Digital correction: Why is there resistance?

[Ron Party]

Interesting discussion. This is a well traveled road. The issue as I see it is that in our own listening rooms, each of which has a different sonic signature than that in the mixing and mastering room(s), and with our own gear, which is 99.99999... % of the time different than the gear used in the mixing/mastering room(s) and, as such, again has its own sonic signature, we are not hearing what the talent approved. "Circle of Confusion". Given this, whatever we decide to do in our own listening rooms is a flavor choice.

 

[DonH50]

I just feel that using any type of DSP room correction should be a last resort after exhausting all other possibilities. I also feel that it is a cop out when people don't want to put in the work in the rest of their system and are looking for an easy way out.

I tend to agree, and will state that IME people are far too willing to spend far too much on things that have much less sonic impact than proper room treatments. Even to spending a little time to tweak speaker and listening position. That said, the balance among room treatment, aesthetics, physical limitations in where furniture and speakers can be placed in the average living/rec room, etc. mean that DSP room correction is the only practical resort for many folk. It also allows for preferences as Ron said.

I also agree it's not a panacea; e.g. if you have problems with reflections and comb filtering room correction can help, but add a person or move a little, and compromises quickly become apparent.

For me, I have extensive treatment and appreciate the additional performance the DSP adds to fine-tune the response. And freely admit it because neither my room nor my treatments are really the best, just the best I can do on my budget (I have about $10k in room treatment, a drop in the bucket for most of you but a lot to me).

All IMO (and I do mean that it is just my opinion!) - Don

 

[Bruce B]

Interesting discussion. This is a well traveled road. The issue as I see it is that in our own listening rooms, each of which has a different sonic signature than that in the mixing and mastering room(s), and with our own gear, which is 99.99999... % of the time different than the gear used in the mixing/mastering room(s) and, as such, again has its own sonic signature, we are not hearing what the talent approved. "Circle of Confusion". Given this, whatever we decide to do in our own listening rooms is a flavor choice.

I'd have to respectfully disagree in part Ron. Most mastering rooms have "audiophile" approved equipment and we try to emulate the consumer listening room as closely as possible.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I don't know how well this particular DSP works, or if it works at all, but this audiophile form of "first do no harm," without knowing, is like a surgeon refusing to do the harm of cutting the patient's skin in hopes of removing a tumor. The cancer (or room distortions) may prove incurable, but refusing to even consider surgery because "the patient can't be better once we've made an incision" is pretty blindly dogmatic.

Tim

 

[Jim Smith]

My concern is that too many audiophiles that I've met consider room/speaker eq as the ultimate panacea. IMO, it is not.

Finding the place in the room where seating yields the smoothest bass is paramount. DSP cannot correct nulls. Trying to do so only causes more severe issues.

Finding the optimal position for the speakers, once you know where to sit, is critical. These adjustments can be exceedingly slight. When you get it right, it's another ball-game - I call it Playing the Room, but it really is working with the room to the best extent, rather than against it.

Finding these locations can result in an uncanny sense of presence, tone, & dynamics, as if the performers packed up their gear to come to your house (unless the recorded perspective is more distant, in which case you are transported to the venue).

DSP might be of some assistance where all of the important organic steps have been taken, but certainly not before.

But I've NEVER heard any DSP system find that right place in the room. It seems that it cannot measure or even recognize it.

Best,

Jim Smith

 

[microstrip]

I don't know how well this particular DSP works, or if it works at all, but this audiophile form of "first do no harm," without knowing, is like a surgeon refusing to do the harm of cutting the patient's skin in hopes of removing a tumor. The cancer (or room distortions) may prove incurable, but refusing to even consider surgery because "the patient can't be better once we've made an incision" is pretty blindly dogmatic.

Tim

Tim,

Most of us know about too many incisions being carried by surgeons who killed the patient along decades. It is now natural that we ask to see the surgeon records before even letting him make the incision.

For most of us it is not a anti-digital position due to allergy - anytime we choose a CD player or a DAC over another model we know we are choosing between digital signal processors.

 

[Ron Party]

Hi Bruce.

I hope to travel to the beautiful northwest one day and visit your studio. The last time I was up your way I spent 5 days backpacking in the Hoh Rainforest.

Bruce, even if I had the gear as do you (I wish), my room nevertheless would impart its own sonic signature, irregardless of whatever room treatment products I might have. And, of course, if I owned "audiophile approved" electrostats, e.g., my room would never sound like yours with your Alexias. And, to state the obvious, we know that mixing/mastering studios all use different speakers, as do we consumers. Given the different on-/off-axis performance of speakers, including studio monitors, to use just one indicia of a speaker's sound, there just isn't any way to state with a high degree of confidence that we consumers are hearing what the talent heard. Again, Circle Of Confusion.

 

[esldude]

The resistance is strange to me as well. Luddites to the end I suppose.

Most people I have run into hear it and immediately recognize they just got a big step closer to what the recording is supposed to be. Only one lived with it and decided it wasn't worth the bother. And like I often see, most disagreeing with the idea haven't done it on the philosophical disagreement or haven't heard it and just don't like 'digital'.

I don't see it as much different than feedback in a power amp (which yes plenty think is bad too). You are using the measured error as it occurs in your room to feedforward and fix it so the resulting waveform is closer to the signal the system was fed. I suppose in this sense it is more like feedforward in a power amp than feedback. In both cases you take the incoming signal and alter it based upon an error signal so the result is closer to what the original input is. I find it very strange that this idea is not accepted by people.

Perhaps a less controversial way to do it would be to make sure measurements right at the speakers themselves with the idea you were correcting speaker response anomalies, but not trying to fix the room. I haven't done that, but would guess that too might smooth the result in the room some at least. Maybe it would find more acceptance that way.

 

[ack]

My concern is that too many audiophiles that I've met consider room/speaker eq as the ultimate panacea. IMO, it is not.

Finding the place in the room where seating yields the smoothest bass is paramount. DSP cannot correct nulls. Trying to do so only causes more severe issues.

Finding the optimal position for the speakers, once you know where to sit, is critical. These adjustments can be exceedingly slight. When you get it right, it's another ball-game - I call it Playing the Room, but it really is working with the room to the best extent, rather than against it.

Finding these locations can result in an uncanny sense of presence, tone, & dynamics, as if the performers packed up their gear to come to your house (unless the recorded perspective is more distant, in which case you are transported to the venue).

DSP might be of some assistance where all of the important organic steps have been taken, but certainly not before.

But I've NEVER heard any DSP system find that right place in the room. It seems that it cannot measure or even recognize it.

Best,

Jim Smith

More than all this, DSP won't fix resonant furniture, an over- or under-damped room, timing issues variant by frequency due to reflections, etc. So let's reverse the question - what would one HOPE to see DSP fix, and of those who do use it, what are the limitations.

 

[esldude]

More than all this, DSP won't fix resonant furniture, an over- or under-damped room, timing issues variant by frequency due to reflections, etc. So let's reverse the question - what would one HOPE to see DSP fix, and of those who do use it, what are the limitations.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/c...-loudspeaker-correction-software-walkthrough/

Here is a lengthy, detailed, and involved article on using one DSP program. In this case Accurate. Down into the article you can see measured unsmoothed room response vs corrected response. It is a big difference.

Again why would someone require a product to fix everything to consider it worthwhile vs just leaving everything unfixed?

The big limitation is you cannot fill in nulls. You could only waste huge amounts of amplifier power trying and probably cause an overload in the attempt.

What you can do is tame response peaks or resonance like a resonance in the speaker. Most speakers even if they were in an anechoic chamber have plenty of small peaks and dips. You can tame those down as well. Though modern speakers aren't terrible on that account. Nevertheless you can end up with a response that varies over a far narrower window than uncorrected. Further you can do smooth tilting of the basic response from your speakers. A truly flat response is pretty universally too bright for use at home. Speakers often take that into account, but just what sort of roll-off or room curve is optimum will vary from room to room. DSP allows you to take complete control of that and have the tilt that works best for your room and your speakers.

Further if you went to the point of having DSP done crossovers you can get much better speaker linearity than using high level analog components.

Now some things like room ringing, and dispersion differences will prevent you from making all speakers sound the same in all rooms. But you can get along in that direction.

 

[microstrip]

I'd have to respectfully disagree in part Ron. Most mastering rooms have "audiophile" approved equipment and we try to emulate the consumer listening room as closely as possible.

A good practice. But considering yours I would say the "the best sounding consumer listening rooms". And check the room balance with measurements.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Too bad halls aren't perfect.

 

[audioguy]

I must ask: has anyone who objects to Dirac (this is not just any room correction product) actually heard it in your room/system? If not, get the free trial version and try it.

I have used most of the DRC systems, and this is by far the best. My room is heavily treated, bass traps at the soffits and corners, etc etc etc. And as good as the room is without Dirac, there is no comparison when running it. Nulls can not be fixed but dips can. I addressed the nulls with room treatment and speaker/listener position movement.

And if the filters create "distortion" it is many orders of magnitude smaller than what my room without Dirac adds!





And you are correct that the software

 

[ack]

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/c...-loudspeaker-correction-software-walkthrough/

Here is a lengthy, detailed, and involved article on using one DSP program. In this case Accurate. Down into the article you can see measured unsmoothed room response vs corrected response. It is a big difference.

Again why would someone require a product to fix everything to consider it worthwhile vs just leaving everything unfixed?

Suggest you take a look at my system's link and my response graph, w/o DSP.

 

[RBFC]

I also have room treatments and set up my speakers using laser measurement. The resultant response was mostly +/-3dB, except for a few bass modes that were +/- 9dB. So, I considered my room setup to be better than average, but certainly not up to the standard of several WBF members' rooms. I cannot move the listening position any more than has already been done, and have the speakers placed "reasonably well". I suspect this situation is more typical for the majority of our members, with room treatments of some level and some care in speaker/listener placement, than is the all-out dedicated $$$ room.

That said, I heard immediate, non-subtle improvements in the presentation using Dirac. I am also of the previously-stated belief that filtering the digital file, so that the audible result (through whatever chain of gear/room is in play) is closer to the original file provides superior listening enjoyment. Some may certainly blame my chosen equipment or look down upon the acoustic qualities of my room, but as Steve has stated many times, it's my rear end in the sweet spot!. Surprisingly, something that most have not heard is drawing heavy criticism, a practice that would attract the attention of many were we speaking of hardware.

To answer an earlier question, I use a MacMini with Amarra Symphony installed to feed my Calyx Audio DAC24/192, which is connected via XLR (Purist Audio) to my Krell S12003D processor's balanced analog inputs. I do, however, cross my B&W 801Ds over to a pair of JL F113s in the processor and then only use the volume control at this point. There is no other EQ, etc. active.

Even my wife says it sounds a great deal better......

Lee

 

[RBFC]

Dirac also limits the amount of boost applied to response valleys, presumably to avoid the aforementioned amplifier overload.

Lee

 

[Kal Rubinson]

My concern is that too many audiophiles that I've met consider room/speaker eq as the ultimate panacea. IMO, it is not.

I agree with you but most audiophiles I meet completely dismiss EQ under any conditions.

DSP might be of some assistance where all of the important organic steps have been taken, but certainly not before.

But I've NEVER heard any DSP system find that right place in the room. It seems that it cannot measure or even recognize it.

Again, I agree with your first statement but the second is a red herring since I cannot imagine that any DSP would be of any use in "finding" anything. OTOH, if you or your speakers are not quite in their optimal positions, Trinnov can assist. :b

 

[dallasjustice]

No self- respecting audiophile would not at least have access to a calibrated mic and an A to D converter. Total cost is approximately $350. Even if you think DSP is totally bogus, everyone that's serious about this topic will have these items. So why do you need persuasion or a great "review?" There's nothing to be lost other than your pride when you discover DSP might have some merit. It's okay and you don't have to tell anyone. I promise I won't say "I told you so" like my wife likes to do.

 

[audioguy]

^^ What he said!

 

[GaryProtein]

No self- respecting audiophile would not at least have access to a calibrated mic and an A to D converter. Total cost is approximately $350. Even if you think DSP is totally bogus, everyone that's serious about this topic will have these items. So why do you need persuasion or a great "review." There's nothing to be lost other than your pride when you discover DSP might have some merit. It's okay and you don't have to tell anyone. I promise I won't say "I told you so" like my wife likes to do.

+1