A how to for a PC XO.

[ewildgoose]

Your choice of convolver is the most important question. Second is probably whether you will be resampling.

For a simple crossover, Brutefir on linux could probably do is in 400Mhz or so depending on filter lengths.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Goose:

I think it would be a great ideal if you could document your method for others, afterall there's many ways to skin a cat.

I think it would be a better option if cost is a first concern and you also want a high quality XO.

BTW Just to be clear:

Will this process any incoming digital or analogue audio signal?

[Vil]

Shin ,

if you use Foobar as audio player there is cool plugin for upsampling into 96khz . then if your computer fast enough use Console procesing at 96K . after some experiments I found it sounds better compared to 44k procesing .

Vil

[wigginjs]

ed:

Can't find your e-mail on the wiki and it's unavailable on this forum... How can I contact you?

[ewildgoose]

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN
I think it would be a great ideal if you could document your method for others, afterall there's many ways to skin a cat.

I think it would be a better option if cost is a first concern and you also want a high quality XO.

As I said I am seriously short of time at the moment and trying to start a small business (and raise an 8 month old baby). I can give rough notes on process, and occasionally in response to a question I can scribble a more detailed reply on the wiki than I can here. But unfortunately I don't really have a bunch of time to go much beyond that.

I really need help documenting how to do this stuff on the wiki. However, you are not on your own. Sign up at the DRC page on sourceforge and there is a mailing list there where you can talk to me, Denis Sbragion (the DRC author) and a bunch of other enthusiasts. So it's not just me basically.

However, I will help you out if you have a play and get stuck. It's easier for me to answer specific questions than to write a book.

Basically though the process is.

1) Generate crossovers
2) Setup Brutefir so it takes an input signal and generates lots of outputs signals (as a result of the crossovers)
3) Then run a sweep through each channel one by one and record the output. From this generate the room IR (I use my rec_imp program to automate this - runs under windows/linux/mac)
4) Feed the room IR for each channel into DRC which generates a high quality "inversion" for that channel.
5) You then apply the correction filters to each channel (ie before the crossover)

Originally posted by ShinOBIWAN
BTW Just to be clear:

Will this process any incoming digital or analogue audio signal?

Brutefir is a pluggable system and can filter input FROM anywhere, TO anywhere. So you can filter FROM a file, TO the soundcard. Or FROM the soundcard TO a file.

In my case I use the Jack audio layer under windows so that the output of any of my audio applications gets fed directly into Brutefir. The OUTPUT of brutefir is always the soundcard (and hence the speakers).

There is no reason why I could not also *simultaneously* be filtering the input of my soundcard and mixing it into the output. That way I can have (simultaneously if required) the audio generated from the HTPC, and also any external audio on the digital or analogue inputs filtered and processed to the card output

So "yes". You can do just about anything

The only thing which doesn't look like it has been written (and I might knock something up) is a way to take dolby or DTS surround IN on the spdif, decode it, and then pass it onto Brutefir for filtering. This shouldn't be hard to write, but it's not done as far as I know

Good luck

P.S. Email is something like drcstuff (at) wildgooses (dot) com

[Audiophilenoob]

shin would another alternative to the clock you use be something like this:

http://www.poweralley.com/quantum_ii.htm

I'm more curious if this will work for a 3-way 2 channel stereo and xovers rather than being necessarily cheaper... I'm just wondering if this will work so I can look for other options

[ewildgoose]

That just looks like a cheap EQ box?

Your problem is that after a while one card is going to be sending out an analogue signal which might in theory be even seconds ahead of the other card. Actually this will never happen because all the buffering will fall apart once the cards skew more than a few hundred millisecs, but the idea is there

You need to physically sync the soundcards themselves. Some cards you can do this on the cheap with just an spdif between them. Others need some external clock signal. It's not rocket science, you just have to do it

Even easier though is probably just to buy a DAC with lots of channels...

If your problem is getting enough outputs for crossover duties then why not look at a Behringer DCX2496 or similar. It's cheap and cheerful and gets you started for practically nothing. Its easy to setup and basically handles all the crossover stuff, at least as long as you don't mind simple emulations of the normal analogue crossovers like LR, etc

This leaves you only having to do DRC on the PC and also a much simpler system with less chance of blowing a tweeter due to a software cockup...

[Audiophilenoob]

Originally posted by ewildgoose
That just looks like a cheap EQ box?

it's a processor... read about it

it's also $2199 so no not cheap either... and it can be used with wordclock

[JinMTVT]

this is starting to annoyed me seriosuly ..

i've got all the softwares shinob talked about
( testing for now..if i like i'll get what i need! )

My soundcard is an ESI-PRO Waveterminal 192L
wich got e-WDM drivers ( asio, WDM, MME,GSIF whatever..)
+directwires built in the drivers

so i tried to setup Console to get some sound IN
at least ..showing on the CurvesEQ graph

i tried every possible combination of audio settings in console
and directwires stuff ..

i tried extensivly to get anything using ASIO in console
and in directwires setup as seen on previous pics
without anything showing up at all in curvesEQ

then, if i set up in console for direct sound i get something ine CurvesEQ wich is my line input ( MIC input )
any other input doesn't do a thing at all

is there something i ain't getting right here?

i tried with mediaplayer playing a cd audio file
then foobar with almost all possible output
( except for asio, wich doesn't seem to load at all in foobar)
may my asio is broken ? how to check if it is working?

i don't konw much about audio specific aps in PC
( asio and stuff. )

please help me out, i just wanna set this thing up and try the DRC
to see how i like it!!

thanks

[wigginjs]

Post a pic showing your console setup and directwire, etc. Also show the console audio setup tab in the pic. I'll try to figure out whats going on from there.