11–20 of 25 posts
> That seems like a reasonable thing to do, but there is a lot of pseudoscience in the audio world that will get you to buy platinum tipped styluses for depressing buttons on your remote. I think there are a LOT of these. I wish I knew when "reasonable" or "plausible" pan out.
It's fun stuff to mess with, but one difficulty is that you can't really affect time-domain issues by modifying output frequencies. That is, there are likely both issues induced by the phase response of the speakers themselves as well as issues introduced by reflections in the room which will cause uneven frequency responses in these measurements. These issues are inherent in speaker systems and acoustic spaces. If y…
PEQ can take you a surprising distance. Many perceivable issues can be substantially reduced by attenuating signal at problematic resonant frequencies. At no point ever (IMO) should PEQ be used to boost the level of any frequency to make it more audible.
FIR filters are where you can fix time-domain issues. The only problem is that, depending on the amount of filtering required, you may add quite a bit of latency to the signal. IIR filters (e.g. for your crossovers and such) are typically much lower latency approach. IIRC FIR filtering will also allow for you to correct for phase issues.
At the end of the day, the room and its treatments are the most important part of the equation. The number of LFE radiators and their positions are probably #2. Everything else you can easily fix in software.
I used to run an outboard FIR filter for my subwoofer with weights calculated (in part) using REW. I can't recall the actual DSP hardware model, but it was a pretty amazing effect when you toggled it on/off. Today, I just have a miniDSP that does basic crossover duty. I haven't bothered to do any parametric EQ or more advanced filtering in my new office yet. The passive acoustic treatments have done such wonders that…
I've been interested in this topic recently, I hate my AVR, but there isn't a better alternative. I've been hoping instead of an AVR I could pipe HDMI into my PC and run DIRAC there, but I've yet to find a capture card that can capture DTS/Atmos etc, so it hasn't been fruitful
Sounds like you don't need a mic or anything other than the EQ to make movies watchable. Just reduce every frequency range other than that of human voices. No more having your ears blasted by loud music / explosions because, earlier, you had to turn the volume up to maximum in order to barely hear the dialog.
It's fun stuff to mess with, but one difficulty is that you can't really affect time-domain issues by modifying output frequencies. That is, there are likely both issues induced by the phase response of the speakers themselves as well as issues introduced by reflections in the room which will cause uneven frequency responses in these measurements. These issues are inherent in speaker systems and acoustic spaces. If y…
> And I hate to be a snob about mics I wonder if you just need a mic with a calibration file? this one is less than $25: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00ADR2B84 and you can use the serial number to download a specific calibration file
I used to run an outboard FIR filter for my subwoofer with weights calculated (in part) using REW. I can't recall the actual DSP hardware model, but it was a pretty amazing effect when you toggled it on/off. Today, I just have a miniDSP that does basic crossover duty. I haven't bothered to do any parametric EQ or more advanced filtering in my new office yet. The passive acoustic treatments have done such wonders that…
How do you like the miniDSP? Thinking about getting one - room correction definitely seems like a job for hardware; i.e. easy enough for a DSP, more portable and hassle-free than setting up software on one computer.
I am using it as a USB DAC driving a pair of stereo monitors and 2x subwoofers at the moment.
The biggest problem with home theater setups with surround sound, IME, is that no matter what you do most of the seats will get very uneven sound (typically, one or more surround speakers being much louder than the others). The only fix is to have a larger space so the effective "sweet spot" covers more of your seating (think: an large-aisle-width space around a 3x2 seat configuration) but at that point you're lookin…
Depending on the seating costs and budget and other things, I think it makes sense to go ahead and put seats around the sides... in case you end up having extra guests, they can sit in comfort, even if the audio isn't ideal.
On a small budget, you can do a lot with just two decent speakers rather than speakers built into an ultra thin flat panel. Thrift stores often have nice speakers that may not be visually pleasing but are likely to be aurally pleasing.
Gives me peace of mind knowing my EQ curve always is on even if I'm using software that's outputting direct to my interface.
It's fun stuff to mess with, but one difficulty is that you can't really affect time-domain issues by modifying output frequencies. That is, there are likely both issues induced by the phase response of the speakers themselves as well as issues introduced by reflections in the room which will cause uneven frequency responses in these measurements. These issues are inherent in speaker systems and acoustic spaces. If y…
> And I hate to be a snob about mics I wonder if you just need a mic with a calibration file? this one is less than $25: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00ADR2B84 and you can use the serial number to download a specific calibration file
Calibration files can help you in the frequency domain (provided that mic is stable over it's lifetime), but the time domain is a different beast as in: if we play a square click how well can the mic reproduce the square and/or what kind of artifacts are added by it.
In the end the question is, how important calibration is for your purpose. If you are a hobbyist, I would even say, you don't really need it more than once. If you mix/master productions that have high budgets maybe spending a little bit more on making sure everything works makes more sense.
If you are the hobbyist, maybe renting is a good option?