A meeting at the river, or something like that.

DaveyF

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Yesterday, i attended my monthly a'phile meeting and was involved in a very interesting discussion with several members of the group:cool:. One of our members is Tim Ryan of SimpliFi audio--some of you may have heard of him, he distributes the Gradient line of speakers- among other things. I had mentioned that in my room the addition of bass trapping was very beneficial. Tim countered me with a statement, that in his opinion adding room treatment is not the way to go anymore:eek:. Instead, he believes that the room should be treated completely in the digital domain. Tim recommended DEQX as one solution. The group was fascinated to hear that the digital solution was now being implemented in many areas, including pro-studios.
I have had no experience with digital correction, except for hearing a Lyngdorf system a while back, which did seem to have some benefits, at the expense of a digital haze that seemed to cloud everything.
Is the end of traditional room treatment as we know it, like Rives, Real Traps, Room Tunes, etc., about to begin?:confused:
 

Bruce B

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My take on this is fix your room as much as you can. Then, if you feel it still needs help, use DSP, but only for <125Hz
 

audioguy

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Most rooms will benefit from digital room correction but I would ALWAYS ALWAYS use passive first. With current technology, a completely untreated room with hard surfaces will sound better with DRC but will still not sound very good.

Based upon a lot of experience !!
 

JackD201

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^

What they said.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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There's still going to be a sweet spot. I can't see how there is any way around that. And it's never going to be "right" because there is no such thing - perfectly flat in-room, like an anechoic chamber, doesn't sound "right." So this is the point at which it necessarily becomes subjective, whether we like it or not. To me, that means relax and do whatever sounds good to you. Bass correction in non-reflective rooms works for most people.

Tim
 

Kal Rubinson

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There's still going to be a sweet spot. I can't see how there is any way around that. And it's never going to be "right" because there is no such thing - perfectly flat in-room, like an anechoic chamber, doesn't sound "right." So this is the point at which it necessarily becomes subjective, whether we like it or not. To me, that means relax and do whatever sounds good to you. Bass correction in non-reflective rooms works for most people.
Tim
There are so many variables. First is the "open loop" described by Sean Olive which refers to the complete lack of standards for balance/immersion/soundstage in music recordings and reproduction. Second is the long-term adaptation of even serious listeners to the sound of music in the inappropriate acoustics of a domestic room. Third is that successful 2 channel reproduction is greatly dependent on a significant contribution from room acoustics (perfectly flat in-room, like an anechoic chamber, doesn't sound "right"). Multichannel has other requirements.

The advantage of electronic room correction/EQ/whatever is in its potential to be varied and tuned.
 

JackD201

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^

What Kal said.

Damn you guys are fast today.
 

DaveyF

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Most rooms will benefit from digital room correction but I would ALWAYS ALWAYS use passive first. With current technology, a completely untreated room with hard surfaces will sound better with DRC but will still not sound very good.

Based upon a lot of experience !!

Interestingly, the one occasion that I heard digital room correction was utilizing a dreadful room that was huge and untreated. On that occasion, Tim Ryan had taken a pair of Harbeth 40.1's and placed them in this room, which was essentially a meeting hall in a commercial building. Hard surfaces were everywhere:(, along with low ceilings and large areas of glass and thin connector walls. The speakers were unlistenable without the Lyngdorf treatment. With the Lyngdorf in the system, the speakers began to cook and all present were pretty impressed. Like I said in my OP, the digital haze was present BUT the sound was FAR superior to the untreated room. Tim seems to believe that DEQX is a much better solution than Lyngdorf. Anyone heard DEQX?
 

Kal Rubinson

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Interestingly, the one occasion that I heard digital room correction was utilizing a dreadful room that was huge and untreated. On that occasion, Tim Ryan had taken a pair of Harbeth 40.1's and placed them in this room, which was essentially a meeting hall in a commercial building. Hard surfaces were everywhere:(, along with low ceilings and large areas of glass and thin connector walls. The speakers were unlistenable without the Lyngdorf treatment. With the Lyngdorf in the system, the speakers began to cook and all present were pretty impressed.
No surprise. That is done to increase the likelihood that any improvement will be marked. When I reviewed a TacT unit many years back, Peter Lyngdorf delivered it and suggested that I move my speakers all the way back into the room corners because "they sound too good where they are." Audyssey did similar things in many of their early demos and it is an effective way to "sell" the process.

Like I said in my OP, the digital haze was present BUT the sound was FAR superior to the untreated room. Tim seems to believe that DEQX is a much better solution than Lyngdorf. Anyone heard DEQX?
It is quite a different approach but I have almost always been impressed with their demos "too!"
 

DaveyF

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No surprise. That is done to increase the likelihood that any improvement will be marked. When I reviewed a TacT unit many years back, Peter Lyngdorf delivered it and suggested that I move my speakers all the way back into the room corners because "they sound too good where they are." Audyssey did similar things in many of their early demos and it is an effective way to "sell" the process.

Kal, that seems a little disingenuous to me:(. Not saying that isn't what happened in your case, however, i do not think ( actually I know) that Tim Ryan did not pick the room. He had placed the speakers in a place that was about as good as you could get given the room scenario and they stayed there through the whole process.
Tim now tells me that he isn't really that impressed with Lyngdorf anymore, suggesting that DEQX is far superior. I have no experience with DEQX so I have no reference.
 
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RUR

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Tim seems to believe that DEQX is a much better solution than Lyngdorf. Anyone heard DEQX?
Davey, as I posted in the RMAF thread, I did spend some time in the DEQX room listening to their HDP Express demo and it was very impressive. Without comparing it to my TacT in the same room with the same gear, it's impossible to say if it's as good or better. It does have features which the TacT does not, and vice versa. The same may be said, BTW, of the Lyngdorf and TacT units, even though they share a common ancestry.

I'm just up the road in Long Beach so, if you're interested in a listening session with the TacT, shoot me a PM. We could have a looong discussion about the virtues and shortcomings of digital room correction. IMHO, it's not a panacea for all aspects of room behavior, but it is a useful tool.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Kal, that seems a little disingenuous to me:(. Not saying that isn't what happened in your case, however, i do not think ( actually I know) that Tim Ryan did not pick the room. He had placed the speakers in a place that was about as good as you could get given the room scenario and they stayed there through the whole process.

I did not mean to imply that this was done intentionally in this case and I do acknowledge that it is often the "luck of the draw" at shows in getting a decent room. OTOH, some demonstrators put huge amounts of effort into optimizing their rooms and have consistently made a "silk purse from a sow's ear." However, Audyssey made a point of not trying so hard in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of their system and such an approach would certainly work for others. I do not consider this dishonest and no more so than a salubrious choice of demo material. The listener can judge for himself.
 

DaveyF

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Rur, thanks for the invite. If I am up the Long Beach way, I'll shoot you a PM.
Interestingly, I had the impression that Tim Ryan believed that digital room correction was a panacea for all aspects of room behavior. He was suggesting that DEQX was the future of this area of our hobby and that local acoustic treatments were, shall we say 'short lived'.
Not sure I am of this opinion but it is interesting and may have some validity in the near future.
 

Mark Seaton

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Rur, thanks for the invite. If I am up the Long Beach way, I'll shoot you a PM.
Interestingly, I had the impression that Tim Ryan believed that digital room correction was a panacea for all aspects of room behavior. He was suggesting that DEQX was the future of this area of our hobby and that local acoustic treatments were, shall we say 'short lived'.
Not sure I am of this opinion but it is interesting and may have some validity in the near future.

Interesting... DEQX is interesting, but how you use it definitely is a big factor. Being a speaker designer, it absolutely drove me nuts in how limiting the options were in trying to work with it for a mid-tweeter crossover. I found it much more useful for main speaker to subwoofer integration and correction at the listening position of a full range speaker.

There are still many aspects of reproducing sound which require more than manipulation of the input signal. I would make the argument that priorities for speaker design could change significantly if we knew from the outset that an electronic correction system would be used in room.
 

Mark Seaton

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I've just started playing around with one of these

Any thoughts?

From what I've read, most people don't seem to use it to EQ anything other than bass. Not really sure why?

You have to be careful with the gain structure and resulting noise floor (ie how strong a signal coming in vs. out). Emerald Physics did fairly well using them for full range, and more than a few DIYers use them for main speakers. There are even a few guys out there who will modify them for better performance.

I have a couple around I use for a variety of things, especially for quick testing and experimenting. Unlike many pro audio DSP units, it doesn't have a fan, so can sit in the room without concern. The "auto" function is of no practical use for home audio, but it's a great unit to use for integrating subwoofers with it's 3 inputs and 6 outputs. It works great for those who want to drive both a 2ch and LFE/sub signal to their subwoofer through the 3 inputs as you can combine the inputs internally as you like.
 

Nyal Mellor

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With respect to DEQX the only 'room correction' functionality it contains is the ability to add parametric EQ filters. These have dB gain, Q and center frequency otherwise known as IIR filters. They are very different to the approach used in the TacT or Audyssey, both of which use FIR filters. DEQX is a hybrid speaker correction and room correction product. There are FIR filters in the DEQX but they are used to correct the speaker and rely on an 'anechoic' measurement (where the room's influence is as minimal as possible, gained either by taking the speaker outside or by gating an in room measurement.)

With respect to the limits of room correction, yes it can do great things for room mode related modal peaks IF applied correctly (and it is a big IF, since most times it is not applied in way which reduces frequency response peak and time domain ringing). Room correction cannot deal with the spectrum of reflected sounds in your room (see the white paper on acoustic measurement targets for two channel systems for more details on this) and it cannot provide appropriate absorption to bring general decay times into the range they need to be.

With this being said I do find that room treatment + room correction generally delivers the best results for 90% of projects. The treatment to effectively deal with room modes gets, by necessity of the wavelengths of sound, very large, expensive and visually imposing below about 70Hz. If you have issues down there and you only care about one seat, as most of us 2 channel guys do, then EQ is a perfect solution, presuming it is a well designed algorithm if automated or if manual you have the requisite knowledge and measurement equipment to dial in the EQ.

For further information I suggest reading the following (if you haven't already)

http://www.hifizine.com/2010/09/the...om-correction-product-can’t-actually-correct/

http://blog.acousticfrontiers.com/whats-new/2010/7/1/room-correction-a-primer.html (note that my thinking on early reflections has changed somewhat since writing this blog article - see my measurement white paper for more details)

http://blog.acousticfrontiers.com/w...proof-that-equalization-kills-room-modes.html

Hope that helps Davey :)
 

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