Digital Room Correction

Sure, not talking about nulls. Only about valleys where you can set the target below.

My real question is about the range. Most writings agree that you should only aim to correct below a few hundred Hz, but Uli’s process of setting the target below the valleys of course requires full range correction. He told me it works fine. I’ll test it as soon as the software arrives.

Had Dirac running full range when I used it. Sounded great to me.

Back from vacation and beginning to experiment.
Stuck on the first step, hope somebody can help.
@rovinggecko you had some success…

I use the UMIK-1, @Uli_Brueggeman and others tell me it works.
I have the mic plugged in, Windows sees it, REW sees it and is able to measure with it.
But Acourate does not see it. In Mic Alignment, it says No mic channel available. (Things seem to work generally, for output I plugged USB into the Meridian but Acourate came up by default with another driver and said No device, when I changed to Meridian it was happy.)

I can’t find any device setup dialog anywhere in Acourate.

Any suggestions?

You would need to use asio4all as the driver. This should enable you to select the umik-1 in acourate.

Damn, yes I remember that.
Thanks.

And now it works. Thanks.

Although there are all these interesting challenges propping up.
Acourate really wants clock sync between the output and the mic input, which is fine if you have a single AD/DA box and an all-analog system. But my system is all digital, with the DACs in the speakers post-DSP, so there is no clarity CA sync in any case. Working on that problem with Uli.

One question: when I was using REW I could record the sweep with sync signals and play it back through Roon, and fool REW into measuring that even though it thought it was driving the output. Is there a way to do that in Acourate? I would like it because then I can measure the result of the Roon convolution.

When measuring in acourate you can add the filter in the measurement window (under the microphone calibration). That way you can measure results.

That’s good. But it measures what Acourate thinks the results will be. I would like to be able to measure what Roon actually does with it.

Easy to in REW because it can be set up to measure what it hears: play a sweep or oink noise through Roon and see what REW hears, with the sync pulses as necessary. Yes, REW doesn’t know what is going n, it thinks it is driving the signal, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll have to see if I can fool Acourate the same way, but with its focus on accurate timing I doubt it.

I just started a non-commercial blog with tests, articles and tips on digitalroomcorrection on www.drc.one checki it out and pls leave Your comments!

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I am using my late 2014 iMac for running Roon core and SOTM sms200Ultra as a Roon endpoint. The iMac and the streamer are directly connected with an ethernet cable and they run in bridged mode.

Since it’s impossible to use room correction software at the streamer/endpoint level, my question is does is it make sense to invest in a proper dsp software (DIRAC, Acourate, etc.) and use the generated filters with Roon at the server level?

Yes but not Dirac because you can’t export filters.

See the ‘how to do room correction’ guide by Magnus, which uses REW and is a free starting point. (And pretty good)

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FWIW after reading and implementing the guide created by Magnus(and fined tuned by Magnus and others) my system has never sounded better. Its also a great read for learning about DRC.

Here’s the link FYI.

What about Acourate? It’s priced lower than Dirac, and people claim it’s superior to it. Would Acourate do the job in my setup (with SOTM sms200 as the streamer/Roon endpoint)?

The debate is somewhat irrelevant since you can’t use Dirac. As for what’s better I couldn’t say as I’ve never used Acourate. I’ve heard both camps say each is better - I think some of it depends on your needs and how technical you are and what platforms you use. There are already a few topics here on the various packages, and at least one detailed step by step for using Acourate with Roon. Would suggest searching and reading as it probably answers a lot of your questions in a pretty practical way. I think it was @AndersVinberg but I could be wrong.

Thank you very much. I will certainly start with the free REW in order to get a feel for it. I have no knowledge whatsoever, but I am willing to learn (I have the UMIK 1 mic on order). I just need to know the premium paid software solutions will work in my setup, and you’ve answered that. So DIRAC is off my list.

Regarding Acourate, do we know it will work for sure if used with Roon core on a PC which is connected via Ethernet to a streamer?

Yes, providing the components in your proposed setup already work with Roon. You’re not using Acourate as such with Roon. You’re generating filters with Acourate, to be used with Roons convolution engine. Once the filters are imported into Roon, Acourate is no longer needed - unless you want to tweak filters/create new ones or do additional measurements.

I havent used convolution yet, but I would like to.
I have some questions.

  1. I use a rock server (i dont use windows or macs). Is convolution available on Rock?
    If not, may this be added?

  2. I stream from Rock to 8 different end points in my home.
    Each end point has a different in-room Frequency response.
    May I configure different FR correction files per end point?

  3. From the help instructions I have read, the convolution is matched by sample rate. ie: it will match the played back file, to the right config file by sample rate.
    Is bit depth irrelevant?

Others might correct:

  1. Yes, I use DRC with a ROCK on a NUC.
  2. Yes, you can choose for every endpoint different DSP settings. Best you create different presets per endpoint. But be aware that FIR filters, but also other filters depending on sampling frequency, filter characteristics and correction type produce a delay. Like this you might hear different delays from end point to end point when listen to merged end points. You can correct the delays, but when your end points support different sampling rates it can lead to issues.
  3. Yes for every sampling rate you need to generate a convolution file that then is automatically selected. Yes, bit depth is not influencing DSP. Before the filters are applied Roon converts bit depth to 64Bit.

Ok, initially I was stumped.

But then i figured it out.

I found the DSP settings and filters (on the endpoint settings), but I wasnt able to change anything, unless I used a computer based Roon client. So i loaded it on my laptop, and am playing around with parametric filters for the moment.

Convolution files next. Cheers