Digital Room Correction For Speakers

I use Dspeaker X4. Easy to use and awesome for sub integration if you run subs.

I do not use any subs. Will Speaker X4 still work?

It will smooth frequency response anywhere it detects an issue. So what are you trying to accomplish? Have you tried any acoustic treatments first.

In the price range we're playing any speaker is going to need room treatments and anyone with experience will tell you the least amount of electronic room correction needed the better the results will be. I'm in the same boat as you(or similar) with a room that has too much support in the mid bass region and not enough in the low bass. I'm working with a shop to balance thinks out with treatments.

I have installed GIK monster bass traps behind my speakers and audio rack and still have too much mid bass. Even went to the trouble of blocking the bass ports with foam.

steve59 if you can let us know which direction they go with your treatments.

Bass builds up in corners especially near the ceiling.Did you try the traps straddling the corners behind the speakers?Prop them up on the back of a dining room chair to get them up higher and see what you think.

I recommend Dirac Live. It's available in various products, as standalone computer software, and the most cost effective and flexible solution tends to be the miniDSP products. The newer SHD series can also be used to precisely integrate subwoofers, routing, and provide active crossover functionality.

The problem with this approach is the best it can do is flatten response at one location. But this comes at the cost of worse response at other locations. Not to mention all the problems inherent in equalization itself.

By far the better approach is to take whatever money you're thinking of spending on EQ and treat the room and speakers with HFTs. 

When I couldn’t get decent bass from my revel salon2’s I knew my room was a stinker and the experts said the only solution was multiple subs to eliminate the nulls. What about ARC? 

I gave up on conventional speakers and bought a pair of DSP8000’s and it works so digital room correction should work for you 

Minidsp 2 channel units like the DDRC22D or the surround units like the NanoAVR DL are quite easy to use and Dirac Live is currently the most advanced room correction available.

If you have bass nulls in your listening position, no amount of room correction can make it any better.  All room correction can do is tame any excess bass response from the room.

If you have more than a 6~ dB null at any given frequency, and you try to lift that, you will only destroy your speakers and get little to no more bass.  They’ll only be working harder.

The Vandersteen 11-band EQ only effects frequencies below 100 Hz. Knocking down the big bass humps really improves midrange transparency, though. They just added a subwoofer to their line, the Sub 3, with the 11-band EQ, so you can add this to any speakers now.

I’ve been using the free DRC-FIR software for digital room correction with excellent results. I use Room EQ Wizard and a Umik-1 USB mic for the room response measurements. DRC-FIR produces a filter file from the room measurements that can be used with a convolution engine in a digital music server like Roon or JRiver (I use the Logitech Media Server BrutefirDRC plugin).

http://drc-fir.sourceforge.net/
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Convolution

Legacy Wavelet which at full use is a DAC, pre-amp and RoomEQ is an outstanding example.  It can also be utilized only as a RoomEQ device with your own DAC and Pre-amp in front of it.  I've used it twice now with 2 generations of Legacy speakers with great results.  I have heard that Bill is starting to open up its use (or will) to pair with other speakers. Best to talk to Legacy direct about this and see where they are with this.

Any high end pre-pro (Marantz Onkyo, NAD Maaster, McIntosh, etc) equipped with Audyssey will work beautifully.   

Everything you can do to improve the acoustics of the room is what you should do first.

On top of that, well implemented digital room correction can be outstanding. I started down that path, then went 4 channels to add stereo subs, and now 6 ways to have the midbass in the towers on separate channels. 

How is your system configured? What source/s do you use?

Lyngdorfperiod. Rest of this stuff is Mickey Mouse. There are a couple much more expensive products out there too.

I tried bass traps and room treatment which helped the sound overall but did almost nothing to help my 2 problem areas, one around 50 hz and another around 110 hz. I bought a used DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core here on Audiogon and it worked wonders at a reasonable price.
The X4 mentioned earlier is an even better option but cost substantially more. Good luck!

Thanks for the tip on X4. I use the Anti-Mode 2.0 with very good results. Arc2 also make wonders for my desk-top systems. Older Lyngdorf makes too much bass in my opinion but have usable standard eq curves. The new Lyngdorf amp 3400 as Anti-Mode offer in addition to automatic dsd also manual settings which you need. Will soon start to use Dirac Live. Lots of audiophiles unnecessarily afraid of active room correction. Just measure you room and be shooked :-) Naturally you should do what you can with your room and listening position in the first. Mickey Mouse - why? Not very proffessional. We all know there are more expensive and even better products.

1) Treatment, which you already have.  
  
2) Mutliple subs, either through Geddes’ approach or the standard symmetrical one. 
 
3) EQ. If wanting to use it also as your DAC/pre-amp, the MiniDSP SHD with DIRAC is high enough in quality where it can be considered audibly transparent. 
 
You should always take multiple measurements, but 90% should be around the main listening position, with some spurious measurements in other seating areas (which aren’t close to a side/rear wall).

Some more experience here:

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/dspeaker-anti-mode-x4.26851/

Thanks for the great review. I need to look into this system.

There´s also Trinnov in that price range.

One thing I believe is that active room correction actually means different speakers can compete in the same room on a more even basis. You hear that the difference between speakers after correction is actually less than before, which means the room interaction on different speaker accounts for the main difference in sound. You can now concentrate on dynamics, resolution, tonal qualities, edgeness etc that is left.

Can the DSpeaker X4, be used strictly for room equalization and not as a preamp or dac?

The Anti-mode 2.0 can. Surely also the X4. But the 2.0 has enough possibilities to make you occupied until summer! What the 2.0 miss and the X4 has is a xo bass management system. I use a Lyngdorf RP-1 or 2200 amp for this. 

Contuzzi, I believe you because trial and error showed me that every full range speaker I tried performs the same in the low fq’s. I found the old r107’s that vented all the bass out the top did better and now an active pair with side firing woofers does a manageable job. 

DSP in Roon? Mine offers 5 bands of adjustable equalization on a slide so I slide a point that I want to tweak and select up or down. Samar might be able to use it to reduce the mid bass hump he’s been fighting with?

I do have Roon in my set up. How do you get their equalization feature? Thanks.

on the bottom right corner theres a volume and dsp setting I push the dsp and it brings me to the screen where I can select, name and save settings. I'm out for now but will ck back.

How happy are you users of Speaker X4? Does it fix one problem and create another or does it take the sole out of the music. If it fixes a bass boom will it harm elsewhere?

Does your version of Roon have the feature I suggested? tbh I just noticed it this weekend and I bought the nucleus over 6 mos ago...now  that i've found this feature i'm begining to think I should have bought the N+ instead of the base model.

samgar2 in my system with Dspeaker X4 it cleans up 50-100hz and makes for tighter bass, better imaging, smoother midrange and cleaner highs. When I fire up the subs it integrates them perfectly and you would have no idea subs are in the system.

Hello Steve:

Are you talking strictly about the Roon software program.

Yes, you asked where the DSP processing was located on the screen and I’m asking if you found it.
I expect it could look different depending on the screen or format where it is actually located. On mine it’s next to the volume.

 Hello Steve:

i have a MAC computer and when I click on Roon, I cannot find anything in regard to equalization.

Generally speaking, most folks do not want a DSP processor in their music system. Most rooms are an easy fix just in the bass frequencies below 130 HZ.
 Vandersteen 5 series, Quatro series, Treo's with Sub 3s have a unique 100 HZ high pass unloads the heavy lifting for the main amp and allows the speakers internal solid state amp to take care of the bass frequencies, in room compensation adjustments takes out your room/placement issues dramatically improving transparency and clarity of the whole system while not making Frank S sound towards Tiny Tim.
JohnnyR
Vandersteen dealer

I’m using an iPad to control a Roon nucleus and on the bottom right corner is a volume control when I press it i get a dsp and settings symbol and pressing that symbol gets me to the menu screen for a 5 band eq. I know boosting fq’s with equalization is asking for trouble but there’s dsp programs becoming standard and experimenting with lowering bass at 100 hz wherever your mic is telling you to won’t hurt and can easily be undone 

Audioconnection let me understand what you posted. Don’t use dsp but instead sell your speakers and buy vandys with built in adjustable subs instead? I think the music loudspeakers pretty much walk all over anything out there once dialed in

Steve, are you talking about The Music speakers from Vienna Acoustics?

Those are the ones 

I’m partial to va but let the pair on ag selling for $10k get away. 

Hows the DSP in Roon working out for you? Mine is v1 #174 

I don't have a the Roon device, just the software in my computer. I love my VA Music speakers but am having a slight problem with mid bass boom. Thinking about buying a DSPeaker X4 digital room correction device to fix the problem or selling the speakers. Have you heard of anyone using the X4 with VA speakers?

Sorry, the only one I’ve played with is the one in Roon and honestly these last speakers have been easy to place. 

DEQX will allow you to do speaker and room equalization.  It can be used for bi or triamping as well.
www.deqx.com

I recently used the services of home audio fidelity in the Netherlands to provide room correction filters that I applied in Roon with excellent results. Read the review below.

It cost me about $100 for the Dayton microphone and $200 for Thierry’s services. So for $300 all up I was able to get a massive improvement. 

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/digital-reviews/audio-software-reviews/home-audio-fidelity-loudspeakers-room-digital-correction-services/

I tried DSpeaker, ARC/Paradigm PBK, a JBL Synthesis EQ and Audyssey to no avail. Of those, ARC was the best, but it still messes with areas I don't want it to mess with. 

I have opted for a Mini DSP with an Earthworks Mic to measure from the listening position. I will start first by saying you’ll have room nodes no matter what software you use or physical traps you have. They can mitigate it slightly but the software needs ‘tools’ to assist it and those are other speakers that can offset the waves building up in the room. . . I have four subs and run my speakers at full range to correct my room issues.

You do the measurements in Room EQ Wizard and process the results in Multi Sub Optimizer both free and powerful (please donate to the cause). It seems daunting at first but if you follow a tutorial on MSO and use your data it is fairly easy. The mic needs an interface to the Mini DSP and they make one that will work ok if you use a low cost USB Mic. The Earthworks needs a power source and so I have a audio interface with two channels, one to be used as a loopback timing reference and one as a balanced connection to the mic with level adjustments on it. The USB then interfaces with the computer as a USB Mic would.

Anyway you can enter up to 12 biquad filters for each channel in the Mini DSP which is impressive and extremely powerful. You will be blown away by the accuracy and how clean the sound and image become after going through this excercise. I’m happy to give some tips if you want to dive in, it isn’t without a cost: I have almost as much invested in my subs as my main speakers (I don’t think this is totally necessary but good subs are a must), space considerations, and added complexity to the system.

I assume you've already done this, but in case you haven't I'd try pulling your speakers further out into the room and maybe toe them in a little more. 

If you really like your speakers and can't tame the bass hump with placement or additional room treatments, I'd definitely go for some room EQ rather than go through the hassle and expense of finding new speakers that may end up having the same problem.  Don't think you can go wrong with the DSpeaker X4, but it's got a lot of features you're not gonna use, which seems a shame.  You might consider the anti-mode 2.0 with the outboard power supply and save $2500.  I know the review mentioned above said it had some noise and imaging shortcomings, but I've not read that from other reviews and I'd bet the upgraded power supply will help in those areas.  FWIW.  Here's the link to Underwood Hifi...

https://www.underwoodhifi.com/products/dspeaker

Best of luck with this, and let us know how you make out. 

Thanks SOIX2:

I appreciate your feedback and have been talking to Underwood Hifi and will most likely go with room EQ. My only fear with EQ is that it might take away the good sound and not only the bass. Do you use any room EQ?

Thanks,
Sam