouncing this frequency +6dB, using just EQ probably will cause big phase shift and other problems.

 

[PeterNL]

Try to fix what you can by placement first, I patched mine partly by placing them to the wall. It would be better if I could move them out meter or more but it's a small room and extremely unpractical however half way is the worst. Now I feel a little bit hole around 200 Hz still keeping distortion under control and it works and sounds nice. To really improve ISO 3382-1 early-to-late arriving sound energy in lows you need much more than 4~5" absorber panels (you need 12~13" cages and with speaker out 1m or more). So minimal time together is your better bet. Yust try it out, it doesn't cost you nothing more than a little of your time and effort.
Edit: when you do L and R measurements with speakers to the wall post them I would like to see them.

I will try to reposition my speakers and remeasure, soon after I will be back from holidays.

 

[PeterNL]

I don't know, does it sound bright like that? It douse looks like it. How about that you push them to the back wall as much as you can? As I imagine pushing them more out (100~120 cm all together) is out of the question. Then measure the L-R chenels independently and correct mayor bass peaks with PEQ, sort of to get them close to each other (L & R chenel response) and only then apply Dirac over it. When you are done do JRiver white noise calibration to 83 dB mono (86 or a bit more stereo) and then enable WDM driver and Loudness in JRiver and control volume trough it (that's what I am doing anyway).
REW target I am certain using is: LF rise start 160 Hz, end 57 Hz, LF slope 1.7 dB (per octave), HF fall start 1000 Hz, HF slope 1.4 dB and it works pretty good for me. It looks like this (with my speakers and sub of course):
View attachment 296306

I am still learning how to properly do correction using PEQ, rephase and virtual bass array (watching all films on YT, especially made by @OCA - great job btw !! ), following different threads where @ernestcarl is involved. Evere day I learn something new and trying to focus not ONLY at frequency response.
Jriver idea is very good to use it as loudness and use its volume control, then I will be able to let smsl to operate at its maximum sinad (0dB) but i'm just little bit afraid what could happen when wdm or jriver crashes or restore its settings.
Anyway thanks a lot for great advice.

 

[PeterNL]

I would like to ask @ernestcarl and @OCA and off course everyone who is interested, could you look at my measurements and compare with measurements which Marcin did in his thread about Kef R3 ?
I mean, we are trying to figure out, how to do correction properly using Dirac (me) and RP (Marcin) and letting algorithms do their job without engaging still difficult for us manual EQ until we know how to do it good.
I am using PC version of Dirac, still struggling how to find/make a perfect target curve and how to set curtains (low end) to let speakers roll off naturally instead of extending frequency even lower what causes rise of low end distortions.

Is Dirac correcting phase shift in much different way than Room Perfect ? What about IR and GD etc ? While I'm still learning I can not spot the most important details, but is fun to learn, same way I've learned how to spot and interpretation of signals on Forex market

Thank You in advance for any advice, tips and tricks.

PS. If Dirac is not good enough, I'll be able to do 100% manual EQ from scratch to get best results, I think Marcin wants to squeeze 100% from Lyngdorf (and he has right, paying a lot of money for their flagship streamer/amplifier he is expecting high performance of Room Correction system).

 

[goat76]

As others have said, I think you should try to solve the upper bass/low mid valley by changing the distance to the back wall. I guess the sound lacks body as it is right now.

My suggestion is that you make a bunch of measurements starting with the speaker against the back wall, then move the speaker out from the wall with 10 centimeters steps up to say 120 centimeters out to get an idea of what will happen to that valley with different distance to the wall.
The lack of energy seems to be similar for both speakers in that frequency area so you can concentrate on making the different measurements with just one of the speakers.
I do understand that a long distance as 120 centimeters out from the wall may be impractical in your room, but you will at least get an idea of how your speakers work in your room and it can hopefully help you find the best possible compromise with the distance and what practically work in your room.

When you have found a distance that works in your room and at least reduced that valley, you can compensate for it by adding a subwoofer (or two) to your system to fill out the rest.
Acoustic panels can also help to reduce the problem further, just make sure they are thick enough to be effective down to 100-125 Hz, and that you place them on the wall inside the speakers where the reflection points are. Use a mirror to make sure of the reflection point, the TV may take up that space already.

As a last and final step, you can use EQ to compensate for the rest that you couldn’t solve with the things mentioned above.

1. Change the position of the speakers.
2. Add subwoofers to fill in the valley.
3. Add acoustic panels at the reflection points.
4. Use EQ to solve what is left to be solved.

That's my take on it anyway, and the approach I would take in your situation.

 

[PeterNL]

Small update, speakers moved against front wall: