Room correction in noisy environment (ARC, Dirac, Minidsp, REW)

https://aquietrefuge.com/noise-blocking-window-film/

some of the 3m security films can reduce noise in room and drop transmission as well.

some investigation will be required.

5db is a huge reduction.

https://soundproofliving.com/acoustical-window-film/ 
re the 3m stuff, it was an accidental discovery, found after the installs. It was not planned but that is how it turned out.

Then, some folks decided to go after the acoustical transmission treatment aspect - as the main sauce.

It is still evolving as a science/engineered technology, but options are coming into being.

do the leg work.....


If you can get about 3-4db out of film coating the glass windows, if there are a lot of them... then that's a big deal, a big gain.

You MAY need room correct if your speakers are too big for your room. Why would you want to have too big speakers for a room, well because. 

Some of these "get of my lawn posters" likely cannot think beyond there own reality. Don't list to any dips around here telling you their truth.

I think room acoustics and correction are always possible improvements, especially if you can keep the DSP out of the main speaker loop.

You can really make smaller speakers sound a lot bigger and fuller this way, and I don't mean by adding bass, but by smoothing it out.

Proper room acoustics OFTEN make small speakers sound bigger.

To answer your question, for the most part, unless the street noises are significant, they are not going to make much practical difference on room correction since the volumes used in correction will still be significantly louder.


Speaker size: unless the speaker has a very large radiation area, the size does not matter significantly, except to make them hard to place, and some speakers are better with more distance to allow for driver integration.

Room correction is an attempt to fix things that are wrong ... and just that, an attempt. It can help, but not a panacea, with the systems that take readings at multiple locations being better but again not perfect.  How much work are you willing to put in?

People look at room correction often thinking mainly bass, but they actually work better through the mid-range up to their limit, say 5-8KHz. At higher frequencies, the speaker (on and off axis) dominates alone what you hear, and room correction can attempt to compensate for anomalies in the speaker response that reaches you, but still an attempt.

Down in the bass frequencies ... under a few hundred hz in a typical room, the room and where the speakers are in it is everything. At a given position, frequency response can jump up and down 10db. Room correction will soften this, but not fix underlying issues. You are better off getting RoomEQ, Arta, etc. and measuring at your listening area while moving the speakers around to get the flattest response in the base, and then using room correction to fix what is left ..... or take the next step and learn about bass traps, absorbers, diffusers, etc.


Room correction is often better than nothing at all, but not as good as doing it properly.

Thank you for all the input. I understand that room correction is not a fix all.  I have a very tough room and using absorbers, traps, and diffusers is not an option.  My aim is to get as close to "better" as possible.  

I simply wanted to know if the ambient noise was a total failure.  You answered my question when you mentioned the test tone noise should be significantly louder than ambient noise.