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Post by newprometheus on Sept 21, 2016 18:05:12 GMT -5
Hi Everyone,
I have heard a few different room correction technologies over the last few years, and while I agree that it is beneficial for surround sound applications (such as watching a movie), I have always felt that it damages the sound quality of stereo applications (such as critical listening).
To be sure, this is a controversial topic! The last time I raised this topic on a large AV Forum, it started a flame war. My hope is that by bringing it up in this forum, we can have a calm and reasonable conversation.
Allow me to explain how I think room correction seems to damage sound quality when listening critically to stereo music. First of all, I am convinced that we can subconsciously perceive high-frequency sounds that we cannot consciously hear, and that these high-frequency sounds give our brains important queues regarding the breadth, width, and height of the sound stage, as well as the positional imaging and naturality of specific individual voices/instruments within that sound stage. I think that room correction technologies, by and large, artificially truncate the full range of sound frequencies that would normally be emited by a full-range stereo sound system, so that the audio can undergo processing, thereby greatly impacting the breadth, width, and height of the sound stage, as well as the positional imaging and naturality of specific individual voices/instruments within that sound stage.
In the final analysis, I value these characteristics (sound stage, positional imaging, and naturality) more than any benefit I could gain from room correction technology, because I already have a decent listening room and a decent full-range sound system which could only benefit minimally from room correction technology anyway.
What do you think?
Thank you!
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Post by adaboy on Sept 21, 2016 18:23:57 GMT -5
I agree with this newprometheus, when trying to listen to 2ch on my theater rig I turn off Audyssey for the betterment of the sound. I prefer not having any processing while listening solely to music.
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Post by mgbpuff on Sept 21, 2016 18:39:40 GMT -5
The op makes an argument with non specific parameters for the room,the equipment, and the room correction software. So no conclusion one way or another can be reached. I do feel that a properly acoustically treated room and judicial speaker placement and listening position can help in a more natural manner. I also believe that the mind adjusts for room aberrations, if they are not ridiculously severe, by calibrating to the sound of the familiar such as voices of friends and family in the room. Grandma's voice becomes the mind's 0 db reference.
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jlafrenz
Global Moderator
I don't want to jump in, unless this music's thumping
Posts: 7,722
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Post by jlafrenz on Sept 21, 2016 18:54:42 GMT -5
Room correction, components, speakers, etc... have no way of determining if the signal is music or a movie. They are simply feed a signal of frequencies to reproduce.
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Post by deltadube on Sept 21, 2016 19:05:14 GMT -5
you need a room like this and a xsp 1 xpa 1s and some nice speakers and source no room corrections needed.. acoustical treatments are much more important than room correction..
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Post by gearhead2003 on Sept 21, 2016 19:13:28 GMT -5
I definitely agree with the room correction "interfering" with my overall satisfaction in the sound quality when listening to music in stereo. I occasionally will add the sub to my stereo depending on the type of music I am listening to, especially Hip Hop. Overall music sound better unprocessed and unfiltered. I also like to listen to acoustic albums Like Nirvana Unplugged and The Eagles Greatest Hits live.
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Post by repeetavx on Sept 21, 2016 20:24:39 GMT -5
What's the difference in sound between a Bosendorfer and a Steinway? About half a dB that your room correction added. If you add too much room correction, then that piano may sound like it was made for Sears.
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Post by Gary Cook on Sept 21, 2016 21:34:32 GMT -5
I disagreed, because I believe it is very much room dependant. The current "minimalist" decorating trend of hard floors, bare windows, hard furnishings, bare walls etc means the acoustics are so bad that room correction is unavoidable. The exact opposite of my room which needs very little in the way of PEQ'ing for HT. Hence sounds pretty good for pure direct stereo 2.1 music. But in my cousin's place, where his second wife very much comes from the minimalist decorator school, uncorrected the same gear would be unlistenable.
Cheers Gary
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Post by mickseymour on Sept 22, 2016 0:31:20 GMT -5
I've been using Dirac on my XMC-1 for the last 15 months. When I first set it up I thought WOW! what a difference it makes to music in my acoustically poor and untreated room.
Since then it has been a busy time for me so music has been relegated to background listening.
Recently I've had critical listening time and realised that my vinyl and streamed FLACs all have the same tonal quality that seems somehow lacking any emotion. Switching Dirac off for the FLACS and returning to pure 2 channel outside of the XMC-1 for vinyl has restored the faith.
I think it is easy to be impressed with what DRC can do on first listen but I agree with the OP that a lot is lost in the conversion.
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Post by yves on Sept 22, 2016 1:25:47 GMT -5
I agree, albeit not all RCS implementations are messing with the high frequencies, and for good reason: www.meridian-audio.com/meridian-uploads/w_paper/Room_Correction_scr.pdfAnother usual problem IMO is the excessive application of sharp digital notch filters (subtractive EQ based on multiple digital filters a number of which can have a high Q factor in conjunction with a strong magnitude response), which produces audible ringing artifacts and group delay artifacts / phase distortion, also between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. Harmonic distortion at low frequencies is not very audible because human hearing is not very sensitive at low frequencies. But muddy bass does muck up the mids because loudness at a given frequency causes perceptual masking of less loud, other frequencies ( Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models, third edition ~ Hugo Fastl and Eberhard Zwicker). That's why, for example, affordable subwoofers that focus primarily on high power output (SPL) and deeply extended frequency response (far below 30 Hz) are no good for music IMO. They all produce terrible amounts of low frequency harmonic distortion. It may be not audible if only the subwoofer is playing, and you won't localize the subwoofer if it outputs no frequencies above 80 Hz so, intuitively, it would seem that the distortion doesn't matter audibly. But IMO that's only the case when people are near audio deaf.
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Post by bradford on Sept 22, 2016 8:20:35 GMT -5
At CEDIA I had a chance to attend the "Science of room correlation" presentation given by Harmon/JBL. These advanced systems are based on a lot of objective measurement and proven science. Rather than color the sound it's about correcting the room interactions to get things right in the time domain. You can optimize for the MLP or try to average for a broader seating area, the later can negatively impact the optimal MLP correction.
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Post by mgbpuff on Sept 22, 2016 10:34:21 GMT -5
At CEDIA I had a chance to attend the "Science of room correlation" presentation given by Harmon/JBL. These advanced systems are based on a lot of objective measurement and proven science. Rather than color the sound it's about correcting the room interactions to get things right in the time domain. You can optimize for the MLP or try to average for a broader seating area, the later can negatively impact the optimal MLP correction. So, it's really MLP correction isn't it? If the MLP is for one person, then the correction for that listener is pretty good. Spread it out and it gets worse. Try to do the whole room and the room wins!
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DYohn
Emo VIPs
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Post by DYohn on Sept 22, 2016 12:10:42 GMT -5
I didn't read any arguments, only an opinion. And where is the "whatever floats your boat" response option?
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Post by bradford on Sept 22, 2016 13:29:12 GMT -5
At CEDIA I had a chance to attend the "Science of room correlation" presentation given by Harmon/JBL. These advanced systems are based on a lot of objective measurement and proven science. Rather than color the sound it's about correcting the room interactions to get things right in the time domain. You can optimize for the MLP or try to average for a broader seating area, the later can negatively impact the optimal MLP correction. So, it's really MLP correction isn't it? If the MLP is for one person, then the correction for that listener is pretty good. Spread it out and it gets worse. Try to do the whole room and the room wins! A lot of truth to that. Pretty much everyone agrees its best to treat the room first as all the correlation technologies have their limits. In addition you may want more than one saved configuration. One for music at the MLP and one or more for theater sitting area(s). This may also be true for bass management settings. There are a couple schools of thought on theater coloration. Most focus on minimizing seat to seat variation, this results in averaged filters that are sub-optimal for the MLP. Another approach is just optimize for the MLP and the seats right next to the MLP will probably sound as good as the averaged settings. For smaller theaters or ones that usually have a small number of viewers this is probably the best approach. In some cases these averaged settings could sound worse in the MLP than no correlation, especially in a well treated room. I can't say I'm a big fan of Audyssey, but others like Dirac, Acourate , and ARCOS do quite well if setup properly.
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Post by charlieu on Oct 25, 2016 9:21:22 GMT -5
The low frequencies are the ones that need to be corrected electronically. The mids and highs tend to be very directional and should be taken care of with speaker placement or getting better speakers with better mids and highs. I've seen recommendations to only correct 300Hz and below. I go a bit higher. Room treatments for first and sometimes second reflection points should be used. The over use of absorbing type treatments can kill your soundstage. A little bit of reflected sound can actually make your system sound better. More open and spacious. Dirac Full allows you to play with the range you correct.
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Post by Loop 7 on Oct 25, 2016 10:12:52 GMT -5
I'm in the camp that low frequencies can benefit from some analysis and correction.
However, I've been brainwashed into believing additive EQ can color sound whereas subtractive EQ does less harm. The topic is controversial for sure.
I'll be hearing a Dirac corrected room this weekend which might open my mind.
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Post by audiophill on Oct 25, 2016 10:52:41 GMT -5
In my room with my set up reference Stereo only for me! Don't think Dirac sounds bad but the pure full sound from reference Stereo is best!
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Post by fbczar on Oct 25, 2016 13:43:54 GMT -5
Hi Everyone, I have heard a few different room correction technologies over the last few years, and while I agree that it is beneficial for surround sound applications (such as watching a movie), I have always felt that it damages the sound quality of stereo applications (such as critical listening). To be sure, this is a controversial topic! The last time I raised this topic on a large AV Forum, it started a flame war. My hope is that by bringing it up in this forum, we can have a calm and reasonable conversation. Allow me to explain how I think room correction seems to damage sound quality when listening critically to stereo music. First of all, I am convinced that we can subconsciously perceive high-frequency sounds that we cannot consciously hear, and that these high-frequency sounds give our brains important queues regarding the breadth, width, and height of the sound stage, as well as the positional imaging and naturality of specific individual voices/instruments within that sound stage. I think that room correction technologies, by and large, artificially truncate the full range of sound frequencies that would normally be emited by a full-range stereo sound system, so that the audio can undergo processing, thereby greatly impacting the breadth, width, and height of the sound stage, as well as the positional imaging and naturality of specific individual voices/instruments within that sound stage. In the final analysis, I value these characteristics (sound stage, positional imaging, and naturality) more than any benefit I could gain from room correction technology, because I already have a decent listening room and a decent full-range sound system which could only benefit minimally from room correction technology anyway. What do you think? Thank you! First, if you have ARC by Anthem it only corrects to 500kHz so higher frequencies cannot be effected. If you have Dirac Full you can correct for any portion of the spectrum you choose. Audyssey Pro is the same. The need for EQ is directly dependent on the problems caused by your room and perhaps any deficiencies your speakers have. Soundstage, in my experience, can be positively or negatively effected by any EQ program that cannot be adjusted, but if you have the ability to adjust EQ parameters like you can in Dirac Full soundstage and imaging should not be a problem. I my case Dirac full improves the soundstage dramatically. It even assists in timbre matching in surround systems. If you treat your room correctly and place your speakers correctly before you apply correction the top three EQ programs have a good chance to work well, even for stereo or stereo with a subwoofer. ARC is especially great with subwoofer integration and Audyssey Pro is killer with multiple subs. Obviously, each has strengths and weaknesses. Lets talk Dirac for stereo or stereo plus a subwoofer. Imaging, specifically the phantom center image, is determined by the physical placement of the L&R front speakers and the volume level of each speaker. Dirac can only boost or attenuate by a maximum of 10db. If one speaker is within Dirac's correction range and the other is a few db outside that range, especially if it is in a dip, there is no doubt the center image will be lost. Generally when this occurs, in Dirac Full, you can lower the entire Dirac room curve by enough db to allow Dirac to completely correct both speakers and restore the center image. Basically, learning how to construct a room curve in Dirac Full can cure a lot of problems. There is a huge difference between the standard version of Dirac that comes with the XMC-1 and Dirac Full. The fact that Dirac, ARC and Audyssey all sample at 48/24 in most receivers and processors is an issue if you are playing high resolution downloads. Of course, Dirac sells a 96/24 capable version now and Dirac Unison is rumored to have an even higher sampling rate. Maybe the XMR-1 will have enough computing power for the full version of Unison. Still as it is, for me, the problems associated with down-sampling are outweighed by the positive Dirac brings to bear. It took a long time and help from several knowledgeable people, like Ansat on this forum and Jerry Austin on the AVS Forum, to make Dirac work at its best in my room for my system, but I can say now without doubt my system sounds better with it than without it. If you are generally happy with your sound try limiting correction to the areas of greatest concern or try to design your room curve to follow the natural response of your speakers.I would recommend downloading a copy of Jerry Austin's: "A Brief Guide to Creating Custom Target Curves with Dirac Live", before you give up on Dirac or any of the other EQ programs.
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Post by newprometheus on Oct 25, 2016 14:14:34 GMT -5
Thanks, fbczar! You make a compelling case. Perhapa I should try some of the latest room correction technologies you mentioned...
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Post by junchoon on Oct 26, 2016 20:52:13 GMT -5
500khz? That is a typo right?
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