If you did measurements with Impala then they are already auto-zeroed. Do you guys say that its better to undo that zeroing and perform the calculation? That sounds very strange.
I have also experienced a slight shift to the right for some center voices, so interesting in the solution. A proper DRC should correct that even if one of the speakers plays louder.
No just the opposite…I undid the autozero by misinterpreting what was in the manual and posted here and “created” an off center soundstage panned to the right. So redid the filter and reimported the Impala measurements and didnt touch the autozero function and that fixed the issue…no more soundstage centering problem!
My experience with Focus Fidelity
In summary, I am thrilled with the results.
I first became aware of digital room correction years ago, when miniDSP first came out. It seemed like it would be complicated to set up, and I was not thrilled with the idea of inserting an ADC/signal processor/DAC. I never gave much thought to the idea in the ensuing years. Then, two things happened:
I ordered a UMIK-1 and cheap microphone stand from Amazon and purchased the Focus Fidelity software. I read the manuals and found them a bit confusing. I managed to screw up taking measurements on my first try, and the Impala software hung during my second effort. Everything worked perfectly on my third attempt, so now all I needed to do was to create my filter.
I initially made filters using all of Focus Fidelity’s preset options, thinking I would then try each, choose the one that seemed best and then tweak until I had what I wanted. Fortunately, I realized that this would be a waste of time. All the user-loaded headphone filters in MUSE were modified versions of the Harman curve or some similar generic user preference. I discovered when selecting headphone filters that I preferred a couple of small peaks in the upper treble. So, I used the Focus Fidelity Harman curve and added my tweaks to the upper frequencies and uploaded it to Roon.
When I first tried it, the volume was roughly 15bD lower than without the filter, so I opened the curve in Focus Fidelity, raised the curve by 15dB and tried again. Now, I was in business.
I have a relatively pricey audiophile system that I thought sounded very good, but the differences after applying the filter were dramatic. Instrument timbre was improved to a level that I never thought was possible. My listening room is very large (roughly 25’ wide by 60’ deep) and irregularly shaped, with some large alcoves. I have never had great imaging, largely due to the size and shape of the room. Now I have and wonderful soundstage with very clear separation and imaging.
I am sure I could get some minor improvements by tweaking my current filter, but prefer to spend my free time listening to music instead. I cannot recommend this product more highly.
One other feature I would like from @Focus_Fidelity is to be able to measure with sweeps played externally. There are many situations when this can be good, for me its to be able to measure with a HQPlayer filter in place. Another common scenario is when using a NUC (or Nucleus from Roon) as Roon server.
You would need to have the “chirp” timing sound in place for this, and the ability to export your sweeps as well as listening and waiting for the “chirp” to play before measuring. Maybe even export all three sweeps into one.
+1 from me also, I asked for it a while ago. I have a streaming only dac that has no usb input so I had to go buy a cheap dac to do the measuring
Focus Fidelity is a high value product up there with room treatment if not better. Tried REW and rephase to create convolution filters but could never get the results I get with FF. Really simple to use and my 2.2 system has never sounded this good. Detail and imaging are fantastic. Can’t imagine what an atmos setup calibrated with FF would sound like, only if there was a minidsp or reasonably priced alternative with 13-channels and enough taps per channel. Very happy with FF!!
Hi @Magnus
I might implement this in the future. The procedure would be that Impala generates a 2 channel wav file which you play from Roon or any other media player. The wav files contains an initial timing chirp followed by left channel sweep, right channel sweep and another timing chirp. The last timing chirp being for clock drift correction.
I’m a Roon, HQP and FF user, and this would be a great development for FF
Waiting for this new version 
I’ve been using Focus Fidelity for 16 months. It is worth every cent of the entry price IMHO. It is sophisticated enough for advanced users to tweak the final filter significantly but the default settings will give most people far better sound than they can get from REW/RePhase, etc. I am a reasonably advanced user of DRC and am lucky enough to have a well-treated, dedicated listening room but Focus Fidelity is still an invaluable tool in my DSP armoury. The latest update makes the product even better. No ongoing subscription, either. I heartily recommend it. Kind regards, Peter.
I have a Linn DMS with front and top speakers : It has always been a struggle with DRC software to get something I prefer over the uncorrected speakers. Latest version of Focus Fidelity with Correction setting set to 1 with Flat target gave me great results : Same sound as uncorrected speaker but some harshness is now gone so I can listen at higher levels ! Great job David !
As others, 2 features I’d like:
I bought FF in March after finding this thread and agree with the general sentiment that it produces stunning results. I was surprised when I first listened with filters in Roon. The proverbial smile occurred!
I have a question though. My preamp reverses phase. I swap polarity at the main speakers to compensate. The problem though, is that I also have the preamp output to powered mid-woofers and powered sub-woofers. Those do not swap polarity. So, I think that means that my mains are running out of phase with the powered speakers. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, does FF compensate for this with phase adjustments or do I need to do something differently to compensate?
I guess another possibility is to not swap polarity on the mains. That would mean they would be out of absolute phase. But, at least the mains and powered woofers would be in phase with each other.
Thanks for any help!
There’s strong evidence that humans’ auditory capabilities are insensitive to absolute phase, but if it matters to your inner Monk, you could just invert phase via Roon’s Muse capabilities without any signal degradation penalty.
That sorted, have FF take care of the rest without mangled inter-speaker phase reversals.
I reconnected everything with no cable reversals. Now everything is in phase sync though reversed absolute phase. I retested and now listening to the new filters. So far so good.
Thanks for the input.
Pete,
Help me understand how to tell if your stereo is in phase or not.
Thanks
There are others here with more expertise, but I can start.
Some preamps, seems in particular tube pres, reverse absolute phase. Generally, one can assume absolute phase is correct unless one has one of these reversing pieces. With Roon, you can toggle the phase setting in DSP and see if you hear a difference.
In my case, I am technically tri-amped with main amp to main speakers, powered mid-woofers, and powered subs. As long as the preamp is not reversing phase or it is but you are not reversing polarity on your speaker cables to the mains, everything should be in absolute phase together.
If you are talking about relative phase (i.e., one speaker’s phase relative to the other’s), that is a different kettle of fish. If relative phase is off between a pair of speakers, you can tell from the poor imaging.
HTH
Thanks Pete, As I rock an Eversolo DMP-A8 I won’t be concerned then about phasing. I wonder if I could tell anyway!
John
Probably not absolute phase, but definitely if relative phase was off. But that would mean you wired your speakers incorrectly.
I really like to tell you about my experience with Focusfidelity’s software, to which I came in contact via this very thread. I’m using its convolutional filters with Roon.
I started with some measurements with Impala and asked a question to David from Focusfidelity about a certain effect (that turned out to be created by a non-centered measurement). As a response David provided me with an .mdat file for REW containing a filter created by his Finetic software and its (computed) impact on the measurement. Impressed by how this filter looked like and by the positive reports in this thread I bought (after some issues with my credit card… sorry, David) the Finetic software.
I’ve been experimenting now for two weeks with different target curves and (preliminarily 
) ended up with
I almost have to get used to the sound my system has now. Though difficult to grasp quickly in A/B comparison, in the longer run it is
I bought Focus Fidelity because of this thread thanks @Magnus and are enjoying every bit of it I have calibrated for the last 8-10 years manually, Dirac & Anthem ARC, but nothing comes close to this and I love that it’s a software you buy and can experiment with yourself and not rely on calibration services you have to annoy every time you make some changes to your system.
And the customization options available like how aggressive the correction has to be is simply perfect and the way you can shape the target curves works really well too.
I had a timing issue with my desktop system and reached out to David the owner and the day after he released an update which fixed the issue so thanks to @Focus_Fidelity for the fast support.
If you are uncertain if you should buy this software just do it it’s money well spent in my opinion.
For information:
New versions released :
Focus Fidelity Impala 2.0.3
Focus Fidelity Finetic 2.0.3