That should be all that’s needed. I just received my UMIK-1 mic yesterday and took a few measurements last night. For my setup in addition to the mic, I did purchase a 3.5mm Stereo to RCA Audio Cable to connect to my integrated amp from my MacBook Pro. I’m still experimenting but the measurements I took last night and imported into Roon were outstanding. I have to readjust my brain as I was overwhelmed with how much better my system now sounds. Granted I had a beer or two, but it was the first time I realized how more my system has to offer that went unnoticed until last night. The combination of Roon 1.3 with upsampling and DSP is amazing to say the least.
Was the analog connection between your integrated and your Mac required for the measurements?
I’m hoping the DSP in Roon is the icing on the cake: careful speaker/listener placement, room treatment, then DSP/EQ.
Bill
For me it was on my main system. In my setup I’m using REW in order to generate the Pink noise that’s used for measurements. I hook the 3.5mm Stereo to RCA Cable from my Mac’s headphone out to the AUX(RCA input) of my integrated and the USB mic measures the response. My integrated doesn’t use HDMI or I’d use that instead. If you are just using your Mac Mini there is no need for you to use anything else but the USB mic. Hope this makes sense.
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@Mark_Allen thanks for the clarification. If my Mac is connected via USB to the KEFs I’m assuming that’s all I’ll need?
UMIK-1 -->via USB–>Mac Mini (this is my source as well)
Mac Mini -->via USB–>KEF LS50 Wireless
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No worries. You don’t need anything else except patience while waiting for your UMIK-1 to arrive. I bet they have been seeing an uptick in sales recently due to Roon 1.3
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I have been using convolution with HQplayer before 1.3. With Roon 1.3 I am using the convolution feature with REW generated wavs for room correction without HQP. I set up a .cfg text file that directs Roon at 176.4 and 192 kHz wavs for left and right channels.
Combined with upsampling to DSD128 the SQ is fantastic (Chord 2Qute).
On a Mac mini i7 the sound path indicates that decoding/encoding/convolution happens at 1.5 - 1.8x speed. Background file scanning for DR assessment is set at fast(1 core).
Ruud
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Do you have any step-by-step instructions for doing this? How on Earth do you get a .cfg file. I’m a complete rookie at this. Yes I’ll be ordering a Mic soon.
Hi Mark, I think a complete step by step is not available. The separate steps, however, are well described.
Briefly, hook up a USB-microphone to a PC or Mac installed with Room Eq Wizard (REW). I use the UMIK-1 from MiniDSP. Map your room with REW to find acoustic dips and nodes and let REW calculate equalizer filter settings to compensate for the dips and nodes using a generic equalizer setting. There are some do’s and don’ts you would have to read up about to prevent doing more harm than cure.
You can tweak the eq filters if they don’t seem rational to you.
The eq filters can be exported as impulse wavs. In this REW file export dialog box you can choose bit depth (I chose the highest, 32 bit, since Roon DSP operates in 64 bit) and sample rate. Depending on your upsampling settings in Roon, you can export impulse wavs in REW for e.g. 176.4 and 192 kHz sample rate. I chose mono, since both my L and R channels need the same correction. In my example I named the file L4-176-32.wav and made a copy, R4-176-32.wav.
From that point on, the description in the Roon KB is quite clear. I copied the wav files to a new, empty folder and I added a text file named cor-176.cfg with this content:
176400 2 2 0
0 0
0 0
L4-176-32.wav
0
0.0
0.0
R4-176-32.wav
0
1.0
1.0
The text file has to point at the wav files, one for each channel, all in the same folder.
I repeated this for 192 kHz (made a cor-192.cfg), ending up at 4 wavs and 2 .cfg text files in one folder. Compress the complete folder into a .zip file and select that zip file in the convolution menu in Roon DSP. You can have different zip folders for different endpoints, which gives the possibility to do this per room, or headphones, etc. Play with the different eq filters, export as impulse wavs and load up in Roon. I use multiple copies zip files to quickly switch in Roon DSP between gentle and more drastic corrections of the same filters. It is very easy to build your own library of correction modules for any purpose. You could use convolution zips for late at night settings, party, headphones, etc. Take your remote iPad or iPhone and switch in a second to hear the difference.
Not a complete end to end guide, but I hope it helps.
Ruud
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@Ruud_Verrijk Thanks a million for this. I can’t wait to experiment with this as soon as my microphone arrives. This is very very helpful, especially about the .cfg text file. I’ve only been using Roon for about 15 days so everything is fairly new for me.
-Mark
Is the .cfg really necessary? reading at Roon’s documentation it seems that a zip file of the directory with all the impulse’s file of the different resolution should suffice.
thanks
M
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For a simple setup, the .cfg is not necessary. You can zip multiple stereo wavs, each at a different sample rate. Roon will pick the best matching sample rate wav for the convolution. I use wavs generated with rePhase zipped that way.
Using rePhase has the benefit of equalizing phase behavior at the same time, and it also supports 64bit (131k taps) and higher sample rate, such as 352kHz which is part of Roons upsampling to DSD128
I had no idea. I just always assumed the first thing that would happen would be frequency bounds put in place to make the computations faster. A little knowledge and all that…
Several of you have successfully used the REW generated .wav file - after importing to Roon - with a measurement with timing reference options. For me it does not look like that the exported .wav file has the timing reference, the measurement never starts in REW, it stays in the stage for waiting for the reference signal. What am I missing? Any pointers would be appreciated.
Here is the answer from John Mulcahy (creator of REW) on using REW generated wav file with acoustic timing reference:
Select “Meas. Sweep” as the generator signal type, click the button to save as a WAV, in the dialog that pops up tick the box to include a timing reference and select which channel it should be on.
Tested it works fine for me.
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Using rePhase has the benefit of equalizing phase behavior at the same time, and it also supports 64bit (131k taps) and higher sample rate, such as 352kHz which is part of Roons upsampling to DSD128
I have taken a brief look at RePhase - and it seems to be primarily about creating loudspeakers. Have you been using it for room correction s well - and if so, how have you made the setting in RePhase?
Hi Henry, on the main screen of rePhase the most left tab is where you can enter parametric equalizer settings, similar as you would do in the Roon equalizer. Use miminum phase here. However, in rePhase one tab to the left you can equalize the phase as well. That is a matter of changing the parameters and sliders until an almost flat line is achieved. The more you equalize the gain, the harder it is to flatten the phase.
Then output a (stereo) 64bit wav file with the number of taps you want (65k or 131k are great), at the sample rate you intend to upsample to in Roon DSP. Pick up the wav in Roon convolution and activate.
Ruud
thank you very much Ruud.
Henry
Hi All:
Are there any tried and true step by step instructions for this.
I have read through the thread several times, and I have tried to piece things together…but limited success.
I have a laptop, REW, Umik mic. My plan is to temporarily connect the laptop output to my system input, play the sweep, measure it and input the settings into ROON (either with a file or manually).
I am struggling to set things up correctly in REW.
Thanks in advance.
Matthew
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there are numerous step by step primers for using REW on the REW threads and elsewhere. it will much depend on how your computer and sound system are able to be connected to use whatever guides are out there.
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Great…Do you have a link to the one you recommend?