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Post by Boomzilla on May 5, 2020 4:03:48 GMT -5
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ttocs
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Post by ttocs on May 5, 2020 5:31:38 GMT -5
You got my vote! I agree with everything you wrote.
Whenever I've altered or repositioned my speakers I've gone back to basics each time. This means removing treatments, which for me is only absorption, so I can tweak speaker placement and orientation. Then the treatments go where needed, after which the electronicals (Lisa Douglas, Green Acres) can get involved.
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Post by mgbpuff on May 5, 2020 6:19:54 GMT -5
Yup. But a complexly furnished room (bookcases, soft furnishings, carpets, etc.)can sometimes make acoustical treatment unnecessary or at least minimum. I have come to feel (a purposely used term) that, except for room nodes due to dimensions, electronic modification of signals is counter productive.
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Post by 405x5 on May 5, 2020 7:25:00 GMT -5
Yup. But a complexly furnished room (bookcases, soft furnishings, carpets, etc.)can sometimes make acoustical treatment unnecessary or at least minimum. I have come to feel (a purposely used term) that, except for room nodes due to dimensions, electronic modification of signals is counter productive. Yes! Typical room furnishings ARE of course, room treatments in and of themselves that work for and against you at the same time. They need to be played with to the max, in the context of practical use of the audio space before using ( if needed) specific room treatment products. Bill |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on May 5, 2020 9:15:53 GMT -5
Let me phrase the answer to that question somewhat differently. Room Correction software is great, or at least it can be, and can do impressive things.... BUT IT CANNOT FIX EVERYTHING. (And many people have very exaggerated ideas about what it can do... and seem to have no idea about what it cannot do.)
For example, if your room was an anechoic chamber, room correction software could add sound, playing from various speakers, to simulate the sound of a normal room.
And, if you wanted it to, it could make your normal room sound like a giant cave, by adding echoes and reverberation. (And this simulation could, under some circumstances, be quite effective... but it wouldn't be exact.)
Room Correction does best when your aim is to correct minor issues or adjust for minor changes.
HOWEVER, room correction software CANNOT magically suck all the echoes OUT of a tiled bathroom, and make it sound like an anechoic chamber, or a normal room. With incredibly careful and precise calculations, it is sometimes possible to do something like that, IN VERY LIMITED SITUATIONS. For example, in noise cancelling headphones, you can block a certain range of frequencies quite effectively, over a range of a few inches. And, for another example, in an automobile, you can use the speakers in the car to cancel out some engine noise...
But that is really only practical where the frequencies involved are low enough that the wavelengths involved are relatively large relative to the distance between you and the speaker.
Room Correction also CANNOT correct for every possible anomaly in a speaker. Yes, room correction can do an excellent job of correcting minor frequency response anomalies, and even many timing issues... But, again, it CANNOT fix everything... and that is even more true for "outside the box correction". (There are some things you could fix if you had separate access to each driver in a particular speaker that cannot be fixed from outside the speaker box where you do not.)
You will almost always have FAR betterr overall results if you start with a room with reasonably good acoustics...
(By doing so you limit the issues that need correcting to those which room correction is good at fixing.)
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Post by 405x5 on May 5, 2020 10:26:36 GMT -5
Let me phrase the answer to that question somewhat differently. Room Correction software is great, or at least it can be, and can do impressive things.... BUT IT CANNOT FIX EVERYTHING. (And many people have very exaggerated ideas about what it can do... and seem to have no idea about what it cannot do.)
For example, if your room was an anechoic chamber, room correction software could add sound, playing from various speakers, to simulate the sound of a normal room.
And, if you wanted it to, it could make your normal room sound like a giant cave, by adding echoes and reverberation. (And this simulation could, under some circumstances, be quite effective... but it wouldn't be exact.)
Room Correction does best when your aim is to correct minor issues or adjust for minor changes.
HOWEVER, room correction software CANNOT magically suck all the echoes OUT of a tiled bathroom, and make it sound like an anechoic chamber, or a normal room. With incredibly careful and precise calculations, it is sometimes possible to do something like that, IN VERY LIMITED SITUATIONS. For example, in noise cancelling headphones, you can block a certain range of frequencies quite effectively, over a range of a few inches. And, for another example, in an automobile, you can use the speakers in the car to cancel out some engine noise...
But that is really only practical where the frequencies involved are low enough that the wavelengths involved are relatively large relative to the distance between you and the speaker.
Room Correction also CANNOT correct for every possible anomaly in a speaker. Yes, room correction can do an excellent job of correcting minor frequency response anomalies, and even many timing issues... But, again, it CANNOT fix everything... and that is even more true for "outside the box correction". (There are some things you could fix if you had separate access to each driver in a particular speaker that cannot be fixed from outside the speaker box where you do not.)
You will almost always have FAR betterr overall results if you start with a room with reasonably good acoustics...
(By doing so you limit the issues that need correcting to those which room correction is good at fixing.)
A friend of mine whose got the “audio bug” and teaches Electrical engineering up at West Point, came by early on around the time when I got the XMC. He looked around before listening if I recall and said he didn’t see much in the room that an automated system could correct for in the first place. I wasn’t at all surprised, given that I had exhausted myself (so to speak) adhering to the design parameters of the loudspeakers themselves. |
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Post by audiobill on May 5, 2020 10:45:12 GMT -5
Agree with "Room Correction" useful at the margin for minor tuneups....Then why all the obsession with Dirac in these pages?
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on May 5, 2020 11:15:22 GMT -5
AudioBill... thanks for giving me that opening to interject a bit of an editorial comment.... I personally believe that many audiophiles have what I would consider to be an excessive, and sometimes downright obsessive, interest in room correction. Many audiophiles, and many of our customers, seem to think that room correction software is some sort of Holy Grail of performance... And that, if only they could discover "the ultimate room correction solution", everything would become perfection... The sun would shine a little brighter, the birds would sing a little louder, and all of the minor complaints they have about how their system sounds would magically disappear. (And they would be able to put their subwoofers wherever their wife thinks they look good... and the software would take care of all the details and make them sound just perfect.)
Visualize one of those 1950's TV commercials.... Where the sun comes out, our housewife's hair gets a new permanent, and all of the wrinkles disappear from her dress... when she discovers Brand X floor cleaner... (I'm remembering commercials for "Mr Clean".)
They don't look at room correction as "useful for making minor tuneups and corrections" (I think that's a great, and very realistic, description of what room correction really is). Rather, they look at room correction as "The ultimate answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" - at least as regards audio equipment.
Personally..... - I think that room correction sometimes does a really great job of correcting for minor imperfections in your room or your speakers - Dirac Live is probably the best automatic room correction software currently available - the new bass management module will probably be really handy for a few people who have multiple subs and seem to have trouble getting them adjusted to work well together - I also know that room correction cannot fix many major problems with your room, or your speakers, or any other part of your system
When it comes to a sophisticated product like a home theater processor, room correction is just one of a long list of things that I look for... And, to be quite honest, it isn't that close to the top of my list... Agree with "Room Correction" useful at the margin for minor tuneups....Then why all the obsession with Dirac in these pages? |
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ttocs
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Post by ttocs on May 5, 2020 12:02:07 GMT -5
Room Correction software is great, or at least it can be, and can do impressive things.... BUT IT CANNOT FIX EVERYTHING.
Room Correction does best when your aim is to correct minor issues or adjust for minor changes.
You will almost always have FAR better overall results if you start with a room with reasonably good acoustics...
(By doing so you limit the issues that need correcting to those which room correction is good at fixing.)
To these points - When I moved into this house the living room was a problem and I tried multiple setups during the first year culminating with what I lived with till a couple years ago, constantly chasing "the fix" (huge nulls and one really huge bloat), but to no avail. After tearing out some walls the room is now rather easy to cope with, needing minimal treatment to tame some of the liveliness but not kill it. It's a very natural situation now. |
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Post by megash0n on May 5, 2020 12:40:48 GMT -5
AudioBill... thanks for giving me that opening to interject a bit of an editorial comment.... I personally believe that many audiophiles have what I would consider to be an excessive, and sometimes downright obsessive, interest in room correction. Many audiophiles, and many of our customers, seem to think that room correction software is some sort of Holy Grail of performance... And that, if only they could discover "the ultimate room correction solution", everything would become perfection... The sun would shine a little brighter, the birds would sing a little louder, and all of the minor complaints they have about how their system sounds would magically disappear. (And they would be able to put their subwoofers wherever their wife thinks they look good... and the software would take care of all the details and make them sound just perfect.)
Visualize one of those 1950's TV commercials.... Where the sun comes out, our housewife's hair gets a new permanent, and all of the wrinkles disappear from her dress... when she discovers Brand X floor cleaner... (I'm remembering commercials for "Mr Clean".)
They don't look at room correction as "useful for making minor tuneups and corrections" (I think that's a great, and very realistic, description of what room correction really is). Rather, they look at room correction as "The ultimate answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" - at least as regards audio equipment.
Personally..... - I think that room correction sometimes does a really great job of correcting for minor imperfections in your room or your speakers - Dirac Live is probably the best automatic room correction software currently available - the new bass management module will probably be really handy for a few people who have multiple subs and seem to have trouble getting them adjusted to work well together - I also know that room correction cannot fix many major problems with your room, or your speakers, or any other part of your system
When it comes to a sophisticated product like a home theater processor, room correction is just one of a long list of things that I look for... And, to be quite honest, it isn't that close to the top of my list... Agree with "Room Correction" useful at the margin for minor tuneups....Then why all the obsession with Dirac in these pages? I look at room correction in two ways. 1. Applying eq. I am "interested in this" 2. Timing and phase alignment throughout the audio spectrum. I am focused on this. Yes, I know one can educate themselves, or pay someone, to do a lot of this manually, but if I have the option to use Dirac, focusing my time on other fruitful things in life, that's what I want to do. I don't want to sit and wonder everyday if I understood a concept properly, or if I measured correctly, etc etc. I'd prefer to rely on super smart folks who lead the market in such analysis to tell me how things should be phase and time aligned in my room. Plus, I may decide in two months to move all my gear back into my empty, purpose built theater room. I'd have to start that process all over for days of relearning and testing. All to doubt myself again. I view this different than most. And, I'm probably just wrong in my thinking. But, I want to know the technical details are correct, and then I will determine if the room modes are causing a measurable and/or audible negative impact I deem worthy of fixing with additional room treatments designated for that particular band of frequencies. What I CAN easily do is put two subs in my room with incorrect alignment and cause a massive amount of spl loss. Simply following the advice of "more subs" can make things much worse without a sound understanding of how to integrate them together and to the rest of your system. I am concerned with system integration without years of experience in the matter. Some eq where needed and beneficial is a plus. This is only how I understand and feel about all of this. |
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on May 5, 2020 12:53:28 GMT -5
My vote is for both, used appropriately.
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Post by monkumonku on May 5, 2020 14:24:34 GMT -5
Agree with "Room Correction" useful at the margin for minor tuneups....Then why all the obsession with Dirac in these pages? What I find odd is that many who employ room correction solutions for HT are adamant about not doing so for two-channel music, wanting the latter to be as "pure" as possible. Yet, if your room has acoustic issues, wouldn't this interfere with the purity of the sound? I would think that one would be more critical of fidelity for music than movies because movies are largely voice and sound effects and who knows what those sound effects are really supposed to sound like. Whatever music there is in movies is also mainly for background to enhance or support the mood of the scene so fidelity to the source would be secondary. So why make such a big deal for room correction in HT but strive for purity and direct sound for two channel music? |
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Post by monkumonku on May 5, 2020 14:30:13 GMT -5
Like Dyohn pointed out earlier, why not use both? Why does it have to be either/or, or a determination of one "better" than the other? Could very well be situation-specific. Arguing over this is like asking if ported speakers are better than sealed. I think the author of that article is just trying to stir dissension and division!  |
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Post by Gary Cook on May 5, 2020 15:13:24 GMT -5
Agree with "Room Correction" useful at the margin for minor tuneups....Then why all the obsession with Dirac in these pages? What I find odd is that many who employ room correction solutions for HT are adamant about not doing so for two-channel music, wanting the latter to be as "pure" as possible. Yet, if your room has acoustic issues, wouldn't this interfere with the purity of the sound? I would think that one would be more critical of fidelity for music than movies because movies are largely voice and sound effects and who knows what those sound effects are really supposed to sound like. Whatever music there is in movies is also mainly for background to enhance or support the mood of the scene so fidelity to the source would be secondary. So why make such a big deal for room correction in HT but strive for purity and direct sound for two channel music? Exactly, hence why I have always (for a very long time anyway) found benefit in making the room acoustics the best I can first. Most likely because I started on it before software was available. Most likely it’s a gap in my process, or it’s just a whole lot easier, but I can achieve a pretty good result for the L&R and the sub. The other speakers are more difficult being spread around, plus in the case of ceiling speakers aimed at the floor. As a result, for me, stereo 2.1 music doesn’t benefit much if any from software. It really only needs correction when all the channels are in play. FWIW I do use software correction when playing multi channel SACD’s for the same reason. Cheers Gary |
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Post by Boomzilla on May 5, 2020 15:30:31 GMT -5
I believe that we're still in the infancy, relatively speaking, of room correction software. Mr. KeithL is entirely right when he says that room correction IN ITS CURRENT STATE OF DEVELOPMENT is "useful for making minor tuneups and corrections." But that assessment may rapidly become obsolete in the face of technological advancements. Just for the fun of it, imagine a room with an "active ceiling" that is programmed to absorb, diffuse, or reflect depending on the demands of the speakers and the music! In fact, "micro amp/speakers" embedded in the active-ceiling could automatically fix nulls and reduce peaks. The main speakers would have a wireless chip in them to tell the ceiling what their capabilities are and about their placement in the room. Even if the speakers or furniture were moved (or if the room was filled with people for a party), the active ceiling would instantly communicate with the speakers and compensate. Not only does the "active ceiling" with "interlinked speakers" not currently exist, but it might also need some parts of the walls to similarly be active to achieve the recreation in the home listening space of the original venue of the recording (if that is what is desired). Artists would NEVER be satisfied with that, though. They would promptly create soundscapes that could never exist in nature to entertain the listener. But the point is, we have no idea what the future of audio might hold. The only statement that CAN be made with total assurance is that change is inevitable. As new technologies become available (and affordable) many of the impediments we consider insurmountable will fall. And we probably can't even imagine how. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades! Boomzilla |
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Post by mgbpuff on May 5, 2020 21:26:46 GMT -5
Room eq is a misnomer. A single point (MLP) of hearing correction is what is going on. If you do more points the correction at the MLP is diluted. Good for one listener only, marginal improvement for some nearby. Room treatment helps the whole area. I've said this before and it is my opinion. Even the SiFi ceiling Boom talks about would only be accurate at one point. Maybe the solution is 3D headphones, really good ones with 3D eq from the transmitting AVR capable of handling multiple simultaneous MLPs. Sit on a shaker chair for deepest bass.
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Post by Gary Cook on May 6, 2020 5:42:24 GMT -5
Room eq is a misnomer. A single point (MLP) of hearing correction is what is going on. If you do more points the correction at the MLP is diluted. Good for one listener only, marginal improvement for some nearby. Room treatment helps the whole area. I've said this before and it is my opinion. Even the SiFi ceiling Boom talks about would only be accurate at one point. Maybe the solution is 3D headphones, really good ones with 3D eq from the transmitting AVR capable of handling multiple simultaneous MLPs. Sit on a shaker chair for deepest bass. Excuse me for my narcissism but I don’t care about anyone else, after all it’s all about me. I’m the one who sits in the captain’s chair, it’s situated exactly in the “tuned” position. I paid for all of the gear, set it up, did all of the work getting it just right for me and only me, no one else but me, me, me. So the rest of the unwashed, with their untrained ears, can suffer in their almost but not quite ideal seating positions. They can’t tell the difference anyway. Cheers Gary |
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Post by 405x5 on May 6, 2020 7:28:31 GMT -5
Room eq is a misnomer. A single point (MLP) of hearing correction is what is going on. If you do more points the correction at the MLP is diluted. Good for one listener only, marginal improvement for some nearby. Room treatment helps the whole area. I've said this before and it is my opinion. Even the SiFi ceiling Boom talks about would only be accurate at one point. Maybe the solution is 3D headphones, really good ones with 3D eq from the transmitting AVR capable of handling multiple simultaneous MLPs. Sit on a shaker chair for deepest bass. Excuse me for my narcissism but I don’t care about anyone else, after all it’s all about me. I’m the one who sits in the captain’s chair, it’s situated exactly in the “tuned” position. I paid for all of the gear, set it up, did all of the work getting it just right for me and only me, no one else but me, me, me. So the rest of the unwashed, with their untrained ears, can suffer in their almost but not quite ideal seating positions. They can’t tell the difference anyway. Cheers Gary |
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Post by garbulky on May 6, 2020 8:04:18 GMT -5
I used to think my room sounded just fine without room treatment due to their being no obvious peaks, dips, bloat, etc. There was a wall to wall carpet, no massive reflections except for a brick wall, the room wasn't too massive to echo egregiously and everything sounded very clear.
I was so wrong! Now I'm all about room treatment because that's what it takes to lock in a soundstage! As for room correction, I've heard room correction do some impressive "changes". The best I've heard were TACT and DIRAC, which are a significant step up from older systems. But I still haven't heard one that I would want to actually use long term. Room correction has a loooong ways to go and then some imo. It's like the uncanny valley, once you get to a certain point, very minor flaws can stick out.
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Post by mgbpuff on May 6, 2020 14:18:44 GMT -5
Room eq is a misnomer. A single point (MLP) of hearing correction is what is going on. If you do more points the correction at the MLP is diluted. Good for one listener only, marginal improvement for some nearby. Room treatment helps the whole area. I've said this before and it is my opinion. Even the SiFi ceiling Boom talks about would only be accurate at one point. Maybe the solution is 3D headphones, really good ones with 3D eq from the transmitting AVR capable of handling multiple simultaneous MLPs. Sit on a shaker chair for deepest bass. Excuse me for my narcissism but I don’t care about anyone else, after all it’s all about me. I’m the one who sits in the captain’s chair, it’s situated exactly in the “tuned” position. I paid for all of the gear, set it up, did all of the work getting it just right for me and only me, no one else but me, me, me. So the rest of the unwashed, with their untrained ears, can suffer in their almost but not quite ideal seating positions. They can’t tell the difference anyway. Cheers Gary I like that! Room equalization is definitely made for you. |
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