Digital room correction – My experience - Home Audio Fidelity

Audio Gear Talk
22

do you mean by trial and error or are there speaker measurements that one can use to signify what speaker might sound best?

Of course not trial and error. Regarding distance speaker<>listener knowing the RT60 of the room, the desired window of listening distances and a reliable measurement of speaker directivity vs. frequency in most cases gives a pretty good idea of which model would be suitable and which not.

I am not saying anything against Thierry’s work or any other form of sophisticated digital room correction. I found this all to be very useful if the initial work of avoiding the most crucial, uncorrectable mistakes has been done.

If you’re lucky enough to have freedom to position where you like for both speakers and listening position and all the stuff in the room then lucky you, but you’re the minority.

I do not quite believe this is an exception as I know a lot of ways how to counter a non-ideal acoustic environment. When rearranging my living room I found myself pretty restricted in terms of speaker placement. I just bought speakers after knowing these parameters (incl. RT60 of the room) specifically for that situation and adjusted the placement of the listening position.

23

After burn-in phase that take a couple of days – just kidding – the HAF filter + Crosstalk is my preference. The instruments are clearer and more defined. I think the keywords are clarity and soundstage. The sound is more rounded somehow.

But it is sometimes difficult to perceive the difference on some tracks - but the overall effect this there.

I my case it was a “minimal” correction to protect the natural character of loudspeakers & room. @Simon_Arnold3 just nailed it: “less is more in DSP”. And I think he is absolut right.

Sure, DSP cannot solve everything, but it can reduce the effects of the room quite nicely.

This is a very cost-effective upgrade, and I will keep it “Turned-On”.

Torben

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24

Same for me. Have been playing with a filter created with the Focus Fidelity software.
Not ‘earth shaking’ difference, but the nuances are definitely there.

Combined with the great support from David from Focus Fidelity it’s money well spent.

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25

From my personal experience I can say that having a dedicated listening room optimized for acoustics and audio has its own set of drawbacks. Sure, the sound is very good, but it takes away some spontaneity in listening. In my case, about 98% of my listening is to western classical music, so I simply treat it as an occasion, like going to a concert. I decide what I want to listen to, queue it up in Roon, then go to my listening room and “attend the concert”. Afterwards, I might listen to more or return to the “living” section of my house. In this section, I simply use HomePods or Sonos to play more casual music.

My wife has a dedicated art studio adjacent to the listening room so each of us got something we wanted, no arguments! :grin:

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26

I use also @Focus_Fidelity software which made a considerable improvement. Love to hear your approach, learnings and settings used.

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27

Well,

Basically I did a ‘follow-the-wizard’ approach. I’m not that guy that knows all the ins-and-outs about room correction: I just want to enjoy my music. And I was curious if there’s something as ‘room correction for dummies’ :wink:

The only thing that’s slightly different that I had contact with @Focus_Fidelity to verify if my measurements were ok and I asked if they could send me the Harman curve.

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28

If you don’t need cross-talk it is probably a nice SW package.
The software does not currently support cross-talk.

Torben

29

On the digital correction side, it is difficult to do much more unless artificially changing the tonal response of me system. And this would be no go!

Yes I could gain with a passive treatment even it might difficult to apply in a living room.

I do have a quite long reverberation time and energy decay is quite slow in the medium/ upper range :

image

Time will show I can do something about it.

Despite all that, my setup sounds great :slight_smile:

Torben

30

@Torben was there any normalization to a specific level of RT60 vs. frequency given or an explanation which colour represents which attenuation? Usually such measurements are done in some kind of 30 or 40dB window and then used as a base to calculate RT60 (T30 or T40).

Are the 2 graphs representing left vs. right channel?

Not knowing the actual level of RT60 just looking at frequency we are seeing quite a typical behavior. What I am making of this just looking at the plain graphs:

  • we have a significant, fairly broad dip in the room’s indirect sound field in the 3K region. It would be interested to know if this is immanent to the room or a consequence of the speaker´s directivity. In many cases that is the reason for ´harsh´ treble, overdamped presence and non-ideal, diffuse imaging.
  • it would be helpful to know where the narrow-banded midrange resonances in the 400Hz region are coming from. If they are originating from windows, furniture or alike, it is necessary to really understand to which extend they are audible before doing any equalization
  • second measurement (of the right front speaker?) is corresponding accurately with the frequency response given in the initial post. As already mentioned, the behaviour in the time domain is on a level which is usually not curable with an EQ. That is particularly the case with the peaks in the 60-90Hz region which are way too long and the dip @120Hz. Something that I would recommend to counter by altering the speaker position before starting the digital equalization process.
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31

When I look into pic one there is still too much bass for my personal taste, the speaker in the edge alone can have +18dB in that area…see the red line…for me personally after also looks bad, bass around 80-100 Hz still way too much this normally covers midrange clarity…in my experience

For that reason I have an Antimode which deals with the bass in a very good way in my opinion.

Early reflections on the right side of the room (glass) and behind the listening place. Hard floor and glass what can I say :wink:

For sure some filters will bring some more fidelity feeling, but as you can also see, the dips can never be really filled (and should also not) except changing the position of the speaker or listening place which is mostly a no go in most setups.

But the personal impression is what counts (in this community HiFi to 90% ;-))

So if it sounds “better” for the thread owner than it is good.

And PS: a Dane with no Dynaudio or Dali speakers :wink: what happend there?

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32

I know :slight_smile:

TR-Room
TR-Room1920×1041 198 KB

That is the big challenge.

Have a nice WE

Torben

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33

Just use the filters and enjoy. Your room is your room and use it as you wish.

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34

I think you’re misinterpreting the graph it’s just to show the scale not where it actually is. When headroom is applied it’s likely to be about 5db gain for the bass.

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35

You too mange tak!

36

I have an acoustically extremely difficult room that cannot be chastised by any normal measure. Since I use the convolution filters of the acourate software in Roon it sounds like in seventh heaven. All peaks are cancelled, dips are filled up to a certain extent. It sounds brilliant and I and my hi-fi friends are stunned.

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37

Home Audio Fidelity Crosstalk and Convolution Filters - Oui ou Non?

Have a nice WE

Torben

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38

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion in that review between Roon’s Crossfeed and Thierry’s Crosstalk Cancellation Filters, unless I’ve misread it?

39

GIK and some of the other companies have some panels that aren’t unattractive - they look sort of like abstract artwork. Some also in a wood veneer, so they don’t look like typical panels.
In addition, you can order panels with artwork of your choice printed on them. Then the panel becomes part of the decor - visually it’s sort of like a picture on the wall.

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