Experienced only: What have you done with room correction?


I like to sometimes ask questions just to learn how others have experienced a technology and this is one of those times.

I’m genuinely curious about who has applied automatic room correction, and what your experience was? Did it turn your Monitor Audios into Martin Logans? Your Martin Logans into Wilsons? 😀

Good and bad, but experienced only please!

For the record, I use it for HT now and I’m meh. I had much better luck with manually (with tools) adjusting my miniDSP.  Also, I'm absolutely not looking to buy anything, I just want to read about your experiences because it is fun.

erik_squires

I started updating my system 3 years ago.  After, i got all the components, one of the first things I bought was room panels.  I have two bass traps sitting behind the system, 6 first reflection panels, and 3 diffusers .  Room is 12 x 17x 8. Very good decision; I feel you can be changing out components trying to improve your sound when the next big bang for your buck is the room treatments.  My panels lowered listening fatigue, took to a much better place and improved sound stage.  I currently walk around the room and feel the sound doesn't change.  Many times you will have node cancellations whiere there is hardly any response at a given frequency range.  I do have one small bass peak in the left rear corner.  Bass is flat to 30Hz and good response in mid 20's.  There are several other things I have done to further refine the sound, but if I had done all that without treatment, I would be wondering why it doesn't sound right. 

PS  Eric has always been a proponent of room treatment and his posts/advise helped me make the decision to put up panels.  Thank you.

 Lyngdorf room correction transformed the sound of my Dali Epicon 6 speakers and Harbeth 40.1s in my systems.  Much improved bass, midrange clarity and overall musicality. 
 

The Lyngdorf room correction also improved the sound of my friends AudioVector R3s nicely in his room.  Tighter and more articulate bass as well as improved midrange clarity and refinement. 

I'm about to find out. I just took delivery of Legacy Aeris with Wavelet processor. I have high hopes.

I've used bass correction in situations where it's just a joke without it. Sometimes we don't get to move the speakers where we want. In at least some of those cases judicious use of room correction can make the listening experience dramatically more enjoyable. In the lower bass time domain issues aren't as big a deal to human hearing. My experience lines up with research I've seen on the subject. If the severe peaks and dips can be reduced with dsp it sounds better than not doing it even if it doesn't address some of the time domain issues. Above 100 Hz things change and time domain becomes very important. Thankfully, absorption becomes increasingly efficient and less costly as frequency goes up.

I’ve used TacT, Dirac, and Anthem. A few things:

  • DRC can be fantastic, especially when using digital xovers for subs. It can smooth bass response, and the good products can also remove excess brightness if you tell them to.
  • The better the digital processing in the convolver, the better it will sound. The best of the ones I’ve tried is the Anthem STR, which works at 192 kHz and 32 (I think) bits.
  • Different products don't all work to the same level. YPAO in particular seems to have a bad reputation. ARC and Dirac have good ones. Even ARC is better or worse (from what I read and discuss), depending on whether it comes with a subwoofer or a full processor.
  • With previous products, I’ve heard minor side-effects when I engaged the DSP. With the Anthem STR, I do not.
  • It’s important to have a well-calibrated mic. The cheap items in a manufacturer’s lineup often will have worse mics.
  • No automatic system will always arrive at sound the way you want it. Every automatic solution should be tuned by ear (assuming the devices allow that) to dial it in. IME, it can take several iterations to get there.