Sound quality degraded when activating headroom function

Can you explain? Can I get the white summation curve in any other way?

… and creating a much simpler PEQ with just one single -11dB adjustment at 63Hz also gives me clipping problems indicated by Roon

I would try removing these to see if the clipping stops. It’s best to not try and pump more energy into nulls as it’s futile.

Otherwise, the reduction in gain to create the headroom could be causing your source/dac/preamp/amp to be in a less optimal range. Try compensating by increasing gain as early as possible in the chain.

It’s possible but unlikely if your DAC is 16-bit you’ll hear some reduction but there should be zero chance of it at 24-bit or 32-bit.

Well, no. I have an electronics degree and a sound engeneering degree but while theory is there but it is not up to the point anymore that I can make phase calculations out of my head at the moment. All I know is that this way of eq-ing is not the right way because it introduces nasty phase jumps.

Maybe you are trying to compensate too much, something most people tend to do that got hold of their first measurement microphone. Nothing is easier as pointing a microphone at a speaker, take a measurement and make some inverse eq until it measures completely flat. Will it sound good? Big chance it doesn’t. For instance you have a loudspeaker that measure totally flat in an anechoic chamber. Now you put that speaker in your room and somewhere in the room you measure a 12 dB boost at lets say 60 hz. What happens when you fully notch this 12 dB. Tha means that your loudspeaker now produces 12db less direct sound at 60hz and about all of the 60hz content you are hearing consists of delayed energy. Room gain is allways delayed energy. Besides, your direct sound now has a severe phase shift, specially if you add this kind of filters with bassreflex systems that allready have big phase shift down there you are messing thing up even more. A tip for beginners in room-eq When trying to compensate with measurements, never notch more than half of the peak and don’t try to fill in all the dips, you’r direct sound will become blurry if you do. Instead of eqing like crazy a good way to study your room frequency response and convert the frequencies into wavelengths. Now all of a sudden you’ll see that that 300 hz notch is nothing more than floor bounce, that 60 hz peak is related to your room length etc etc. Go from there and allways go easy. Your eq just looks completely wrong in my textbook.

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See above: “… and creating a much simpler PEQ with just one single -11dB adjustment at 63Hz also gives me clipping problems indicated by Roon”

My DAC - T+A SD 3100 HV - has the following specs:

PCM:
Double-Differential-Quadruple-Converter with four 32-Bit Sigma-Delta D/A-Converter per channel. 705,6 / 768 kSps conversion rate

DSD:
T+A-True-1Bit DSD D/A-Converter, up tp DSD 1024 (49,2 MHz), native bitstream

Upsampling (PCM):
T+A-Signalprocessor – synchronous upsampling
with 4 selectable oversampling algorithms
FIR short, FIR long, Bezier/IIR, Bezier

Analogue filter:
Phase-linear Bessel filter 3rd order, switchable
with 60 or 120 kHz cut off frequency

Frequency response:
PCM 44.1 kSps: 2 Hz - 20 kHz
PCM 48 kSps: 2 Hz - 22 kHz / DSD 64: 2 Hz - 44 kHz
PCM 96 kSps: 2 Hz - 40 kHz / DSD 128: 2 Hz - 60 kHz
PCM 192 kSps: 2 Hz - 80 kHz / DSD 256: 2 Hz - 80 kHz
PCM 384 kSps: 2 Hz - 100 kHz / DSD 512: 2 Hz - 100 kHz
PCM 768 kSps: 2 Hz - 120 kHz / DSD 1024: 2 Hz - 120 kHz

Well, removing all big adjustments and adding a slight +1-2dB PEQ at lets say 125Hz, still gives signal clipping and the same problem …

Every eq at low frequencies above the zero db line will give you clipping. Most recording nowadays are maximized to 0 dB in the mastering process. Is there also clipping with only notch filters? No peak filter anywhere, even if the white line stays under 0dB doesn’t mean you will be free of clipping in the whole process, depends on how Roon does the calculations. Does Roon indicate the clipping or does your dac indicate it?

Yes, that makes sense. Roon indicates the clipping.

Then just stay under 0 dB at least up to 300 hz if you don’t want to use the headroom function. Above that there is some room for boosting.
You can also set the max output in the setting of your dac in Roon, or by simply using the volume slider. Don’t know if it will be any different than using the headroom filter but it is worth to try.

As said above its not that simple: “… and creating a much simpler PEQ with just one single -11dB adjustment at 63Hz also gives me clipping problems indicated by Roon”

… and the main use of DSP is often advised to be in the bass region, below 250Hz if to preserve a natural sounding system.
Avoiding PEQ in the frequency region where most setups have the biggest problems is not exactly a good solution when we talk about DSP :slight_smile:

It’s not about evoiding eq, it’s about using it the right way.

Question. Does this clipping occur on all or many records you play? Is the clipping audible?

Might sound like a stupid question but I have tried helping someone with a strange distortion in his system. Turned out the guy had it only with his one “reference” record, which he never mentioned. He just played this one record over and over again for years. (Have I ever mentioned what a very strange kind of breed audiophiles are :slight_smile:) It was just a distortion in the recording he never noticed before. Many modern recording clip. I see that in my dac as well, nothing you can do about that.

Hehe, I see :smiley:
The clipping occurs quite often, on most new released albums on Tidal.
Many of these albums are badly mastered with almost no headroom (ref: loudness war).
Often when Roon indicates clipping, it’s not audible, but most of the time playing a song it’s audible at some point during the song, driving me mad.

I experience the same thing, this with any form of DSP in Roon (even with the simplest, such as headroom or volume leveling). So I never use Roon DSP…

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Do you use DSP in some other way then?

Usually no. I mostly listen to albums. The only DSP that would be useful to me would be volume leveling for playlists.
However, if I need DSP (for anything other than volume leveling), then I will use the one in the DACs.

A 21dB cut. Wow! Have you tried moving the speakers?

Clipping is likely with any significant dB adjustments. It’s just maths.

Again: … you have to look at the white summation curve … about -11dB at 63Hz and +4-5dB at 37Hz/125Hz …

Yes, I get that but you are setting a huge cut and then boosting sections of what you cut back again. :thinking:

I have a bit of room boom so I apply a single band based on what REW measured but cut as little as I can get away with using a much narrower Q than you are using. Not only does this cure the boom it increase clarity in the midrange too. All the headroom I need is -1.5 for zero clipping.
If I choose a track that doesn’t clip at all I can turn the headroom on and off with no noticeable change.

Lets assume I’m happy with how it sounds :wink:
And again, I understand why clipping occurs. I have a problem with sound degradation when turning on headroom. So if I did it your way with a different DSP setting, I would still have to activate the headroom function, leading me to the same problem.