TacT, Lyngdorf, Audyssey Pre/Pro, PARC?

Good Luck.

Distribution is so limited that it's hard to compare any 2 of these devices in one place. You might try Perotta Consulting or Moon Audio, if they're convenient to you. I tried and gave up here in SoCal, ending up with a Velodyne SMS sub-controller which combines a room analyzer, PEq, and x-over. I also added subs. This is a different (less expensive, <$1800 with 2 high quality subs) way to address room issues, albeit only in the bass region (which is pretty much exclusively where most serious room issues -including mine - occur).

Marty

PS - During my research, I did learn one thing that may be of interest.

The TacT system attempts to acheive the targeted respone at the listening position. That is, it corrects for cumulative (speaker and room) anomalies.

The Lyngdorf attempts to correct only room anomalies and preserve the speaker's "native" response characteristics. It corrects the room only.

Source: Lyngdorf, USA>

Just one more observation:

The Velo SMS has an auto-correct option as well as the ability to output the "in-room" response (below 200hz) to a video monitor for manual adjustment.

In my room, I first:

Viewed respose on the monitor without any correction. It was pretty awful, as might be expected.

I then used auto-correct and viewed those results. They were much better, but hardly great.

I then corrected manually. In 15 minutes, I had vastly superior results with my Ohm 100s and Velo subs. Similar improvement was possible with Maggies and subs, but it took almost 2 hours. In every case I tried, manual tweaking made a huge -and hugely audible- improvement over auto--correction.

This may be peculiar to Velodyne's auto correct system. I'm sure that part of the explanation is due to the particular concern of room correcting for sub/mains versus mains alone. In the former case, you must first get it right through the crossover region (not easy), then get it right overall. For a "subwooferless" system, priorities differ.

Moral of my story:

Buy a system which allows you to view results an tweak manually, particularly if you'll be using subs.

Marty

Kal,

I saw that the Velo's auto mode didn't utilize the capabilities of the PEq, hence my first comment that my results might be due to issues peculiar to the Velo's auto correct system. However, I'd love to find any auto system that can optimize all of the crossover settings - points (which may be asymmetrical), slopes (which may be asymmetrical), phase, and polarity (not the same). After that, it must adjust for smoothest response through the crosssover point, so that the transition from mains to woofer is seamless. After optimizing this critical transition, it can then determine which trade offs between ideal response through the crossover versus smoothest overall response are optimal. The latter is tricky because the smoothest transition may occur around a crossover point that is either too high or too low to provide natural octave to octave balance throughout the overall bandwidth of the combined system. If this is the case, it must try again.

BTW, if you reverse the process and try to optimize overall bandwidth balance first, there's a good chance you'll try hari-kiri before you get the subs integrated in a satisfying manner.

Such a system may exist - I'm not remotely familiar with what's out there. I'd just personally prefer the option of tweaking manually - especially if separate subs are involved - just in case the auto system comes up short.

Just a last thought - please do not misunderstand the tone of my last post - (on screen, it looks more aggressive than I intended it to be). I don't want to try to come off as an "expert" here. I'm completely certain that others - and specifically KR -have much broader experience. I've only commented because my own experience was "challenging" and if I can point out some of the obstacles I tripped over...so much the better.

In the end, my personal take on it was that the ability to trade off optimizing overall response vs. optimizing response around the crossover point was the single most important element in acheiving satisfactory results IN MY SYSTEM and FOR MY PRIORITIES. YMMV.

Marty

Dgaylin

Gongrats and happy shopping!

Note that KR's observation re: the SMS' auto-correct shortcomings suggest that you might want to seek out a unit that provides both superior auto-correct AND a read-out for manual tweaking. This way, you'll start tweaking from a (presumably) better starting point and save yourself some time/effort. One of the earlier posts here implied -I think - that Audyssey Pro does the trick.

Another advantage of "seeing the room" for me was observing the large "hump" in my room from app 75hz to app 125 hz. This caused a higher than optimal X-over point at the SMS' built in 80hz highpass point. A pair of Bass Busters proved a great (I do mean great) fix.

Thus I'd still go for manual + superior auto if I could. If you can't find such an animal, the SMS-1 is a great tool at a fair price. I get pretty amazing results in my room with any of the main speakers I've tried - Verity Parsifal Monitors, Sunfire Cinema Ribbon Monitors, Maggie SMGs, and Ohm 100s. As KR noted, though, The SMS' high pass x-over has limitations. If you do go with an SMS, Id suggest that you either use mains that are happy being crossed at 80hz, or mains that you run full range. Otherwise, you might need an external high pass.

Another idea to bear in mind. My Velo subs don't perform nearly as well as the similarly priced SVS subs (they're much smaller, though). There's some debate on the sub threads on A-Gon as to which spec is more telling for a sub: "group delay" or "distortion". I don't have the knowledge to take a side here, but I'd note the $600/per model from SVS does a very good job on both tests.

At the end of the day, if you're willing to do the work, I suspect that the SMS, a bass buster (or 2), good subs, and good main speakers can provide amazing returns on your loudspeaker investment. In my case, $600 (for 2 bass busters, $600 for an SMS-1, and $1200 (for 2 SPLR8 subs) provide great bass performance and virtually seamless integration with a variety of different main speakers (dipole planars, omnis, and traditional dynamic minimonitors among them). At $2400 plus mains of your choice, I suspect that this deal is hard to beat.

Marty

BTW, if you have the space available, the SVS subs wil smoke the Velos (on paper, anyway) at the same price. Alas, at the time of purchase, I didn't have the space.

Marty

Kana is mistaken. The stand alone RC processor from Lyngdorf accepts digital inputs. I believe that some of their other RC products may not. He may be right, however, regarding the lack of a GUI. My understanding is that the TacT products offer more flexibility/control, including the ability to output results to a PC. Per my way too many posts, above, you know that I found this feature critically important in my efforts.

OTOH, some have complained about dificulties in using the TacT (and a few have bitched about the sound - to be expected from this bunch). Nevertheless, I'd suggest you search these threads for people's experience with the various devices since I was unable to check them out personally.

Marty