Room correction room system vs ears….

@soix , good question. Those front L-C-R speakers are ported and when I tried placing panels behind them it absorbed too much high frequency info and sounded flat. With a little trial and error I found placing combo panels between the speakers worked better. The front of the combo panel is a diffusor and behind the panel is about 2 inches of acoustic foam for absorption. I also have floor to ceiling bass traps in the front corners, that may be another reason I had to adjust the panels for less absorption on the front wall.

On the lighter side of things, I find putting my bookshelfs on the end of my mattress and then pulling the sheets over my head works wonders.

@navyachts

On the lighter side of things, I find putting my bookshelfs on the end of my mattress and then pulling the sheets over my head works wonders.

I’m guessing that makes it easier to reach your books without getting out of bed, I might try it.

soix , good question. Those front L-C-R speakers are ported and when I tried placing panels behind them it absorbed too much high frequency info and sounded flat.

I always assumed that rear ports were not carrying a lot of high frequency content.

@holmz , I assumed that rear ports were for low frequency but just found in my room the high frequencies sounded flat when I had the an absorption panel right behind the speaker. 

holmz , I assumed that rear ports were for low frequency but just found in my room the high frequencies sounded flat when I had the an absorption panel right behind the speaker

@kota1 - I still do not understand what you mean?

What do you mean… and how do the ports apply to the statement:

1. The panels decreasing the distance, causes the port to reinforce gthe bass more?
2. The panels suck out later reflections, and the ports have nothing to do with the brightness?
3. Or something else?

@kota I tried using absorption on the front wall in my prior home and current listening room and did not like the dulling, lifeless effect.  I use Synergistic Research HFTs instead on my cherry plywood finished front wall which apparently diffuses the sound and prevents bright or glaring sound coming back at me.   The alternative suggested by several acoustic engineers was for quadradic diffusion paneling.  Unfortunately, the required size intruded into the room from the wall 12" and too much for my room.  

@holmz , I think the ports requires a certain amount of distance from the wall. The bottom line it was simply too much absorption with or without the port. Check the :36 minute mark in this video:

I tried using absorption on the front wall in my prior home and current listening room and did not like the dulling, lifeless effect.

On the front wall (behind speakers), diffusors tend to work much better than absorbers. I have about 65% of my front wall surface coverage using GIK Alpha 4a (1d). diffusers (even thicker, the Alpha 6a 2d) work very well on the back wall (behind the listening position). I have a combination of absorbers and diffusors on my side walls, and absorbers only on ceiling.

“On the front wall (behind speakers), diffusors tend to work much better than absorbers”

+1, @thyname 

That’s been my experience as well. I have a combination of diffusers and absorbers strategically installed in my room. 

I assumed that rear ports were for low frequency but just found in my room the high frequencies sounded flat when I had the an absorption panel right behind the speaker. 

@kota1 I know what you mean.  I was at a high-end dealer a while back and the room had absorptive panels all around and the music just sounded dead and over damped.  Very interesting about using diffusive panels behind speakers — learn something new every day. 

im wondering if I simply messed around and found the sweet spot without a room correction system how much of a difference this would make. I’m far from savvy with audio and try to keep things simple for my simple brain, so, on a scale of 1-10 how much difference would I percieve by splashing out on a room correction system?

• If the room is troublesome then the room correction would make a big difference.
• If there is passive absorbers and bass traps then the effect of a s/w correction is less.
• Ideally one would do both
• Much of the problem is in the lower frequency room modes.

There are also the Dirac systems, which do impulse response and phase correction… so one can envision them as doing some EQ of the room, and some EQ of the speaker.

@thomastrouble are you talking about:

1. Room correction and frequency EQ?
2. Or impulse response EQ 

Same thing happened to me with absorption panels on front and rear walls-dead sound, lost dynamics and all interest in the music.  Acoustic Fields sold me 8 large panels which even a pair on either front or rear walls killed the sound.  I prefer the SR HFTs which diffused the sound with live sound remaining.  Only the side walls and ceiling have absorption (well, the carpeted floor too with 106 oz.plush).

Hey guys, just do I don’t seem unappreciative…..flew back to Brazil last week, takes 30 hours from door to door and was completely bogged down with work when I got there and one week later I’ve made to same trip back to the US…..haven’t been on emails for a week and just opened this - wow, a lot of talk in the last week. Gonna read as much as I can tonight as I just landed a couple of hours ago.

Thanks a lot guys!

Holmz, I wish I could answer that but I’m pretty clueless - I don’t know what both concepts mean. I’m far from savvy on these things and saw a room correction ruin as something of a magic wand that “just fixed things”. Regarding using the subwoofer - I know I’m going to have to deal with taming bass reflections and my knowledge, based on common sense is I’ll have to lay a large carpet on the wooden floor, install bass traps and possibly install curtain rails and heavy curtains on all four walls that I can open or close gradually based on trial and error. Soft furnishings are going to help also, but then again this is all about bass….I’m still wondering what a room correction system will get me beyond that.

You guys are pretty hard core serious from what I’m reading here - I’m too, too busy, too old and not “audiophile” enough to go to those lengths Plus, I know I’ll never be 100% happy because I’m dealing with the limitations of living in an apartment. 
I got hooked years ago when I bought some Magnapans and great amps, I was completely blown away - it was like I had just heard music for the first time but I’ll never come close to that experience again and I know that, I’ll just be content to get the best out of my apartment system, accept lower volume levels and not be wrecking my brain in the process.

I have no doubt you guys would think nothing about spending a grand on a room correction system and I wouldn’t have a problem neither of it was a “big” hobby for me but it’s not these days, it’s more about not just throwing together about $10,000 worth of gear and getting $2000 benefit from it when maybe something like a room correction system could make that difference.

Maybe consider something like a TDAI 3400 or 1120 amp, which comes with a microphone and tunes itself up.

And there are probably cheaper options from NAD and others.

… going slow is often wise.

I go for ears.

My room modes computer doesn't like my music.

My Ears told me something was wrong. Room treatment helped but something was off. Measured and sure enough 2 big humps causing over done bass. Used Roon DSP convolution filter to fix those humps and wow.   Keep it simple and room correction is great. 

@thomastrouble  A $10,000 system can sound fantastic too!

Here is my friend's system that I thoroughly enjoy:

VPI SuperScout TT w/Dynavector 20X2 H

McIntosh C20 version 2 pre-amp

RAM RM-9 amp

Kyocera X310 CD player (new caps)

Von Schweikert VR 35 Export speakers

Grover Huffman Empress cabling throughout

Sure, it's older and now obtainable as used gear only.  But for $10K, try to do better and the speakers are designed to be within one foot from the front wall, room friendly.  

Many of the DSP non-subscribers must have marvelously paired speakers and rooms. Somehow every room I've ever used did have plenty of issues, bass mostly.

While plenty of treatments (to the point of needing to close one's eyes) do work, I could not happily live with my current system without the DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 room correction unit with digital equalization.

While it's not a bad room and the sound is anchored by Raidho D2 floorstanders,  the room still had an effect on bass flatness and response, and the Raidhos have a small bass 80-120 upper bass hump that needs tamed (at least to me).

With room correction performed, and very judicious and minor equalization, the speakers are very flat (+-2) from 30Hz-10kHz. The difference is stunning. All of the Raidho resolution and tonality remains with the excess bass removed.

Anyone who has heard the A/B comparison with the bypass on or off has immediately noticed the more open transparent sound with room correction and DSP activated, and with true flat bass to 30Hz. It sounds great, and my DSPeaker unit is a non-negotiable 'keeper' in my system.

I am a devotee of high quality DSP room correction.  I have done some room treatment, heavy curtains behind the speakers, overstuffed furniture, etc., but my system didn't come into focus until I had programmed my DEQX DSP room correction and reprogrammed and reprogrammed it.  Right off the bat I decided to sacrifice seven or eight dB of woofer sensitivity to enable equalizing the bass by pulling down peaks instead of attempting to boost dips.  This was possible because I had all kinds of headroom in the bass, 104 dB/w/m sensitivity woofers  coupled with a 300 watt amplifier for the four ohm load of the woofer.

Programming the DEQX room correction was a monumental task for me, but I kept refining it until my fully horn loaded, triamplified, DIY speakers sounded quite good to me.  Then I read about company approved DEQXperts one could engage to give the DEQX DSP a truly professional programming by means of connecting PCs and holding a Skype call to get the work done.  I hired DEQXpert, Larry Owens.  He turned out to be brilliant at the task.  After performing speaker calibration, speaker correction, time and phase correction and finally room correction My DIY speakers sounded absolutely splendid to my ears.  Larry hit it out of the park.  This was 2017, and I have had no need to change anything with the DEQX.  The system has a smooth frequency response from the low 20s up to 20 kHz.  It is properly time and phase aligned and the crossovers at 200Hz and 8 kHz (16th order) are inaudible to me.

I have some experience with automatic DSP room correction with my Marantz AV pre/pro in my HT system, and while it wrought some improvement it is in no way comparable to the results that can be achieved with a high end DSP  like the DEQX.