Copland DRC205 digital room correction

Wazmoh, I do believe I had the DRC connected when I installed the program but I will try the "un-install" and attempt to install it again and see what happens. The manual states it is Windows 98 compatable, but who knows.

Another quibble, the instructions for making the microphone measurements are severly lacking with regards to orientation. They say to position the mic at your listening position at ear level and that's it. When I first made the measurement, I had the mic facing forward and that was wrong. The mic doesn't appear to be an omni but it must be. I ran the measurement again holding the mic vertically and obtained far better results.

Wazmoh, I used a somewhat older laptop with XP Pro with the software installed. Then I connected the DRC205 and it displays a message that it cannot connect to a USB device. Here is where the computer is supposed to show "New Hardware connected to...." and then you can load the drivers for the USB to Serial conversion drivers. But when I point it to the CD drive to the "i386" directory for the "drivers" it displays that there is no appropriate files for the system to install. I believe the computer is looking for an *****.inf type file to load the drivers with, but there is no ****.inf designated file on that whole installation CD. This is extremely frustrating because I purchased the unit from Divertech since I did not know of any distributors in the U.S. at the time. They are of absolutely no help, and Copland has no email addresses listed on their website. I also tried using the latest drivers from FTDI.com but they do not work either. Thank you for any help you can think of.

That is frustrating! I have a busy schedule for the next few days but I will try to repeat the installation and take some notes. I'll also get in touch with my local rep and see whether he has any ideas.

I borrowed a laptop from my dealer and finally got to see what my room graph looked like. It is very interesting to see how the individual channels measure differently. I made my own P1 curve last night which will require a couple of days of listening to fully assess. I plan to make a P2 curve also so I have some variation to play with. I think the bass balance from the flat A1 curve is fine but it needs to be dialed in differently for the mids and treble. This is an exciting tool to learn and use.

It has been a steep learning curve so far. The flat frequency response into the room in the treble freqencies does not sound right. Looking at the in-room frequency graphs of the more highly regarded speakers measured by Stereophile, all show a decreasing response in the top end, usually ending up around -5 to -10 db at 10000 hz. The thing to remember, when adjusting the filters is that you are manipulating the measured room response and not the speaker response.

My basic setting for P1 after 6 days of trial and error has resulted in using the "shelving high" filter set at 4000 hz with the level set at -3.0 db and a Q of .6. The other filter I used was the "low pass" filter set to 12500 hz with a Q of .5. I left the bass and midrange frequencies set to flat. So far this has resulted in the most natural balance. With this setting, I have a -7 db point at 10000 hz for an in-room setting.

The supplied manual isn't very helpful with instructions at "how to" achieve an acceptable in-room response. Perhaps some other users can relate their experience as well.