EQ / Dsp... Who’s using them?

Note I also think DSP is an "audio nanny" that I for one don't trust, and I don't like what I've heard in systems using it...likely a case of Knob Turner syndrome ("riding the fader"), or Old Sound Man issues which is a profile I embrace.

Thanks Wolf_Garcia!  I’m planning on getting a loki mini plus once they available.

I kind of get what was said about the eq’s or dsp robbing the soul.  Hard to explain but for me, eq’s and dsp sound better but I lose some openess and transparency.

Anyhow, yes, I agree that acoustic treatments and speaker / listener placement need to be addressed first, which I’ve done but its fun to try to eq options and dsp as well.

I found that just by using the measurement part of Sonarworks really helped me figure out where to best place my speakers for the smoothest frequency response, exactly what was said earlier in this thread about sub placement.
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Anyhow, Thanks again @wolf_garcia  for your input about the loki.  I’ve known you for awhile now here and knew that you have a background in prosound so I value your input on that 👍

As a kid watching Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob, and Superman close to an all vacuum tube RCA console, it appears my warm blanket electronic audio conditioning was all second harmonic.
  
While I always find the before and after signal processing demonstrations remarkable I find I simply can’t commit to digitizing my entire system, yet.

Below my subwoofers crossover region the output is completely remotely controlled by Velodyne Digital Drive Plus Room Optimization.

I had my DSP professionally done. These links describe what and who did the work. The software used in my room was AudioLense though the other option was Accurate.

My DSP is executing in the digital realm inside of ROON Core. So that means my 2 analog sources do not use DSP. That is OK since 1 source is an FM tuner and the other is a SACD player that I use with headphones.

http://enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0420/Understanding_Digital_Room_Correction_For_Audioph...

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/ca-academy/acourate-digital-room-and-loudspeaker-correction-software-...

I use Anthem ARC and have been very happy

DBX makes a pretty good product in both e.q.s and DSP units at pretty decent prices. The Klark-Teknik DN360 has been considered one of the best analog e.q.s for decades. I believe they are still in production but I don’t know for how much longer since most if not all DSP units can do the same job plus much more. There are quite a few used ones available currently on eBay. 

As for DSP, I like the XTA DP4 series but even used these are not cheap, so I would stick with DBX. 

The nice thing about all of these units is that they are all fully balanced units so if your rig is also balanced you could place any of these pieces next to your listening chair and operate them from your listening position. The DSP units can also be controlled remotely via laptop with an additional free software download.

https://www.klarkteknik.com/product.html?modelCode=P0AGV

https://audiocore.wpengine.com/products/4-series/

https://dbxpro.com/en/products/driverack-pa2

If you own a room only for your audio system "mechanical equalization" is for me superior to electronical one in many aspects ....



Acoustic of irregular or difficult small normal room obey and react to sound in a different way than a theater, or than an ideally acoustically designed audio rrom... Geometry, topology and content matters.... The mechanical equalizer was a cheap way in money to design my own audio room without the need to reconstruct my room...Passive absorbing, reflecting, and diffusive materials, even well balanced are not enough sometimes...Especially in 13 feet, irregular, but square room with 2 windows and with a complex acoustic content.... We must accomodate the response of the room to the speakers not only the speakers to the room... The mechanical equalizer can do the 2 function at the same time without modifying the basic parameters of the speakers directly and according to the specific structure of the user...The different pressures new zones created by the equalizer itself are intermediary between the speakers responses and the room responses in the 2 directions, because the pipes grid begin with a few inches straws from the speakers and increase in lenght to 8 feet high, like observed an astute observer, oldhvymec ,the organ tuning pipe in a church...

We can call the Helmholtz mechanical equalizer, a "silent organ" indeed and i called it so indeed in my first post about it in my thread...

It seems that human ears react better to first wavefront of relatively "large" bandwith called a " voice timbre" in any room location not to a precise test frequency signal one after the others, like a microphone feeding it back to a correcting program for only one very narrow location in milllimeters...

Then i succeeded to correct my room with materials passive treatment but mainly with an Helmholtz "mechanical equalizer" calibrated by the the first wavefront of sound created by the specific timing of the frequencies of early and late reflections adding themselves to the direct waves from the speakers and coming also from the waves modified themselves by their near 80 crossings of the different zones pressure of my room each one second...

This mechanical equalizer is made, not of bottles like the original one, but of tubes and pipes, sometimes one inserted in an another thinner one, with a short or longer neck(various type of straws) which length i tuned with hearing and listening experiments... It takes me a week and perhaps 50 hours to tune the 23 tubes and pipes....Location is important... All refining parameters were dictated by sound like a piano tuner use his ears and are implemented by diagonal cuts in section of various diameter of straws inserted in one another....I used transparent tape to seal the mouth and i insert thinner straw in a new hole if necessary like in a telescopic stick...

I also use "the golden section ratio" in 3 set of 3 pipes among all the other singular 13 tubes and pipes... My longer tube is 8 feet long under my 81/2 feet ceiling.... Correcting these 9 pipes together was the more easy part , they were very impactful ...I also used 5 smaller pipes of various size near the tweeter of one speaker (3) and near the bass driver of the other speaker (2) to create a more audible first wavefront signal without changing the basic identical parameters of the speakers but only their response to the room but not their frequency response more their first wavefront timing response... It worked marvellously.... It was my adding modification of these 2 pieces few inches, near each speaker, the tweeter for one and the bass driver for the other, creating then asymmetrically 2 different front waves from the speakers, it was this modification which is my personal characterization and adaptation from the original Helmholtz mechanical equalizer before the invention of the speakers itself....

I say all that because Helmholtz was able to set a room without DSP better than DSP... WHY?

We forget that, and we called DSP a progress and it is one indeed for "precise" measurements of a tested frequency in relation with a "precise" location in millimeters...

BUT we forgot that human ears is used to hear not a frequency alone, but a wavefront constituted of many frequencies together, usually a human vocal timbre, and we forgot that a room must be tested for itself not from and for a precise location in millimeter mainly ... And a room is not a set of passive bouncing walls waiting for the tested emitted frequency anyway, but an enclosure for the human voice, and an heterogeneous set of variable presssure zones, with the tubes and pipes being some of them...

The mechanical equalizer work on all audible frequencies not only on bass like many think, and they work at same time from near listening location and regular location in the room...not from an ideal "imaging spot" that is never an ideal spot anyway, the ideal spot is not made only for "imaging" but also for the " listener envelopment" factor ....The belief that near listening shield us from the room problems is completely erroneous in "small" room...

DSP is and could be a marvellous tool, but those who think that he can replace human ears must wait that new learning neural algorithm implement it in an A.I. expert system... Soon it will be done.... But the cost will be high.... In few years tough we will use it...

For now my ears is the main tool and it is enough...

It is a good thing also to learn acoustic by ears not by equations mainly or only and applying them without thinking....Acoustic is a fluid flowing poetry and geometry for the ears, not first a computer program...

I am not a scientist at all.... All that is my experiences only and could be wrongly explained .... But here we describe our own experience and i tried....

Cost: peanuts, all is made from straws and discarded plumber and copper pipes and tubes in my basement....

Result: the best sound i ever listen to in a small stereo system with ALL my musical files... Sound fills the room with sometimes, relatively to the original mic recording, voices or instruments around me and even sometimes coming from the back of my head... Impossible to going back to my 7 headphones that i put in a drawer.....

I use DSP to get the subs integrated with the monitors. If you have good speakers that are pretty flat in the listening window you should only do your EQ in the low end and maybe a slope in the treble. I only use digital equalization it's much easier. I have no idea about robbing soul don't even know what it means so I guess it's never applied to me. 

I been using Behringer xxx2496 for 15 plus years now. If you get one all tricked out they are good from the bottom to the top as an active XO. I use it stone stock for bass management. It has everything. RTA (on the fly correction) PEQ, GEQ, digital room correction remote control, and daisy chain via RJ45. I don't use 1/10 the STUFF it has.. The last one I picked up was 275.00.  I've never had one fail either.. Get a Behringer mic and they work like peas and carrots..

I've seen them split (the way I use it) 300hz down is the 2496 and 300hz up is a passive system or as an active EQ via tape loop (processor) or between a single component. Works very well in a FULL blown way or on a select piece of equipment (EX: SACD to 2496 to RtR and record)

VBDA, DBA, Swarm, columns and combinations with a Behringer, sure makes it easy... 300 hz and down, BUT you can monitor and see your corrections via REAL TIME.. Move a chair, see a change, move a panel see a change..  Makes it too easy.. I still use preset tone control moving from CDs to Streaming to Vinyl to TV with Stereo. My wife will grab and adjust the tone control.. LOL Windows rattling in the other side of the house..

Like ozzy said it can rob a systems "SOUL", but used the way I use it.. with some room treatment, usually heavy curtains, just magic with MB columns, planar monitors, and option of OB servo subs or VDBA/DSP.

Not like it use to be BOOMIN' friggin' bass

I've been using a DSPeaker Antimode 2.0 for several months.  It really made a positive difference taming the bass coming from a pair of B&W Matrix 801 S2s in a 15' x 15' (bad, I know) square room.  

Did a correction up to around 300Hz.

Tried the DSPeaker in my office setup: Harbeth SHL5+40s and four subwoofers.

Tried several different correction ranges.

What I learned from the office setup is that although there was a noticeable improvement in bass control, the DSPeaker actually was making up for my poor placement of two of the subwoofers.

After an afternoon moving around the subs (two of them are mounted up high about a foot away from the ceiling), I noticed less of a correction offered up by the DSPeaker.
A/B testing still showed a difference if I listen closely but I am challenging myself to achieve as flat a curve as I can with some more subwoofer placement adjustments.

I also just tried the DSPeaker with a pair of old 15 ohm Rogers LS3/5As from the '70s.  No subs.  Not much difference with these in A/B testing.  Probably because they don't (can't) produce low bass frequencies with enough power to sound boomy in the first place.

But good luck in your search!  Definitely was (and still is) worth it for me!

but the music lost its soul. The DSpeaker products specifically.

The 8033 an early bass DSP does not exhibit the "lost its soul"
sound like some of the other dspeaker products.

Like erik stated do your room treatments first then what’s left
in the DSP realm.

Every time I have tried EQ /or DSP I could certainly dial in superb frequency response, but the music lost its soul. The DSpeaker products specifically.

EQ must be used with a light touch, not an absolute touch. 

Hi!

I use miniDSP for my surround and center channels.  In the past I have also used the DSP capabilities built into Roon to help match the L and R speakers due to an uneven room placement.

miniDSP works great, but it's not working alone.  I can get things done in large part due to the amount of room acoustic treatments in the room.

@ b_limo

is anyone out there using any dspeaker antimode products

2 channel room with distributed bass and room treatments including
diffraction panels. Using an early dspeaker 8033 took
things that extra step.
Very simple but effective.

Get back to the Loki...I've been using all sorts of EQs, parametric, graphic, etc., for decades in pro and home systems, and the (original version) Loki is the most transparent and noise free gizmo I've every used. It's not used much, but in the line from my preamp to amp you simply don't hear it until you need it.