How many use some sort of measurements to optimize their systems?

[neevo]

This^ is not for me at all.

Me either. I think the benefit of a customisable system is to get it right up front and then remove the need for adjustments later. I’m a fan of keeping the controls flat, EQing for a flat response and then dialing in some pseudo house curve with a few dB of sub gain.

I like the fact some tracks have bass, some don’t, some are crisp on the top end, some aren’t. Yes it makes crap mixes sound crap but it also makes great ones sound great. Plus I am not tempted to “fiddle” which I find takes away from the enjoyment.

 

[sKiZo]

Went for decades tweaking the system by ear, and a couple hours to get it right once I discovered digital tuning. I'd already managed to get rid of the "big lump" inconsistencies, but the DSP solution really cleaned things up. Even if you think what you're hearing is all right, a lot of that satisfaction may be just your brain playing games and allowing you to settle for what ya got. Truth be told, I'd been pretty much satisfied until I heard the system sound like it was meant to - difference is literally night and day.

- Ran several sweeps with Room EQ Wizard using a calibrated microphone, then averaged the results.
- Imported the results to jRiver Media Center's "convolution kernel".

And that was just about it for all my digital needs. Most of my library is stored in FLAC on my HTPC. Last step was adjust my parametric equalizer to take care of the major excursions - I

I also think you can get caught in a tweak for every record situation which becomes exhausting.

Not necessary. Once the room is responding correctly, the average playback pretty much takes care of itself. Minor tweaks as needed for expansion and bass are pretty much it here. Room was last tuned a couple years back and should need no additional work unless I make major changes to the system or environment.

I’ve found getting flat response, with a slightly boosted bass is best and then I dial in my subs with some known bass tracks.

Flat sucks ... see "House Curves". Another bonus with using REW software is you can automatically overlay a house curve on top of the actual test results.

 

[twiiii]

I do. Either a 1/3 octave real time analyser or when available a Crown TEF analyzer. The Crown is a pain in the neck to use for sure.

 

[neevo]

Flat sucks ... see "House Curves". Another bonus with using REW software is you can automatically overlay a house curve on top of the actual test results.

Im doing a pseudo house curve in the DSP by adding a low shelf filter but it’s not a great way of doing it. How do you do it in REW and what sort of gain, frequencies, q’s are you using?

 

[sKiZo]

Im doing a pseudo house curve in the DSP by adding a low shelf filter but it’s not a great way of doing it. How do you do it in REW and what sort of gain, frequencies, q’s are you using?

Yah ... low shelf only attacks part of the problem. There's a few other tweaks in the midrange and low bass that can enhance the sound a lot. I found this little gem a while back that seems to do the job nicely - give it a try ...

http://www.brainfartz.com/images/Stereo Stuff/eq/Small Room X-Curve.txt

PS ... with REW (and most any DSP solution), you can do a highly detailed curve and import this directly. For a parametric EQ, you can average the primary frequencies to make it fit. As mentioned earlier, best to do this after running your frequency sweeps - go for flat, then apply the house curve.

 

[neevo]

@sKiZo thats exactly what I’ve done but without the house curve bit. I could get it flat but after that I wasn’t sure how to overlay the house curve on it. I’ll read the link, thanks

 

[musichal]

Went for decades tweaking the system by ear, and a couple hours to get it right once I discovered digital tuning. I'd already managed to get rid of the "big lump" inconsistencies, but the DSP solution really cleaned things up. Even if you think what you're hearing is all right, a lot of that satisfaction may be just your brain playing games and allowing you to settle for what ya got. Truth be told, I'd been pretty much satisfied until I heard the system sound like it was meant to - difference is literally night and day...

I don't use measurements, nor eq, with the exception of a high-pass filter (built-in with the Levinson integrated) for the mains in order to meld with subwoofers. Room treatments are a throw-rug and furniture upholstery. Nor do I claim to get it right. I am happy with the filtering my brain does; it's the best eq in the house.

 

[motorstereo]

A tape measure, 10' straight edge and a laser level for correct speaker placement is all I've used. I don't have any tone controls, the sub is turned off 95% of the time and I don't feel the need to either measure or "correct" anything.

 

[Powertech]

I have used REW with a calibrated mic to help set up my active system. I have a 15 band 2/3 octave EQ sat in a tape loop for monitoring purposes and I occasionally put it in circuit for a bit of correction to some recordings that IMO need a bit of help.
In the most part I have used REW to confirm/check results against design goals. I have test run individual channels so that I can set crossovers where the individual driver responses are at their flattest as this helps to give an even response handover at the crossover points. This gives me a good starting point for setting up the system. It kind of tells me roughly where I am. If I make a significant change to the system, I run measurements to confirm/deny what I think I am hearing. The brain is very good at filtering sound, so to have some measurements is useful, but it's only a guide.

Final trimming is always done by ear.

 

[SteveA]

Used a SPL meter (with measurements manually put into spreadsheet), a tape measure, a bubble level and a laser pointer to set up my speakers. That's it.

 

[sKiZo]

One trick for finding primary reflection points on the ceiling is to use a piece of weighted string on a stick. Hold the stick up to the ceiling, start the string swinging, and look for the spot where the swing intersects both the tweeter and where your ears are going to be camped for most listening.

I had a real hot spot here that was almost painful. Since attacking that, I can now listen to Norah Jones without either her voice or piano gouging my ears ...

 

[gizzyman47]

I'm with 4-2-7. My audio research pre was without tone controls and I didn't miss them. Took a lot of the fiddling out of the system. I felt that however it sounded it sounded. If it was a quality recording well then why worry? Although sometimes I did miss having a balance control for when some recordings favored one speaker more than another. Thats annoying to me.

 

[mkane]

Trying to make response flat will drive you mad.

 

[E-Stat]

Trying to make response flat will drive you mad.

The biggest challenge posed by rooms is below the Schroeder Frequency which is about 200 hz. That's where I've focused my time with placement and room treatments.

OTOH, if I were building my own speakers and experimenting with multiple drivers and xover frequencies, I would want to see the full range response both on axis and off axis. There are many speakers which exhibit strange imaging due to their poor off axis response in certain areas. Many vintage JBL speakers, for example show wild swings in the upper midrange/lower highs. Similarly, those who put wide dispersion tweeters on top of large full range drivers results in a similar inconsistency that compromises signal coherence and fidelity.

 

[pdm4606]

Nope.....all done by ear.

 

[FONSguy]

when I started using a pair of the big cinder blocks as speaker stands Because of the weight I used a carpenters square and a 4' level to get the position of the blocks as accurate as possible. The speakers sit on carpet tiles to protect the bottoms.

 

[EngineerNate]

Similarly, those who put wide dispersion tweeters on top of large full range drivers results in a similar inconsistency that compromises signal coherence and fidelity.

I built a car system using 2" Peerless full ranges instead of dome tweeters for this very reason. I was able to put them up high and cross them very low compared to a dome tweeter, letting the in-door mids act more as mid-bass drivers. It SERIOUSLY improved the overall coherence of the sound compared to mounting a tweeter 2' away from it's mating mid because of the lower crossover frequency and better dispersion characteristics.

 

[robgmn]

Before digital correction, I did it all manually (SPL, tape measure, etc.) as much as possible (a subwoofer sitting 9' from the front and 5' from the side walls in a 20x30 room doesn't fly in my house).
Now I use Audessy, but only for sub correction. (I like the way my main speaks sound without any correction other than perhaps a one or two dB treble boost)

I'm a set-and-forget knid of person. I don't generally eschew tone control for purity sake, just because I mostly listen .to a mix of all my stuff radio-station style and don't have time to adjust for every recording. If I only bought stuff that was recorded to perfection, I'd have to dump a lot of music I really enjoy listening to.

 

[Djcoolray]

There are too many uncontrollable situations that change sound going from one recording to the next. In fact there is a huge difference in sound going from one LP to the next. But it is about how much of a change a person hears going from one LP to another. If a person hears the same wonderful sound irregardless after set up.....they can’t hear the difference. Now if you can hear quite a difference and are menaced into compensating for the difference, adjustments are unavoidable. Even though there are those that can do room treatments and arrange speakers to create a sound they love and enjoy for themselves without any adjustments, that is due to their own situation. Then allot of it has to do with the equipment in various ways. But irregardless of room size, treatments and equipment there is the difference in how the medium was recorded and it all sounds different if you can hear the difference. I adjusted some young guys equipment at a local Cannabis dispensary after I made the comment that the sound coming from their system sounds empty they allowed me to make adjustments. I made the adjustments and one noticed a huge difference and the other noticed a slight difference. Myself, I have equipment with great sonics so making adjustments doesn’t alter the quality of the sound and I have an EQ with a remote that has six programmable presets...one for Columbia, Epic, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera......etcetera !!!!

With all the different equipment and room sizes there is no one method to be able to listen to recordings that are recorded so differently in the same way. Unless of course, if the person can’t hear the difference....

 

[twiiii]

I voice my system above 3000 hz at 4ft from the centerline of the tweeter/super tweeters for each speaker, Then Below 400 at my listening location. Then I spice the two curves to gether using the TEF to check the direct signal and the Real Time analyzer to check the sum. Room Perfect will give you almost the same result with out all the head aches. By the way I don't voice the system flat. Basically I use the B curve for pop music, But use the A curve below 1.6 khz and some where between B&C for classical music. A couple clicks of the bass or treble controls brings the system to flat. I use that once in a while, too. A 1 or 2db change here or there really makes a big difference once you get rid of the peaks in the system.