2. misc-audio
  3. 149167-380

Digital room correction

When will there be a simple, affordable 1 box solution where digital room correction can be dropped into any 2 channel system? A number of years ago, I owned a McIntosh MEN220 which was a really cool solution, it worked reasonably well and for the time it was introduced, it checked most of the boxes off. The digital technology inside that piece of gear was state of the art 10 years ago (24/96) but when is there going to be an update or an alternative solution?

I don’t really keep up with this stuff so please forgive me if there has been something introduced. I see a good part of this type of technology now in most decent subwoofers. It would be really cool if you could drop something into a tape loop on a preamp if it exists. Thanks in advance.
ghasley
erik_squires
16,289 posts
 
Vendors I can think of off the top of my head:
  • miniDSP
  • Lyngdorf
  • DSPeaker
  • Anthem
mike_in_nc
1,158 posts
 
For an all-digital system, the miniDSP SHD Studio should suit your needs. It is digital in, digital out, and can be dropped into a system while leaving the rest of it intact.

For a system with analog sources, it’s more complicated, because there have to be ADC and DAC stages somewhere, so dropping a box into "any system" may not be the optimal way of doing this. It reduces the number of conversions to use DSP that is built into a DAC-preamp, like the DSPeaker X4, Anthem STR, or miniDSP SHD (not the Studio version), to name just a few.

You mentioned sample rate. I recently got the Anthem STR Preamp as my third or fourth preamp with DSP. The DSP sounds cleaner than previous models to me. I don't know how much of that is due to using 192 kHz as the DSP frequency, and how much is due to other improvements over past models. A long-distance friend with the X4, which I believe does DSP at 96 kHz, says that it, also, sounds better than older units to him.
austinbob
235 posts
 
I own the Lyngdorf 3400 and Room Correction is a big deal. The Lyngdorf is an integrated and has a DAC and many other features. I’m very happy. 
tastyfreeze's avatar
tastyfreeze
135 posts
 
The Men220 gives you good options.  It is a box that I use.

ghasley OP
2,507 posts
 
Thank you for all of the replies. is The Minidsp SHD Studio a high quality piece? Does anyone have this? Does anyone use other products from Minidsp and is their service/support/build quality quite good?

I would feed it from my Auralic Aries G1 and into my Lampizator DAC. Is this company up to the task in a high quality system? I could certainly bypass it by feeding from the G1 directly to my Lampizator dac as I do now via usb. I like the idea of staying in the digital domain but I just am not familiar with the company.
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