TACT RCS 2.0 Users Group

In the Users Group spirit of this topic, let me pose a few questions to those with some experience under their belts. As a new TacT user, I'm bursting with questions.

1. Which of the taget curves have you found most to your liking?

2. Are you finding that the supplied target curves do the job, or have you ended up editing to make one of your own creation?

3. Are there any tricks to the measurement process that users should know about?

4. It's very easy to take a measurement and fit a curve. What do you recommend as the next step or steps to get more out of the system?

5. Do you find you need to re-measure every time you try a new component, such as an interconnect, for example? (I wonder what the TacT can teach us about the nature of component differences.)

I'll stop there. I think a true on-line users group would be an excellent idea.

Dan

For any DSP room correction system:

For 5: Remeasure only when things that impact the time behavior or gross frequency behaviours of your system change. That includes new speakers, new pieces of furniture, moving your speakers, moving your furniture, or moving your listening position.

For 4: the answer should be to take a true time domain measurement after each curve fit to see that you actually achieved your desired response but that is the limitation discussed above.

Drubin,

Let me address a few of the questions you raised based on my experience to date with the Tact:

Your questions 1 & 2;
First, as to the Tact supplied target curves - my experience was to throw all of them away except the Near Field (NF) curve. Also, ignore the placement of the speakers that Tact recommends and go with the formula that George Cardas recommends.

Then, using the NF curve, and ideally a NF listening position (measure the distance between your speakers and move your listening position out from the face of the speakers that distance) and begin to make very small incremental changes of just 1/2 db in the frequency areas you feel need modification.

A lot of trial and error is what worked for me. Actually, the target curve I ended up with that sounds the best took very little modification from the NF default curve, but the changes were effective.

Question 3;
I have not found any tricks to the measurement process. I place the mic exactly where the center of my head will be positioned while listening, then have my computer and myself on the floor behind the listening chair.
I have experimented with sitting in the listening position and quickly swinging the mic from where my left ear is to where my right ear is during the measurement cycle, but I did not like the results I got.

Question 4;
Next step to get more out of the system is, IMHO, to have all of us push Tact to release the enhanced software that they said they would in the last issue of Absolute Sound under the Manf. Comments area on the article Robert Green wrote reviewing the Tact with the Sigtech. That plus support for running the software on a laptop in 600x480 res would be nice.

Question 5;
Actually, I have found I do remeasure after changing any element in the system. Now, bare in mind, I'm the Poster Child for the Anil Retentive of North America, but I can see in the measurement graph and hear a difference. In my experience it is worth the extra effort.

I have recently been testing different digital cables and analog interconnects and found it necessary to remeasure and reload the target curves to get the best sound from my system.

In closing, I would like to suggest that each of us begin pushing Tact to satisfy some of the user needs that this thread has brought to light. Collectively we have a lot more clout than any one of us does alone.

One additional suggestion which is a substitute for indpendent measurement. Get a good Mercury Living Presence CD that was recorded in Mono. A stereo recording played in mono won't work because you do't know the actual left right time response. I recommend the Dorati recording of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with the Minneapolis Symphony. It doesn't matter if you don't like classical this is a test record. Listen to the last 15 minutes with your eyes closed. If your curves succesfully correct for the room and speaker anomolies, the image should be rock solid between the speakers. If the instruments wander depending on what is playing or how many other instruments are playing, you should check your speaker placement and remeasure. This should work with just about any reasonable target frequency response curve.

I would also recommend that people looking to understand the response of their room try ETF 5.x. Look at http://www.etfacoustic.com/. It is some times simpler (and cheaper) to correct the response this way.