Who here has any experience taking measurements??

Robh3606

Well-Known Member
Aug 24, 2010
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Just wondering reading some of the posts in the "What is the correlation b/w measurements and good sound?" thread. I have years with CLIO and a couple of others measurement systems. I feel like I can at least contribute because of this experience. Reading some of the posts it seems that people have their minds made up with no hands on experience just parroting what they have read on the internet. So who has at least made an attempt and can talk from experience where they feel measurements are lacking??

Rob:)
 

RayDunzl

New Member
Jun 26, 2014
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The last time I looked, I was the only one in that thread to actually post a measurement.

I'm limited - 'scope, USB mic, wire strung across the room to the PC onboard ADC for analog, VOM, thermocouple, infrared thermometer.

Lots of noise floor in those, still useful, at least to me.
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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Nov 3, 2014
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Audio measurement in the home has made great inroads, particularly in the last decade or so, though probably little in the established and tradition-bound "high end". Specifically, I am referring to in-room acoustic measurement via microphone.

Even many cheap, mass market AVRs these days include a basic microphone used at least for the purpose of calibrating channel level trims and delays for proper multichannel speaker setup. At the mid- and higher-priced levels and with separate preamp/processors, the mike is also used used to calibrate the built-in Room Correction software, such as Audyssey, etc. The market for home theaters has exploded in the past decade, so I think that a lot of consumers are doing measurements of this type for setup.

Separate microphones of quite decent quality for acoustic measurement have also become fairly inexpensive, starting at under $100. This is coupled with the increase of inexpensive room measurement and diagnostic PC software suites, such as Room EQ Wizard (REW), XTZ, etc. Also, more advanced audiophiles have been increasingly using separate PC Room EQ packages, like Dirac Live, Acourate, Audiolense, etc.

There are also separate Room EQ devices, like miniDSP, and a few high end speaker manufacturers have also started to include mike calibrated DSP into their designs.

It is a definite trend that seems to be gathering considerable upward momentum.

All the above work on the basis of mike measurements, and all can usually be done by the end user directly, although some may require more sophistication and a more advanced audiophile consumer.

How do these efforts at measurement and DSP correction of room anomalies correlate with sonic improvements? I have been using measurement-based DSP Room correction for over 8 years now. All I can say is it correlates like you would not believe. We are talking about a true breakthrough improvement that is clearly audible to anyone. Those I know who have tried it would never be without it.

Aside from this success story for acoustic measurement, is there much interest or potential among audiophiles for other electrical measurements, scopes, specialty meters, etc. No. Aside from high cost and requiring much more technical knowledge by the user, it is hard to see how a user, as opposed to a design engineer, could do much with electrical measurements to improve the sound of their system.
 

fas42

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Jan 8, 2011
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I would say it's what important in the sound to you, a particular listener, that determines the value of conventional measurement. I was at a demonstration of the DEQX unit, years ago, done by one of the key people in the company - they're developed in Sydney. And found it remarkably uninspiring - yes, before, a very wobbly FR, after, straight as a die - but the subjective quality of what I was hearing hadn't changed - it was still just reasonable audio sound, nothing to get excited about.

More recently, I spent a number of listening sessions with a local enthusiast who has really gone hard on the sound calibration adventure - he's had the DEQX people in his home, and was pushing them hard to "get it right". Fully active setup, using Scanspeak drivers, and big Naim amps - at its best it was very, very good, but I didn't hear specialness from a dead flat FR. We tried a frequency sweep from a test CD, from bottom to top and down again, etc - very consistent, almost perfectly clean sound.

Interestingly, most of the subjective quality issues seemed to originate in the DEQX unit itself - from cold it didn't perform well, it needed an hour or so to come on song. The owner was not happy with the raw quality when he first got it, did major internal surgery on it, managed to kill it(!), got that sorted :cool: - and throughout has been talking to the DEQX people a lot, prodding them to improve things ...
 

Dynamix

Banned
Feb 24, 2016
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I would say it's what important in the sound to you, a particular listener, that determines the value of conventional measurement. I was at a demonstration of the DEQX unit, years ago, done by one of the key people in the company - they're developed in Sydney. And found it remarkably uninspiring - yes, before, a very wobbly FR, after, straight as a die - but the subjective quality of what I was hearing hadn't changed - it was still just reasonable audio sound, nothing to get excited about.

More recently, I spent a number of listening sessions with a local enthusiast who has really gone hard on the sound calibration adventure - he's had the DEQX people in his home, and was pushing them hard to "get it right". Fully active setup, using Scanspeak drivers, and big Naim amps - at its best it was very, very good, but I didn't hear specialness from a dead flat FR. We tried a frequency sweep from a test CD, from bottom to top and down again, etc - very consistent, almost perfectly clean sound.

Interestingly, most of the subjective quality issues seemed to originate in the DEQX unit itself - from cold it didn't perform well, it needed an hour or so to come on song. The owner was not happy with the raw quality when he first got it, did major internal surgery on it, managed to kill it(!), got that sorted :cool: - and throughout has been talking to the DEQX people a lot, prodding them to improve things ...

There's nothing wrong with not prefering a smooth frequency response. As long as you don't try to pass it of as some sort of objective "truth".

And also, the whole "DSP is the work of the devil and everything digital kills sound" argument is getting pretty old. And I'm saying this as someone who loves tubes and vinyl.
 

fas42

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Yes, "DSP is the work of the devil and everything digital kills sound" is crap - on that DEQX system, which he wasn't using in an optimum way - CDP analogue out, fed to DEQX ADC, FR rejigged, then spat out via its multiple DACs to the power amps - at its best it was doing very convincing, "organic" sound - I had brought along a classical piano CD; and it did so well that he burned a copy of it, on the spot ... ;)
 

DonH50

Member Sponsor & WBF Technical Expert
Jun 22, 2010
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As an engineer and hobbyist I have made many measurements, including numerous audio-related measurements, on all sorts of things and various conditions. I have posted my experiences on WBF and elsewhere. I have checked in on that thread now and then and, like most things audio, feel I have nothing worthwhile to contribute since the ones who understand measurements, their advantages and limitations, will always be outshouted by the ones who believe nothing but their ears and distrust the science. I was lucky to have been deeply immersed in audio during my college years and beyond so was able to work through reconciling hearing and measurements to a large extent. At this point I figure I am happier knowing that I know and not trying to bother others. And the lab equipment I have access to now is designed for much higher frequencies than audio.
 

Dynamix

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Feb 24, 2016
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As an engineer and hobbyist I have made many measurements, including numerous audio-related measurements, on all sorts of things and various conditions. I have posted my experiences on WBF and elsewhere. I have checked in on that thread now and then and, like most things audio, feel I have nothing worthwhile to contribute since the ones who understand measurements, their advantages and limitations, will always be outshouted by the ones who believe nothing but their ears and distrust the science. I was lucky to have been deeply immersed in audio during my college years and beyond so was able to work through reconciling hearing and measurements to a large extent. At this point I figure I am happier knowing that I know and not trying to bother others. And the lab equipment I have access to now is designed for much higher frequencies than audio.

A very reasonable position.
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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Nov 3, 2014
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Yes, "DSP is the work of the devil and everything digital kills sound" is crap - on that DEQX system, which he wasn't using in an optimum way - CDP analogue out, fed to DEQX ADC, FR rejigged, then spat out via its multiple DACs to the power amps - at its best it was doing very convincing, "organic" sound - I had brought along a classical piano CD; and it did so well that he burned a copy of it, on the spot ... ;)

Bingo! It is quite likely that d-a/a-d/d-a is what killed the sound. It might have nothing at all to do with the EQ process or the flat frequency response.
 

Dynamix

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Video killed the radio star. Or something.
 

Jinjuku

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Apr 18, 2011
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I use the Dayton Omni-mic v2 for anything I roll out. It helps to get a fundamental acoustical look at the room behavior.
 

Gregadd

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Apr 20, 2010
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As an engineer and hobbyist I have made many measurements, including numerous audio-related measurements, on all sorts of things and various conditions. I have posted my experiences on WBF and elsewhere. I have checked in on that thread now and then and, like most things audio, feel I have nothing worthwhile to contribute since the ones who understand measurements, their advantages and limitations, will always be outshouted by the ones who believe nothing but their ears and distrust the science. I was lucky to have been deeply immersed in audio during my college years and beyond so was able to work through reconciling hearing and measurements to a large extent. At this point I figure I am happier knowing that I know and not trying to bother others. And the lab equipment I have access to now is designed for much higher frequencies than audio.
Have you met Ethan et all?
 

audioguy

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I use the Dayton Omni-mic v2 for anything I roll out. It helps to get a fundamental acoustical look at the room behavior.

Me too and it is an invaluable tool in setting up subs, integrating subs with the mains, and setting PEQ's prior to running Dirac on all channels; aligning the arrival timing of all speakers in a multichannel environment (with impulse response). I'm not sure how any serious audiophile lives without this or REW or XTZ or some measuring system - but as we know, most use their ears to measure!!
 

fas42

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Bingo! It is quite likely that d-a/a-d/d-a is what killed the sound. It might have nothing at all to do with the EQ process or the flat frequency response.
Except ... he was adamant that the digital feed into the DEQX gave him crap sound!! I tried to cajole him on a number of occasions to just give it another chance, but he was very steadfast - unlistenable, meaning bad digititus !!! he said.

So, there may have been a real problem there - the DEQX at that time was not doing a good job of generating a clean clock from the data, perhaps.
 

Dynamix

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Sounds like a bad case of negative bias. "I know that digital is bad, therefore this digital system sounds bad".
 

fas42

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I doubt it. He had moved to solely CD playback many years ago, he had a rather sorry LP12 there that hadn't spun seriously for years - though, he was feeling inspired to try it again. He apologised for all the weary rubber, and dodgy lubricants - and gave it a spin ... well, it worked, but I didn't feel the foundations of my thinking shaken ...

Note of course, that it was working through the DEQX setup, so "contamination" by digital had taken place, :b.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
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I haven't measured speakers per se like Rob does but use measurements as aids for tuning both home and commercial systems.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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Just wondering reading some of the posts in the "What is the correlation b/w measurements and good sound?" thread. I have years with CLIO and a couple of others measurement systems. I feel like I can at least contribute because of this experience. Reading some of the posts it seems that people have their minds made up with no hands on experience just parroting what they have read on the internet. So who has at least made an attempt and can talk from experience where they feel measurements are lacking??

Rob:)
If you are talking about acoustic measurements, there are many perils. The only reliable ones are below a few hundred hertz. Anything above that requires psychoacoustics knowledge and understanding large body of listening tests in research. Measurements show very little there. This article I wrote expands on that: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/RoomReflections.html
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
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I definitely have an interest measuring my gear and room. Personally, it's an aspect of the hobby I find enjoyable! :cool: I'm currently using a Pass Labs XVR-1 and welcome confirmation that at the end of the repro chain my loudspeaker drivers are behaving as close to identically as possible. If not, then attention is warranted in this area. Whether it be tubes or loudspeaker drivers -- pertinent data helps me dial-in my rig.
 

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