Acoustic Room Treatments vs DSP

For those of you with anxiety of the additional DA conversion with digital sources, this can be circumvented by undertaking the correction in the digital domain in jriver or using other convolver software *prior* to the first (and only) D to A conversion. This is obviously not possible with analogue sources.

My personal experience has taught me that both are the optimal solution with room treatment first.

I am waiting for the first viable dsd based room correction software algorithm as I prefer the dsd sound and my Lampi prefers it too :)
 
Some points:
1) I don't think people should be philosophically anti-DSP, even for analog sources. Best system I have heard was re-digitizing everything (both upstream analog and digital sources) for speaker and room correction. I guess you have to hear these things for yourself.

2) Many confuse speaker and room correction. Some of the "room correction" algorithms like Dirac are also doing speaker correction (correcting the direct sound), so I understand how this confusion has come about. Basically, think of room correction as the lower frequencies below say 300Hz, where room modes dominate. Above this the speaker dominates the response, so if you correct up there you are doing speaker correction.

3) Above about 8kHz the measurement mics become directional, so they are not really picking up what the speaker is doing properly.

4) The general approach that nearly all professional home theater designers have settled on is to use EQ only for the lowest frequencies, say under 100Hz, and only where passive treatment becomes excessively large. If your room is well designed you may need no EQ.

5) Most people have never measured their room, and so don't know how bad it really is.

6) Most people have no reference for really good bass, because most playback systems have massive bass peaks and dips.
 
As I am limited on how far I can go with room treatments due to WAF, I am very interested in DSP for room correction but I know nothing about it at all. Can this room equalization be done with software on my Mac Mini (i.e. Audirvana, JRiver, Amarra, Pure Music, HQPlayer, etc.) or is it done at a later step through a component like Accuphase DG-58? What other types of components are available and how do they work (i.e. Mini DSP)? Are they employed before or after the DAC? It's all very confusing to me at this point.

Thanks,
Ken
 
It totally depends on the Room, the Room, the Room

If you have bass gain issues, nodes etc etc, no room treatment will correct that. The only thing that will provide any help is DSP speaker/room eq correction.
I have a particularly bad room and only Deqx speaker correction and eq for 250hz and under have helped the bass issues.

I have just swapped rooms with the TV room. It's quite a lot smaller and low and behold, it sounds a lot better. Most of my bass issues have gone. I am left with normal room issues.

So yes, depending on the room, DSP eq might be essential as tweaking the upper frequency's is easy.
 
Alpinist said:
As I am limited on how far I can go with room treatments due to WAF, I am very interested in DSP for room correction but I know nothing about it at all. Can this room equalization be done with software on my Mac Mini (i.e. Audirvana, JRiver, Amarra, Pure Music, HQPlayer, etc.) or is it done at a later step through a component like Accuphase DG-58? What other types of components are available and how do they work (i.e. Mini DSP)? Are they employed before or after the DAC? It's all very confusing to me at this point.

Thanks,
Ken
Click to expand...

Hi Ken,

You can implement the dsp via your mac via jriver for example. Basically think of it that when you play an album from the library, the music is corrected in the digital domain before transmission to your dac via USB or whatever route. In addition to this route, one might decide to go for one of the purpose built "box" solutions (such as Trinnov etc) - for the latter you typically insert into the chain post preamp (or bin off your pre as some of these boxes do volume control also).

I would personally hang fire on the box solution due to the financial outlay compared to downloading software. That way you can dip your toes into the world of dsp without investing too much.

Hope this helps as a very watered down introduction.
 
Nyal Mellor said:
Some points:
1) I don't think people should be philosophically anti-DSP, even for analog sources. Best system I have heard was re-digitizing everything (both upstream analog and digital sources) for speaker and room correction. I guess you have to hear these things for yourself.

2) Many confuse speaker and room correction. Some of the "room correction" algorithms like Dirac are also doing speaker correction (correcting the direct sound), so I understand how this confusion has come about. Basically, think of room correction as the lower frequencies below say 300Hz, where room modes dominate. Above this the speaker dominates the response, so if you correct up there you are doing speaker correction.

3) Above about 8kHz the measurement mics become directional, so they are not really picking up what the speaker is doing properly.

4) The general approach that nearly all professional home theater designers have settled on is to use EQ only for the lowest frequencies, say under 100Hz, and only where passive treatment becomes excessively large. If your room is well designed you may need no EQ.

5) Most people have never measured their room, and so don't know how bad it really is.

6) Most people have no reference for really good bass, because most playback systems have massive bass peaks and dips.
Click to expand...
Have you tried Dspeaker AM2?
 
Ken - the products from Deqx are some of the best and I believe Nyal can come to your room, measure and make suggestions on which DEQX product.

Another product that is quite popular is miniDSP: http://www.minidsp.com
 
You might also check out Illusonic, superb kit, and Christof Faller ( Illusonic ) ,creates the EQ for your room personally, of all the solutions I have tried, Tact,Trinnov,Dirac, MiniDSP , Illusonic has provided the finest sound quality in my room to date.
Keith.
 
XV-1 said:
It totally depends on the Room, the Room, the Room

If you have bass gain issues, nodes etc etc, no room treatment will correct that. The only thing that will provide any help is DSP speaker/room eq correction.
Click to expand...
No, it's always the source/room. No source, no room modes excited. This is easily demonstrated, but unfortunately 99.99% of audiophiles don't understand that the "source" doesn't have to be a omnipresent omni-radiating bass monopole.

915GRS7fig6.jpg


GamuT RS7 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com









Gradient Revolution loudspeaker John Atkinson March 1997 | Stereophile.com


Same room. Very different results, including no "room" 30ish Hz bass peaking.

cheers,

AJ
 
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Purité Audio said:
Linn do something similarly half baked, why don't they just acoustically measure the individual room.
Keith.
Click to expand...
Sorry but I would like to oppose to this statement.
Two years ago I have followed an extensive room measurement program with measuring mic in the CARMA software with my AudioNET DNP pre-amp. The correction that came out of that corrected the bass in the 26 and 60 Hz region.
A very effective correction that improved the sound in a remarkable level.
schermafbeelding20131027om130120_364270.jpg


After Linn introduced Space Optimization I immediately programmed my speakers and the room sizes / materials. The correction that comes out of it is really close to the measured correction on the Audionet amplifier DSP. Of course the speaker correction à la Devialet takes already a big part of the correction.

Schermafbeelding_2015_09_05_om_14_23_19.jpg



I would't say Linn's solution is half baked. It is an effective, simplified way of using DSP and it is accessible to everybody.
 
Purité Audio said:
You might also check out Illusonic, superb kit, and Christof Faller ( Illusonic ) ,creates the EQ for your room personally, of all the solutions I have tried, Tact,Trinnov,Dirac, MiniDSP , Illusonic has provided the finest sound quality in my room to date.
Keith.
Click to expand...

Again, like Goldmund, Christof uses the egghead brain power of EPFL and the Zurich tech Institute to create advanced software applications! Many ways to skin that cat!
 
Hans,

Golmund Proteus does similar to Devialet SANM for the speakers and does the RCB with room dimensions. As it can work with up to 44,000 parameters, the more accurate the measurements you throw into it, the better will be the output. The Leonardo component of Proteus somehow deals with the time domain.

I have no idea behind the details of how all this works...
 
Norman I do believe Goldmund has an excellent product. I was just opposing the statement that Linn offers a half baked product. Yes it is for free but IMO it is rather excellent! I do realize this can be done way better.
 
XV-1 said:
If you have bass gain issues, nodes etc etc, no room treatment will correct that. The only thing that will provide any help is DSP speaker/room eq correction.
Click to expand...

When applying room EQ it is worthwhile understanding what things it can and cannot fix. It is not a "silver bullet".

Room gain issues (rise in bass towards lower frequencies) are best dealt with by EQ.

Holes between room modes (e.g. where a first room mode is at 20Hz and the next is not until 45Hz) are best dealt with through speaker / listener position placement changes or adding subwoofers. You can do a little boost EQ, assuming you have enough system headroom (amps and speakers/subs), but most times you should limit this to 3-6dB.

Speaker boundary interference cancellation nulls are phase cancellation related and can only be fixed with acoustic treatment, subs or positional changes.

Room mode peaks can be dealt with through EQ, acoustic treatment, multiple subs (room mode cancellation) or placement changes.
 
Glareskin said:
Norman I do believe Goldmund has an excellent product. I was just opposing the statement that Linn offers a half baked product. Yes it is for free but IMO it is rather excellent! I do realize this can be done way better.
Click to expand...
Totally agree. I dont think that direction is half baked at all and when done right, may blow the mic route away in terms of absolute results.
I think that Ilusonic uses some of the same thinking, even though it is mic based.
 
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