How bad is this room response?

MadFloyd · Nov 20, 2012

I had a friend come over to measure my room response and help me integrate subs.

Below is my room response in green, with his room in purple. His is excellent, but I think it's with room correction.

amirm · Nov 20, 2012

He has you beat, and beat good

.

Eyeballing, you have 20 db swings in the low frequencies. That is typical but needs to be tamed. There is something strange going on in the crossover region of your speaker around 2 Khz. What type of speaker do you have?

Electronic EQ which would dial down 70 Hz would be easy and would restore more balance to your low frequencies.

amirm · Nov 20, 2012

Sorry, I missed your electronic list in your signature

. Do the Wilsons really have that kind of dip??? Anybody has the measurements for these?

amirm · Nov 20, 2012

Hello. It is me again

.

Quick google shows the measurements of your speakers from stereophile:

It exhibits the same sudden drop there. Directivity problems there are tough to resolve. EQ may be able to help some but it may also make things worse.

MadFloyd · Nov 20, 2012

amirm said:
Hello. It is me again .

Quick google shows the measurements of your speakers from stereophile:

It exhibits the same sudden drop there. Directivity problems there are tough to resolve. EQ may be able to help some but it may also make things worse.

Thanks for the replies, Amir. Yeah, the Sasha exhibits a peak in the 2k region which unfortunately is audible (being the region that we are fairly sensitive to...).

microstrip · Nov 20, 2012

MadFloyd said:
Thanks for the replies, Amir. Yeah, the Sasha exhibits a peak in the 2k region which unfortunately is audible (being the region that we are fairly sensitive to...).

Why unfortunately?

I have a friend who owns Sasha's with an all ARC system and they sound great. The 2-4 kHz dip is intentional and is part of their voicing. Dave Wilson wants them to sound this way

See the spatial average (A64) in Martin Colloms room taken from the Hifi-Critic review - it will describe what you listen in a real room.
Even rivals such as Magico have a similar voicing in some speakers.

IMHO, if you do not like them, you should get some other speakers. Anyway you should compensate for the bass deficiencies - this will not change the character of the Sasha and will change your perception of the whole speaker.

Just one different opinion ...

MadFloyd · Nov 20, 2012

microstrip said:
Why unfortunately?

I have a friend who owns Sasha's with an all ARC system and they sound great. The 2-4 kHz dip is intentional and is part of their voicing. Dave Wilson wants them to sound this way See the spatial average (A64) in Martin Colloms room taken from the Hifi-Critic review - it will describe what you listen in a real room.
Even rivals such as Magico have a similar voicing in some speakers.

IMHO, if you do not like them, you should get some other speakers. Anyway you should compensate for the bass deficiencies - this will not change the character of the Sasha and will change your perception of the whole speaker.

Just one different opinion ...

It's a peak, not a dip.

How do you think I would compensate for the bass deficiencies?

MadFloyd · Nov 20, 2012

MadFloyd said:
It's a peak, not a dip.

How do you think I would compensate for the bass deficiencies?

To clarify, the peak is at 2k, before the dip.

DonH50 · Nov 21, 2012

Looks very typical to me, and much like my own room even after using MCACC (which has far fewer filters than Audyssey) and gobs of treatment. The big peaks and dips in the bass are probably room modes and have nothing to do with the speakers; the HF ripples are again most likely reflections from things around the room (not just floor/wall/ceiling but also comb filter effects and other objects in the room). Your friend's response is almost certainly with room correction.

The 2 kHz speaker response is interesting; usually drivers and crossovers interacting but as a speaker designer I am a pretty decent GHz data converter designer...

If the bass null is due to a room mode, the only really practical solution is to move the listening position to get out of it; nulls are from signal cancellation and can be very deep. They do respond to room treatment, but when you think about it if the signals add coherently you'll only get a 6 dB boost, easy to EQ, while cancellation results in an infinite dip, pretty tough to treat with EQ (and would overload the system anyway).

MadFloyd · Nov 21, 2012

Thanks, Don. What you say makes sense to me. I had bass traps in corners that, according to the measurements, were doing almost nothing.*

*My wife leapt for joy over this because it meant I could remove them.

FrantzM · Nov 21, 2012

Mad

Have you tried a sub in this system? ... Subs are not only to bring up bass but help even out the response in the bass thus better overall response. True it introduces another element of concern to the mix but .. Do try some subs with wide range of justment such as Jl Audio or Paradigm and see what gives ... You may be agreeably surprised.

Your friend's response looks a lot like DRC .. not that I am against DRC by the way...

MadFloyd · Nov 21, 2012

FrantzM said:
Mad

Have you tried a sub in this system? ... Subs are not only to bring up bass but help even out the response in the bass thus better overall response. True it introduces another element of concern to the mix but .. Do try some subs with wide range of justment such as Jl Audio or Paradigm and see what gives ... You may be agreeably surprised.

Your friend's response looks a lot like DRC .. not that I am against DRC by the way...

Yes, have a pair of JL F113's in there right now - the measurements don't include the subs and my friend tells me he doesn't have the graphs with the subs. He says it was only improving the left channel (right sub made no difference to the curve).

My friend says his graphs were with digital EQ, not room correction (although he experiments with both).

edorr · Nov 21, 2012

Look at my "corner bass traps" thread. I lifted a null much like yours by 6db with massive traps. DRC (trinnov) improves even more but I think for 2 channel I could live without it.

FrantzM · Nov 21, 2012

Mad'

It would be interesting to see the response with the subs ... Also would be interesting to see how EQ on the subs would affect the overall. Iin my experience it does with excellent results. The EQ used doesn't have to be particularly involved or expensive. The Velodyne SMS-1 is good but I would have preferred a more flexible crossover. If you are in an experimental mood you could try , just to see, I am not suggesting you to leave it in your system (although you could because the results are usually good) the mini-DSP is a good place to start. The sheer cheapness of the solution ($125) is already compelling. You will lean quite a bit about the value of EQ in the bass, necessary in 90% or more of the cases. if the results are pleasing to you you an then substitute a better EQ.. Note that I am advocating to EQ only the subs ... the rest of the signal/system to remain untouched, unadulterated , unsoiled, un-messed with

.

MadFloyd · Nov 21, 2012

FrantzM said:
Mad'

It would be interesting to see the response with the subs ... Also would be interesting to see how EQ on the subs would affect the overall. Iin my experience it does with excellent results. The EQ used doesn't have to be particularly involved or expensive. The Velodyne SMS-1 is good but I would have preferred a more flexible crossover. If you are in an experimental mood you could try , just to see, I am not suggesting you to leave it in your system (although you could because the results are usually good) the mini-DSP is a good place to start. The sheer cheapness of the solution ($125) is already compelling. You will lean quite a bit about the value of EQ in the bass, necessary in 90% or more of the cases. if the results are pleasing to you you an then substitute a better EQ.. Note that I am advocating to EQ only the subs ... the rest of the signal/system to remain untouched, unadulterated , unsoiled, un-messed with .

EQ'ing just the subs didn't occur to me and I think that's an excellent option to consider. Thank you!

Ethan Winer · Nov 21, 2012

MadFloyd said:
Below is my room response in green, with his room in purple.

You're already getting good advice, so all I'll add for now is 1/6 octave smoothing is not useful when assessing low frequencies. Smoothing is appropriate for mid and hi frequencies, but at low frequencies hides a lot of detail. The response will look much worse without it! But the data will be more accurate. More here:

Room Measuring Primer

--Ethan

DonH50 · Nov 21, 2012

+1 on getting rid of smoothing. My graphs use 1/12-octave because that is the min I can get away with whilst doing some other processing (the next step is raw, which does not allow me to easily compare levels and such in my measurement program).

The miniDSP is a great inexpensive (~$200) way to piddle if you have a little technical background. A more expensive solution that is fully automated is an Antimode (~$1k). In-between are Behringer units, and above are dbx (Driveracks) and various high-end solutions.

MadFloyd · Nov 21, 2012

Is it safe to assume using any of the above mentioned EQs for the bass is a better way to go than the internal automated EQ in the JL Audio F series subs?

FrantzM · Nov 21, 2012

MadFloyd said:
Is it safe to assume using any of the above mentioned EQs for the bass is a better way to go than the internal automated EQ in the JL Audio F series subs?

I feel foolish saying Ye! , having scant experience with the JL Audio subs set-up.. I would go on a limb still and say again ... Yes! .. the mini-DSP in which I have never tried has a great following and is really inexpensive in audiophile terms: $125. I like the Behringer DCX-2496 which is a little more expensive IMO much more flexible (actually to get to the level of flexibility of the Behringer will require expenses in the $1000) about $250~300 but it takes a while to know how to operate, let alone master, inserting it in a system requires careful planning (output level is Pro, thus very high you need to take it down with an outside converter or make your own pad, etc) LED are blinding bright, looks are (butt

) ugly-Pro ..etc but the level of flexibility is high and surpass many others in particular the coarse , yet useful Velodyne SMS-1 which cost twice.

This said, I would suggest you go ahead and try the EQ on the JL Audio. Those with JL Audio set-up experience will likely chime in.

andromedaaudio · Nov 21, 2012

Not that good in my opinion , below 200 hz the room comes in to play a lot and i find it not so easy to measure , from 200 hz up youre measurement stays within 10 db , i find 5 db exeptable , most disturbing is the suck out at 300 hz which will certainly be audible , i would suggest keep measuring and try to find the toe in /placement of the speaker so you will have a more balanced response as should be possible with the sasha seen from the stereophile measurement.

Succes , FR is very important .

Note, youre friends FR from 200 hz up is also possible using passive crossover components and better , +- 1.5 db is possible
Another possibility is to tilt the speaker " slightly" forward , this will also influence the balance ,you ll see it in the measurement

How bad is this room response?

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