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Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

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Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#31

Post by ptk »

ttpphd wrote: post #28

I'm a psychoacoustician and this is not the way, very sorry to report. Others have touched on the acoustic issues already, so let me touch on the psychological ones: your perception of sound from loudspeakers doesn't just depend on the acoustic waves hitting your ears. It also depends on your personality and expectations. If you genuinely believe that doing a seance to drive out the poltergeist from your speaker set…

I genuinely wasn’t sure whether psychoacoustician was a cheeky synonym for audiophile or not. :). I looked it up and, sure enough, psychoacoustics is a legitimate field of study.

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#32

Post by runeks »

I’ve tried this for my speaker setup. And the problem is that the frequency response is a function of volume. For example, the louder I play music the more the bass is accentuated. I think this is because of standing waves.

So the problem I find is that when the volume is low the bass is too low, and when the volume is high the bass is too loud. Only when I play at the same volume as the equalization was performed at do I get a good result.

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#33

Post by leeoniya »

OJFord wrote: post #26
drcongo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd also be relying very heavily on the microphone used to measure it.

That's the 'device with an imperfect response curve', I assume. In fairness, the readme does state: > A good microphone is needed, with a wide frequency range and preferably with a flat frequency response. By 'preferably' I assume it's implied that it can curve-fit (whatever's needed, I know next to nothing about this) to a non-flat microphone response, as long as it's known, but if it's flat then no need. If it's un…

i always wondered, is it possible to take a cheaper mic or iems and "flatten" them via an eq, to perform nearly as well as professional gear that's 3x the price?

i just picked up a pair of KZ AS06 iems [1] and my listening preference is U shaped (which is how these are dialed in out of the box), but i imagine with quality hardware and e.g. 3+ dedicated, drivers it should be possible to flatten them out in an eq.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/eqpsen/kz_as06_...

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#35

Post by aeturnum »

ttpphd wrote: post #28

I'm a psychoacoustician and this is not the way, very sorry to report. Others have touched on the acoustic issues already, so let me touch on the psychological ones: your perception of sound from loudspeakers doesn't just depend on the acoustic waves hitting your ears. It also depends on your personality and expectations. If you genuinely believe that doing a seance to drive out the poltergeist from your speaker set…

A friend loaned me a fancy usb DAC a while back and I used it to listen to music while I worked. After about a day or so I asked her if it was my imagination or if the audio really did sound better. Her answer was that there's no difference between those situations: if I imagine it sounds better, it does sound better.

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#36

Post by strainer »

I have made a small webtool to help calibrate various EQs by ear. It kind-of mimics a graphic EQ in the browser which can also play tones around the EQs frequency bands, which should sound about the same loudness as their neighbors according to the ISO loudness curve. I increase or decrease my laptops EQ bands until the tones on the webtool play without obvious difference. This is sure to be an unsatisfactory process for technical purposes, and I couldn't even guarantee that I implemented the loudness curve well, but I have a lot more success using it to help tune EQ than without it.

https://strainer.github.io/hearqualizer/

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#37

Post by fhchl »

runeks wrote: post #32

I’ve tried this for my speaker setup. And the problem is that the frequency response is a function of volume. For example, the louder I play music the more the bass is accentuated. I think this is because of standing waves. So the problem I find is that when the volume is low the bass is too low, and when the volume is high the bass is too loud. Only when I play at the same volume as the equalization was performed at…

This is a common psycoacoustic effect and probably not due to the loudspeakers or the room acoustics (which are linear): the (perceived) loudness of a tone is frequency and level dependent [1]. This makes sounds more bassy at large sound pressure levels.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#38

Post by brandonmenc »

anotheryou wrote: post #15

I'm using the commercial https://www.sonarworks.com/soundid-reference and it's amazing. I'd say the worse your setup (especially your room) the more magic it does. I did it without an individually calibrated mic though (but with a decent measuring one), wonder how much better it could be.

I'm also using this.

The results are very good. I have studio monitors and a crappy room setup, and the calibrated sound is much better. I purchased the kit with the supplied mic.

That said, the software is unstable. To the point of uselessness. It caused so many system crashes that I - very sadly, because the results are so good - just don't use it anymore.

Hoping they fix stability in later versions so I can go back to using it.

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#39

Post by willismichael »

bityard wrote: post #29
ttpphd wrote: post #28

I'm a psychoacoustician and this is not the way, very sorry to report. Others have touched on the acoustic issues already, so let me touch on the psychological ones: your perception of sound from loudspeakers doesn't just depend on the acoustic waves hitting your ears. It also depends on your personality and expectations. If you genuinely believe that doing a seance to drive out the poltergeist from your speaker set…

> If you genuinely believe that doing a seance to drive out the poltergeist from your speaker set up will make the sound better, it will be difficult to convince you otherwise I think you just found the next big thing in audiophile fads

I'm more interested in inviting the right kind of poltergeist to dwell in my speaker set up, to give playback the warm paranormal sound that is clearly missing from sterile exorcized speakers.

Re: Show HN: HiFiScan, a Python app to optimize your loudspeakers

#40

Post by erdewit »

patrakov wrote: post #24

There is an older project with better math inside: http://drc-fir.sourceforge.net/ For starters, it doesn't try to achieve a phase-neutral response, because a phase-neutral response created in a room is only valid in one point of the room, and creates pre-echo artifacts elsewhere. In fact, it tries to separate the response of the speaker itself from the response of the room, by setting a threshold in the time domain,…

> because a phase-neutral response created in a room is only valid in one point of the room

Author here. The term "phase-neutral" simply means here that the impulse response is symmetrical and doesn't add a phase shift. It doesn't even try to neutralize the phase characteristics of the room, which is what you may be thinking. In fact the phase information from the measurement is completely discarded. Furthermore, the frequency response is averaged to get a more general and robust (less over-fitted) correction that works pretty well across the room. Try it...

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