Digital Room Correction For Speakers

soix +1. 

@samgar2 -- Not right now.  My system is in a basement on a concrete slab, and in that room I'm not feeling much need for it.  But every system I've heard EQ in, it produced significant improvements that far outweighed any downside.  Given what you're describing I think there's a good chance you're going to like what you hear.  Most good EQ systems don't do much to frequencies that already measure flat but rather attenuate the ones that are overdone.  

MHO...OK, my preferences....I've been running 'active room eq' for nearly two decades now.  I prefer to 'run the space flat' since I've never had, nor wish for, a 'dedicated listening space', 'man cave', or the like.  Doesn't really fit my/our 'lifestyle', of which music is a semi-daily sort of thing.

You can't substantially change the room.  You can stuff various 'n sundry about, absorbing this or that.  But you're still in the same space with the same dimensions, same fundamentals and harmonics.

If one gets religious about it, one can take the calibrated mike, run samples of multiple points within the space, & average it out.  It may sound a tad odd for awhile, but after awhile one gets the point that you're getting to hear the music rather than the room and/or the equipment.

Works for me, anyway.  We'll all do what scratches the itch, after all. *G* ;)

I wonder why no one ever talks about master setting speakers.  If you own a piano, I am sure you would want to tune it.

Trinnov Amethyst

This has not been mentioned here, but in my experience, using dipole speakers (especially dipole bass) is a very effective way of reducing room interaction to start with (as in LXmini / LX521 speakers).

i have owned and used DIRAC mini dap and DEQX HDP-4

the DIRAC was easy to use and pretty good results by I expect you could achieve  very similar results with the Roon EQ and using your ears.

DEQX speaker correction was a clear win however you need a lot of patience and and hard work to fully understand and implement the rest of it effectively. great if you like this type of project where you can experiment endlessly but perhaps also leaves you constantly wondering if you have achieved the best results or not!

for a bass issue (and where room treatment may not be pratical) i would use Roon EQ by ear, and experiment with speaker placement.

I agree with soix recommendations. I thought of changing speakers myself after trying room treatments that did little to correct my bass problems. I also tried putting the supplied port plugs in my speakers that helped a little but I did not like the overall sound with them in place.
The DSPeaker 2.0 Dual Core was a major improvement over everything else I tried.

I wouldnt mess with EQ. If you have room modes you can solve this by adding mass to the room. An example would be to get concrete forms and fill them with sand. Books or albums can also help. Find a room mode calculator to see where your problem areas lie and then fix it in a way that will not detract from your sound. 

Any room EQ can fix some problems but might degrade the sound on other areas because every component that implement equaliser manipulate the sound and harm the original recording .You should be very careful once you decide to buy room EQ it's better to check it in your system and in your room what is exactly its affect on the sound and if you like it or not.

Please take a moment to research how these EQs work and then ask yourself if this method sounds like something that makes sense and will not degrade your sound. Look in detail at how these EQs address the offending frequencies from the ones that dont have problems and how subsequent changes are made. A bit of research and a small amount of money will fix the problems permanently and without any downside. I think that the problem is not the equipment but how the equipment interacts with the room. 

I use a DSPeaker X4 in my system but only for the subs without any interference above 79Hz where it is crossed over. I simply wanted the best bass correction solution without interfering with the pristine signal to my main speakers from my own DAC regardless of cost. The X4 has done a stellar job, my bass has never been better. My DAC is an EMM DA2 and my preamp a Merrill Audio Christine. I did not want to interfere at all with the signal coming from these amazing components and going to my Pipedream speakers, so I run a second full signal to the X4 from the second output on the preamp (luckily Merrill Audio Christine has two outputs available!). The DSPeaker X4 allows a million adjustments, and I let it pick the crossover (79Hz) and had some golden-eared friends (thank you Merrill from Merrill Audio and Larry from Distinctive Stereo!) make the fine adjustments. So now I have 2 full signals going from the preamp to two sets of amps, one to the Pipedream's amps untouched by the X4 and it's DAC and the other full signal to the X4 for processing and then on to the subwoofer amps. It's perfect.

samgar,

In my prior post I asked which sources you used. This is important because if you had analog sources then a good solution becomes more complex. But I see you are only talking Roon, so that simplifies things.

As noted above, "solutions" can be as simple as implementing a parametric eq by ear on Roon to the DEQX-HDP4 soma mentioned. Of course with varying results.

The DEQX is probably the best solution, and also the most expensive.

But you have Roon that can convolve digital filters that were taken to correct for the room. Their effectiveness is directly connected to how those filters were developed.

I use a software called Acourate. Quite sophisticated and time consuming to learn, as it's super flexible. You need a mic and and mic pre, and analog to digital conversion. I generate the correction filters, then run them through HQPlayer in my audio computer. And have Roon in another computer feeding HQPlayer the music. Sounds amazing. The solution I think is on par with DEQX, depending on what hardware you use. Dirac is another good software solution, easier to use than Acourate, but less flexible.

But then someone mentioned there are services doing the measurements for you, so they could bring mic, pre and ADC, take the measurements, do the corrections, and provide you with the filters for you to convolve in Roon. That might be a good first step for you.

In my view well implemented digital room correction is hard to beat. I wouldn't live without it. As usual, implementation is the key/tricky piece.

Hi Sam,

    Try Room EQ, just remember your dealing with a multiheaded hydra. EQ is only part of the answer. The room is the problem and you may need more speakers to offset the standing waves in the room. 

Good Luck! 
Steve

I want to thank everyone for giving me feed back and words of wisdom in regard to my bass boom. I did go the route of the DSPeaker X4 digital room correction device and must say it has worked miracles to my system. My room being 24 X 26 with 2 different or should I say opposing cathedral ceilings and much glass is an audio nightmare.  The X4 reduced the frequencies between 70hz and 150hz by as much a 10db fixing the problem. The good news is that is did nothing to the mid range and treble. It is not an inexpensive device but for what it does, it is worth the price. 

Case closed! congrats. The only way I would have suggested yo sell those speakers is if we were neighbors and I could have taken them off your hands for you.

Thanks Steve, I appreciate all your input.

i tried Room EQ with just my laptop mic in test mode... i thought it worked great. Somebody else posted that the difference in the corrected sound is that it is not forward nor fatiguing at all... really nice with no annoying humps... uncorrected it is like the speakers are saying 'hey, notice me!'... I actually like it both ways depending on loudness.. but if wanna turn the dial to the right, Room EQ is very good and works as a Plugin with Audirvana.

I think your spell checker was correcting Roon and replacing it with room? I know I’m a Neanderthal besides being smart phone stupid I had my roon nucleus for 6 months b4 I stumbled into the DSP eq in the program. First time I used it the warning light turned yellow and started blinking. Oh well 

The best out there right now is the Trinnov Amethyst. It will do everything for you including bass and sub woofer management. It uses a very special microphone to calibrate the system and it does so from various points in the room. I have been using digital room control since Radomir Bozevic, "Boz" dropped TACT Audio on the world. Lyngdorf was his financial partner at the time. Boz was the brains and the reason TACT failed. Anyway, a system with an ultra high def room control processor will put an identical system without to shame. Controlling over all frequency response is just one small part of it. Making the response of the speakers identical at the listening position probably the most important part of it. Your brain locates a sound by relative volume an time differences between your ears. if some frequencies are louder from one speaker than the other you smear the image. The most important benefit of room control is razor sharp imaging. Being able to equalize the sound to your taste is nice but the imaging is amazing. You still have to do basic things to your room like kill the primary reflections. Is there a down side? Yes. The top notch systems are expensive. The Amethyst is $11,000.

Thanks for your reply in regard to digital room correction. I went with the DSpeaker X4 and am very happy with how it takes care of my slight bass hump around 150 to 200 hz. I do not use sub-woofers so could you please tell me what Amethyst brings to the table.  The X4 was only $3750.00 on sale and greatly improves the sound when I care to use it.  Thanks for your feed-back.

Sam

@lewinskih01 Would you mind giving examples of the following components you use for Acourate file creation?

You need a mic and and mic pre, and analog to digital conversion

I am about to take the plunge in with the Acourate software. I got the following book to lead me through it. I do not have a mic, mic pre and an ADC.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FURPS40/ref=pe_385040_118058080_TE_M1DP

Certainly don't mind! They are also a consequence of how I got to this point, so let me provide more for perspective.

Years ago I went from to PC as front end, after reading Mitch Barnett's articles on computeraudiophile about using Acourate for room correction. I was hesitant initially, so bought a Dayton EMM-6 calibrated much and a Tascam US-122mkII to connect the mic, convert from analog to digital and connect to the PC. I started with 2-channel digital room correction. I was using my audiophile -channel DAC for playback.

I then wanted to explore multichannel stereo, following Mitch's articles. I purchased a Lynx Hilo as multichannel DAC/ADC, like Mitch had. I still have it.

Uli Brueggemann, the man behind Acourate, recommends using the same device for DAC and ADC. So I use the Hilo. But the Hilo doesn't have a mic pre, so currently I use the Tascam set up so it just passes the analog signal it gets from the mic onto the Hilo analog in.

Depends on the soundcard you use (Hilo in my case), you may or may not need a separate mic pre. Prism Titan, for example, includes mic pres. 

Ulis also recommends not using USB mics. as they are converting analog to digital internally.

Is all this absolutely critical? Dunno! 

BTW, I have the book you linked to and is very good.

Hope this helps!

@lewinskih01 Thanks for the info. Today, with the experience you have gained, what mic, mic pre and ADC would you get for 2 channel only processing?

As an FYI:

In my room small room I will have 2 systems.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7605

My existing KEF LS50 will get a 3-D audio software processor. I was in contact with the following manufacturer and this sounds like something very interesting to try for about $5K. The hardware version of this setup is over $50K but I can try the same functionality with my computer based system.

There is a microphone component that is part of this system along with something called a Babyface Pro http://babyface.rme-audio.de/
that is used to do the binaural microphone input into a computer. I wonder if the microphone and Babyface interface can work with Acourate?

We also noted from the pics you noted that you must be computer savvy. In that case, you may wish to consider our BACCH4Mac sofwatre-based product which is much more affordable than the BACCH-SP. It is designed for computer audiophiles and the same functionality of the BACCH-SP (and more).

You can learn more about BACCH4Mac on this webpage: https://www.theoretica.us/bacch4mac/ and read this critical review by a well-known audio critic: https://www.audiostream.com/content/bacch4mac-3d-audio-playback-system

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/theoretica-applied-physics-bacch-sp-adio-3d-sound-processor (a thread I created a few weeks ago)

I will place the LS50’s on top of the large rectangular Yamaha NS 5000 speaker (using angled Isoacoustic stands) when playing the 3-D stuff via the LS50’s, otherwise the LS50 will be moved away to a bookshelf. The goal of the Acourate DSP will be to hopefully tame the large Yamaha into this small room. I also use ROON for my digital playback.

If this all works as expected it will be a home run for what I wanted to achieve. 

What to buy is largely driven by budget.

Mic: the Dayton EMM6 is good. Earthworks M30 and M50 are better and more expensive. I bought the EMM6 to try out DRC, then entertained the idea of upgrading and I consistently got the feedback the delta wasn't large enough.

Pre: dunno. Uli used to sell one. Monacor MPA-102 was mentioned as a good option. Haven't looked much into it.

ADC: here it gets tricky. You could use one unit for ADC and a separate one for playback (DAC), which is not what Uli recommends. Then regular DACs become options. Or you can follow Uli's guidance and use the same unit (same clock) for both conversions. I'm not familiar with the Babyface, but know several guys running Acourate use RME products. Merging has a new product (Anubis?) that had good comments. Prism Lyra, Lynx Hilo.

It's not clear to me what the BACCH system does and how Acourate fits in the picture. Acourate enables turning your system into active, which in my experience makes a huge positive impact. In that light I would recommend a multichannel unit rather than 2 channel. I've taken the passive crossover out of my speakers, drive them directly, and there is no going back for me.

Cheers!

@lewinskih01 Thanks for the additional info, perfect.

The BACCH and Acourate have nothing to do with each other. I have the KEF LS50’s currently. I am reluctant to get rid of them since I really like them, especially in a small room. So when I get my new speakers I was trying to figure out what to do with the LS50’s.

The BACCH system software was a perfect candidate to bring into my room and use with my current KEF LS50 system. The company actually demos with the KEF LS50’s since it is a directional speaker. I will need to spend $5K to get the following: a 2012 MacMini computer with the BACCH system loaded, a binaural microphone, and Babyface (just for measurements). The MacMini will also serve as a Roon Bridge to my Windows Roon Server. I do not use any DSP with my KEF LS50’s since the GIK acoustic panels I put in have made that system sound the best it can in my room.

I can then run the BACCH software to create this supposedly amazing 3D rendering of the music. I am going on reviews here but I do trust the 2 sources that have reported on this new cutting edge audio technology. I would have to have a different seating position to get the benefit of the BACCH system so it will be used after I complete my office work.

When I do my office work I will use the Yamaha speaker system, running a convolution file via Windows Roon Server. I will use Acourate to create the convolution file. The bass on the Yamaha is too much for my current office. I am very excited to use the Acourate software after doing so much research on Lyngdorf (Room Perfect), Anthem (ARC3), miniDSP (DIREC), and Linn (Space Optimization). Using a computer to do the DSP seems like a much better solution for my situation.

I have gotten into the book, Accurate Sound Reproduction Using DSP, and so far it seems like this guy really knows what he is talking about.

BTW - going ACTIVE via the Acourate seems a little daunting for me at the moment as I learn all of this. Baby steps first and then maybe some more ambition.