Final piece of the puzzle: digital correction in a suboptimal room


Hey guys!

I’m in the process of upgrading/tweaking my system and there’s one "final" piece of the puzzle I need to find.

Current setup:

  • Speakers: Klipsch Forte III
  • Subwoofer: Klipsch R-115SW
  • Amplifier: Hegel H190
  • DAC: Chord Hugo 2
  • Room size: 4*5 meters (roughly 13*16 ft)
  • Four wall-wall corners treated with GIK Tri-Trap Corner Bass Trap
  • Two front wall-wall-ceiling corners treated with GIK Soffit Bass trap
  • Side walls, rear wall and ceiling early reflection points treated with Monster bass traps

Considering the small size of the room and the big size of the speakers, I reached the conclusion that a quite heavy acoustic treatment was needed for both bass and mid high early reflections (as you can see from all the acoustic treatments in my setup). I’m still waiting for the panels to be delivered though (looking forward to!!).

My next move would be that of using digital correction as the final tweak to reach a flatter frequency response curve in my room (or at least in my listening spot). But how?

Few considerations:

1) I’d like to use my Chord Hugo 2 dac somewhere in the chain. I suppose the audio chain will be something like: Macbook --> DSP device --> Hugo 2 DAC --> Amplifier --> Speakers
2) I’d like to have only one digital-analog conversion (carried by Hugo 2)
3) I don’t have a clear budget. I’m willing to spend money if the solution proposed solves my pain in a elegant way. Say 2000 usd max?

Questions:

  1. What DSP device/software would you suggest me to get?
  2. The Klipsch Forte III frequency response: 38Hz – 20kHz (+/- 3 dB) How should I cross over to the subwoofer? At which frequency? At around 40Hz, 60Hz or 80Hz? And why?
  3. Where should the subwoofer fit in the chain in a way that it gets its input signal converted by Hugo 2?
  4. But then, if I place my subwoofer after the DAC in the audio chain, will the DSP device still be able to control the sub’s input signal separately from the Forte speakers? (so that I’m able to have control on crossover points between speakers and sub)
  5. BONUS: It might be nice to have a system where I'm able to stream wirelessly from iPhone/Macbook (Airplay, Aptx) to the whole chain. Maybe a DSP device with integrated streamer? (furthermore consider that the Hugo 2 is able to do that via bluetooth aptx and the amplifier Hegel H190 is able to receive through Airplay and bluetooth aptx)

Thank you so much guys for your help!!


egoquaero
Monster traps may be overkill for the side walls.Heavily treating the corners is worth experimenting with.I'm using GIK and four subs to great effect in my smallish room.Two subs wit built in eq  might work very well also.Best of luck as you research your options!
You indicate you're still waiting for the panels to arrive.  Shouldn't you assess the need for room correction AFTER all of your acoustic treatments are in place?
If you have a MacBook try REW, Room Eq Wizard, to have a look at what is going on with your speakers / room... Next, you might try Audirvana to stream from your MacBook to either DAC you are looking at... Audirvana with AudioUnits software plugins will do PEQ etc... REW can generate room correction PEQ filters and Audirvana via an AudioUnits PEQ provide the EQ for your setup... REW and AutioUnits are free and Audirvana is a reasonable price...  And I agree, room acoustic treatment first then additional EQ if needed...  Use REW as your eyes and ears before and after treatment...
Sorry, that should say: REW can generate room correction PEQ filter settings...


Thanks everybody for the help!

@jtcf I’m definitely evaluating the decision of getting more subs. One of the next steps :)

@three_easy_payments: yes, you’re right. I’m just in a hurry to reach audio nirvana for my room :D And I know that the odds of getting perfect acoustics even AFTER the placement of the treatments are against me. So I kind of know that I will end up anyway playing with digital room correction eventually.


Guys, I took a look at Minidsp offerings with Dirac software and I found that the SHD studio might be the missing piece:

https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd-studio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr_oqF9jb-8

TARGET AUDIO CHAIN MAP:

https://ibb.co/cCTwbmv


As you can see with this structure:

  1. I keep Hugo 2 into the equation
  2. There’s only one digital-analog conversion performed by DACs, since the SHD Studio dsp device is digital in and digital out and it doesn’t mess up with analog signals

New questions:

  1. It seems that I need two DACs? One for the main speakers and the other for the subwoofer?
  2. Is there a way to make the Hugo 2 be the only DAC. So that the Hugo 2 receives two digital signals from the Shd studio and then produces two analog signals. One for the main speakers and one for the sub. This would be ideal, but I doubt it’d be possible.
  3. If point two is not possible, what would be a nice alternative?