Application of ear-drops unnecessary - hello DSP! šŸ˜Š

Well, well, who would have believed it, a little trip into the DSP settings (oh no not me Iā€™m a bit perfect sort of guy!) and musical nirvana is achieved! :sunglasses:

For around 5 years or so (since updating tweeters in my previous speakers and then building my own with Mark Audioā€™s full range drivers) I have noticed a particular annoying trait of my room. The speakers are placed either side of the telly along the long edge of the room, which makes for quite a wide gap between them compared to my listening position on the sofa facing them. Its ok - not dramatic but can give very pronounced separation left to right. Now fortunately the MA drivers have wide dispersion, but they also have a lot of energy in the treble area where female voices often sit. To compound this the left hand speaker fires past me and directly into the open plan kitchen area, whereas the right hand speaker hits the wall about 3ā€™ behind the sofa.

Now my problem has been that this results in a nice lot of reflections (presumably) bouncing back and forth from the RH speaker and much delayed set of reflections (if any to my listening position) from the LH speaker - at least that has been my reasoning when battling with recordings in which for some reason the producer has decided to place all the vocals over the the right and not much of anything over to the left!

Well last night at just before midnight Iā€™d had enough! I just wasnā€™t enjoying this album by Liz Green, who seemed to place absolutely everything in the RH channel and leave the left to mere ambience! So - I decided to check whether I only noticed this so much because occasionally my left ear became a bit blocked up with cold or whatever, or whether it was in fact the room. As my Mojo has two minijack outputs I left one attached to the hi-fi and the other I plugged in my headphones for simultaneous comparison (why I hadnā€™t done this before who knows!) And no, my hearing was fine, in my headphones Liz was firmly in the middle, so wishing heartily for a balance control knob on my amp I sat back down - then remembered Roon has some crazy DSP stuff somewhere. I donā€™t suppose there could be a balance control in there I wondered to myself?

After finding many esoteric DSP settings I eventually clicked the ā€˜Add Filterā€™ and low an behold up popped ā€˜Speaker Set-upā€™ - yay! Around an hour later I had discovered my RH speaker was indeed 7cm closer to my right ear than my LH speaker was to my left (who knew!) so I dialled in the respected distances in the fields provided andā€¦ wow! Lizā€™s voice changed considerably. Checking the filter off and then on again her voice clearly lost a sort of fullness that had been surrounding it, it seemed clearer and did indeed seem to hover just a little way off the RH speaker now (I was choosing a particularly RH focussed track here).

Lacking a dB meter or appropriate test track I next found a nice clear mono recording and using my ears as measuring devises the image was indeed a little bit better placed but still slightly RH focussed. Dialling in 2dB uplift on the LH speaker and Nirvana was reached! Amazing I now had, a cleaner clearer voice presentation, presumably due to now both images arriving at my ears together instead of 20ms apart (who would have imagined you could even hear that!) and no more laying across the sofa to try and hear the LH speaker! :blush:

Just thought I would shareā€¦ :grinning: and it does beg the question why do we not perform even this sort of basic room correction as a matter of course - Iā€™m a convert!

Now Iā€™m seeking further DSP goodness and I notice Magnus has posted something about room correction that could keep me occupied for hours just below!! :joy:

9 Likes

I suspect it is because it is easier to buy stuff than actually do the work needed for good room correction. Just getting the speakers in the right place is half the battle. But taking the extra step to correct for inevitable room anomalies takes time and thought.
Buying new cables is simple.

3 Likes

And way more fun!

1 Like

Iā€™ve just read the post on Room correction with REWā€¦ not a cat in hells chance! What? My brain hurts just a few steps in! :joy::joy:

Avoid all of that and have Thierry make up the filters for you. Just follow his easy measurement instructions. I have no connection other than a customer from his early days.

3 Likes

I 2nd using Thierry hes brilliant and takes the hassle other than the readings out of it.

3 Likes

Great to hear youā€™ve sorted it Timā€¦Good read too! :grinning::grinning:

1 Like

Thanks for this. I just measured my speaker distances and found the left speaker is 30 cm farther away, so I made that correction and dialed in a little +db and it sounds better. Thanks again.

1 Like

Yes, just gave this a go in my room and works great.

I usually sit dead central between my speakers but occasionally like to relax on the couch which is on the side of the room. This filter has just helped tremendously and balanced the sound right up.

Think Iā€™ll be relaxing on the couch a lot more now :grinning::grinning::grinning:

1 Like

Thanks for this I will be doing some tweaking tonight!

1 Like

I went thru the above suggestionsā€”room correction and speaker placement and made solid improvements but with all that I really locked in the image with some better vibration isolation of components. I assume because the noise floor dropped.

1 Like

Your system is not more sensitive to vibration control because of a dropped noise floor, it is because it sounds more balanced now. Noise has got nothing to do with it at all.

Noise in audio systems refers to the residual low level sound (usually hiss and hum) It can refer either to the acoustic noise coming out of your loudspeakers, or to the unwanted residual electronic noise signal that gives rise to acoustic noise heard as ā€˜hissā€™.

Hello other Oā€™Neill :hugs:

I had turned up and left side a little and was getting some static. So, I put it back to zero and lowered the right side a little. All is good now.

1 Like

Well, I thought I would give your DSP recommendation a try. Not many of us have the perfect room placement and that includes me.
I can honestly say the difference is astonishing. Vocals are now inside my head, whilst previously were right ear dominant, unless I was falling down the crack in sofa cushionsšŸ˜± for the perfect listening position.

What a difference :+1:

3 Likes

Itā€™s great isnā€™t it! Iā€™ve had the dim left ear problem for years, always presumed there was nothing I could do about it, the left hand speaker fired directly into the open plan kitchen whereas the right hand speaker fired at the wall just a few feet behind me. Even sitting in the middle the reflections from the wall added to the sound energy on that side and by comparison the left hand speaker was cleaner but quieter.

The distance difference was minimal and that adjustment altered the timbre of voices, the balance adjustment did the rest.

Now Iā€™m thinking I wonder what some proper room measurements and some filters added to the extensive DSP capabilities might bring! But I have to say so far, after reading the tutorial concerning using REW Iā€™m severely put off - ridiculously complex, thatā€™s obviously designed for pro use. Other software can make it far easier but is proprietary and is only meant for updating the hardware it is used with - such a shame.

Its not that complicated, and if you use Home Audio Fidelity to create your filters then it takes all the pain out. Get HAF to supply their sweep file and configure REW as per Theirrys instructions which are simple to follow, the ones on the thread are for making your own filters which is more complicated, play the file through Roon and take 9 readings fror each speaker at different positions around your listening position. Save out files send them to Thierry job done. Best value upgrade I ever spent money on.

3 Likes

Thanks - I was hoping to have a play for nothing and just see, but Iā€™ve noted the links In the other post may well give him a try :blush:

Nothing comes for free in life, you pay either in money to let someone else do it for you or you pay with your time and do it moneyless after self study. The latter has the advantage that you learn something underway. I allways tend to choose the second option because of that.

@CrystalGipsy Get HAF to supply their sweep file and configure REW as per Theirrys instructions which are simple to follow

Iā€™m about halfway through the process, trying to follow Thierryā€™s instructions. Either you are a genius / mindreader or I am incredibly stupid :slight_smile:

Itā€™s been quite a journey. My god, when will that guy just make a video to show people exactly what to do? Instead of that, itā€™s back and forth with emails. Iā€™ve fallen down about 10 pitfalls of misunderstanding so far.

Right nowā€¦Iā€™m at the point where Thierry has just sent me ā€œthe filesā€ in the form of two zip folders. Each zip contains a group of wav files as well as something called cfg files. According to Roon, youā€™re just supposed to open and save the zip file. Of course it doesnā€™t work like that. Not at all. So many gaps in the instructions. Iā€™m kind of losing my mind.

Thierry is a wonderful fella. Patient as the day is long. He just assumes that everyoneā€™s a geek, like himself. I keep telling him to talk to me like Iā€™m his mother. The Roon instructions are equally vague and useless.

No, this process is not simple and easy to follow. Iā€™m sure itā€™s great when you figure it out.