Having matching crossover on mains and sub is less important than what people thinks. The room will mess with things to such an extent that it won’t matter (much), just treat it like a 2.0 system and use FF (or similar).
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Question. I know these are absolutely unrelated, but they both require some work, and they’re roughly the same price. Should I begin with focus fidelity or HQPlayer??? I know they’re not mutually exclusive, and they’re not substitutes. But they are both things I could spend $250-$300 on, which will take me some time to work with, and which are promised to provide significant sonic improvements. I get it’s subjective, but would love opinions.
I do agree. I have a 2.2 setup (with convolution filters) and do only lowpass the subwoofers and full range the speakers. But then it is a must that the system is time aligned properly. It is important to understand that a frequency range in bass area will be played from subwoofer and the speakers together with this configuration. This alignment must be done before the correction with FF in my opinion.
I think i will try FF very soon. 
I was using a Topping DM-7 8 channel dac and volume control. The dac worked really well. Dirac bass control provided the crossovers.
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I agree with Magnus! When I went from using a 8 channel dac with Dirac; my current setup up with FF, I am using a Parasound P7 preamp that provides hi/lo crossovers for the mains and subs.
With the help REW I was able to measured which crossover setting gave me the best measured results, before doing my measurements with FF.
It’s always more effective to tackle room/speaker acoustics, so the former any time of the day!
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I have HQPlayer and Focus Fidelity, and they’re not at all in the same field, so now that I use both, I’d be hard pressed to say which of the 2 I should start with. What I can say in my case is that FF has made a huge contribution to my system, but I already had HQPlayer working beforehand, so I’ve never tried FF without HQPlayer.
Here is a quick review I posted at ASR. Thanks Magnus for your notes on usage, the bass level especially. I would recommend taking measurements not only at ear height but 3 ft. off the the ground as well. I can’t recommend this program for Roon enough. Fantastic for creating convolution filters…
From ASR.
“I recently started using Focus Fidelity in Roon . I experimented with Rew first. This was a game changer for my 2.1 system. Tighter bass, improved soundstage. It has an easy to use measurement tool and the learning curve is not to steep. I thought . “Where has this been hiding”
My system is 2.1 Meridian Dsp5200se DSW sub and 218 controller.
Does FF provide a functionality that allows to create convolution filters which can be imported in ROON?
Thanks.
The filter design application generates filters compatible with software such as Accurate Sound’s HLC, Roon, JRiver Media Center, and HQPlayer.
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Ah, thank you!
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+1 from my side.
I tried HQPlayer some time ago and found the benefit to be subtile.
A properly done correction filter is day and night in comparison.
To do full justice to what HQPlayer can do, you need a native DSD DAC which leaves the upsampled signal coming from HQPlayer untouched and only converts it to analog.
Most chip-based Delta-Sigma DACs (like ESS) don’t allow to bypass the internal Sigma-Delta-Modulator so you loose about 50% of the benefit HQPlayer can do (according to the developer Jussi Laako). You can only skip the chips internal PCM upsampling stages by feeding the DAC the highest supported PCM rate.
You can try for yourself by using the internal upsampling in Roon which is quite good already and upsample to max PCM rate that your DAC is capable of to get a general idea of how beneficial external upsampling can be with your DAC. If your DAC supports DSD you can do the same with upsampling to DSD in Roon.
In my experience with chip based DACs (Wolfson, ESS), the step up from internal upsampling to Roon upsampling ist about the same as stepping up from Roon Upsampling to HQPlayer Upsampling (PCM), both subtile.
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Yes, I use it. I’ll be honest, I initially approached Focus Fidelity with great fear, a case of struggling with REW and similar in the past. There was no need for fear though, I ran through the various steps, following the instructions provided by Focus Fidelity, and I was up and running with convolution filters within the hour. Over time, I have fine tuned the curves etc., pretty much a case of doing this to taste, or maybe to suit the system and music preferences.
I have been using it for three or four years now and would not be without it. Best upgrade per £ (or $) that I have ever done.
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I experimented with the “Mixed Phase Filter” checkbox and I think I prefer it off. Having it off gives a little better soundstage (as far as I can tell, the differences are not huge). I think mixed phase filters are a combination of both fixing room-phase and crossover-phase, and I guess my speakers don’t need fixing.
More experimenting needed though, anyone have any input about mixed phase filters?
Maybe @Focus_Fidelity can give some input on this?
Hi @Roland_von_Unruh ,
The correction bandwidth page was removed to simplify the process. Some users found this page confusing, most left it in the default settings, and some used it. Overall, it seemed sensible to simplify.
So yes, the 1-10 setting still adjusts the bandwidth in the background along with some other parameters.
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Hi @Magnus
In the latest version mixed phase correction was made optional so users could try it with and without. Some might prefer it without; it is a case of try it and see.
The mixed phase correction is designed to solve crossover-induced phase distortions and some room effects but these changes may not always suit everyone.
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Is there still in the pipeline for FF adding the option for digital crossovers/ eq multiple subwoofers and multichannel.
Thank, Sam
Well, now I changed my mind and prefer mixed phase 
The differences are subtle though in my system, I imagine it makes bigger difference with worse speakers.
After using FF for a few days and experimenting, I thought I could give some suggestions to @Focus_Fidelity
- In my opinion correction level 8 is to much, yes it gives a nicer flat result, but it messes a little to much in higher frequencies and besides “less in more” in DRC. I use correction 5.
- Some sort of advanced “view” to enable for example manual adjustments of filters would be nice. In my correction I noticed that female voiced sounded a little wrong, and the reason was a slightly to aggressive correction around 1kh. Being able to make some fine adjustments to filters would be a good way to handle this. Just make sure that “advanced” view is off by default, or new users might be scared away.
- A more well defined “wizard” with Next/Prev, its a common UI approach so people are used to it.
- Phase should be shown in result (maybe only in “advanced view” see point 2).
- Panning in graph should be possible.
- Default number of measurements should be odd (you usually do 1 measurement at LP and an even number of measurement on each side).
- A suggestion in the manual how to do the measurements, most users feel better if they have a suggestion instead of something like “do some measurements around the listening position”. Make sure the default (see 6) matches the suggestion.
- A better and more visible progress bar.
- In case you don’t already do this, make sure not to fill holes with excess phase (I don’t have that problem in my well treated room so I can’t check if its there already).
Most of the above are small tweaks, FF is good as it is today but can be made better in my opinion.
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Thanks for your feedback, and what about “Fine time Alignment”?
What impact does this have on rendering?