THIS is you ... ya?
Lets just say that in my opinion anyone who thinks they can tune up a set of speakers without measurements is a darned fool. Human perception is just too inaccurate and variable for that to ever work.
Unless you know the non-room response of the speaker, how can you know what effects the room is having?
Gated measurements are great for getting the speaker as good as you can before it starts to interact with the room (not just talking about on axis, but polar response as well) If you get this properly sorted then your life should be a lot easier when it comes to starting to worry about the room.
If you rely solely on the response in the room, then you have a much bigger problem because at every point you measure in that room you will get a different response. Yes you can average but then you are taking broad brush strokes.
If what you are putting into the room is sub-optimal, then you have no real way to optimize it based on in room measurements. If what you are putting into the room is optimal in the first place, then whatever you do for room correction, is just that.
Tony.
Gated measurements are great for getting the speaker as good as you can before it starts to interact with the room (not just talking about on axis, but polar response as well) If you get this properly sorted then your life should be a lot easier when it comes to starting to worry about the room.
If you rely solely on the response in the room, then you have a much bigger problem because at every point you measure in that room you will get a different response. Yes you can average but then you are taking broad brush strokes.
If what you are putting into the room is sub-optimal, then you have no real way to optimize it based on in room measurements. If what you are putting into the room is optimal in the first place, then whatever you do for room correction, is just that.
Tony.
Now I know how Mark Hamill feels.. but I'm OK with it
I'd like to think I have an open mind about it. I don't mention this much but 30 years ago I wrote a speaker simulator, as functional as XSim, to process my measurements so, I hope that shows I'm OK with it.
BUT that is why we use a flat frequency response ... it is not the task of our equipment to recreate any specific sound or sound quality. That job is for the many engineers who diddle with the music it before it goes into distribution. Our job is to reproduce what they gave us with reasonable accuracy.
If that comes off as a believable "like you were there" experience, that's good. If it doesn't... that too is on the engineers who recorded, mixed and mastered the recording. That is not something we can or should try to take responsibility for.
The reason for using a flat frequency response (acoustically, not electronically) is so that your system is versatile enough to handle a wide range of recordings/mixes without the need for constant tweaking and re-setting.
Recording engineers count on it when mixing... as you've already been told.
Now I know how Mark Hamill feels.. but I'm OK with it
All evidence of the past week or so, notwithstanding.
You don't actually need to know that.
What you need is a reasonably accurate graph of the frequency response at your listening position so that you can design a complimentary graph for equalisation.
I don't care if that 130hz bulge is a room node, a crossover artefact or speaker resonance... I do care that I can turn down a band or engage a filter to get rid of it.
It's just not that complex.
To be honest ... I'm starting to think you guys are just so lost in the trees that you can't see the forest anymore.
Okay... let me describe how I used to do this before the virus killed it on me...
I would go into the empty room with a signal generator, a spectrum analyser, a calibrated active speaker and calibrated microphone... I would run sweeps, take measurements and even do click and slap tests to determine what treatments the room itself might benefit from.
Now I'm no fan of these stupid foam eggcrates and other truly ugly acoustic treatments that most often don't do half what they say. So I tend to use tapestries, canvas art, drapes, furniture and such to try to tame the room down before the system even goes into it.
Then I will install the equipment, play with speaker positioning and the listening position to get the most uniform uncorrected sound that I can.
Now we come to the part where this discussion started... we have the OP trying to fit a set of speakers into a furnished and decorated room.
Now out comes the test gear again. Putting sweeps through the speakers and measuring at the listening position... this time knowing full well that we can't fix whatever residual artefacts the room has... but we can compensate for them.
I will run sweeps, get a response graph... invert it and set the EQ or DSP accordingly... try again... repeat until satisfied.
The goal through all of this is a flat frequency response graph at the listening position.
Now in the OP's case we aren't going to do much about his room, are we? So we do what we can with EQ or DSP at the sweet spot ... why on Earth is this so hard to understand????
I don't question your method Douglas but what you do with it (neither your experience or you invented the technology way back then).
A mode can't be 'treated' using an eq*. This isn't a minimum phase effect. You can for baffle step compensation though ( it is a minimal phase effect).
Let's take an other example: the filter is badly designed and you have an issue regarding a woofer which exhibit an artefact from breakup.
What happen to the menbrane? Is it just a frequency response issue or there is multiple area of the driver responding in an irregular way with as an effect some real issue regarding directivity behavior too? You can eq it it'll mitigate the fr but the bad directivity behavior will still be there and nothing garantee you it won't be trigered by an harmonic despite you have corrected frequency response.
You want to solve the issue, then use wathever on the membranne ( aquaplast, glue, blood of a virgin,...) to cure the issue at the source, not a sideway solution which will make a symptom less severe ( without curing the issue)..
What you actually do is an in house eq, you don't cure anything. And this is human perception related not a technical answer to a technical problem as you insisted on not take perception into account many times in different posts of yours.
Iow and as you say in english 'when the only tool you have is an hammer every issue looks like a nail'.
A dsp isn't a magic bullet. It is more refined than a hammer but still eq won't solve everything. It may help solve some issue and make life easier no question about it. The thing about it being to know when to stop and what to do with it., when you must stop using it and why.
* the only real answer to room mode is an acoustic treatment, being either passive ( basstrap) or active (multisub approach, active bass trap...). All other options won't do anything, just change the spot where it happen in the room.
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Yeah, heaven forbid I should give my client the best sound I can without tearing his system to shreds or reconstructing his entire room.
Do you remember the original question in this thread?
The OP was looking for the best way to set his EQ when setting up speakers in his room... He's not looking to rebuild the room, redesign the speakers or build a new crossover... he just wants to smooth out the sound.
Of course I can't fix a room node with EQ ... but I can compensate for it...
Speaker + Node == too loud...
turn down the EQ to compensate...
now Speaker + Node == not too loud.
It's just not that complex.
Here's a hint ... when someone goes out and buys a new set of speakers and they want to get the best sound in their listening room ... a DSP or EQ is most likely the only real tool at their disposal.
BTW... what do you think the Auto setup in AVR units do?
Once again ... your answers may be technically correct and your explanations can be as perfect ... but when you are dealing with these systems in real life --in people's homes-- most of the crap that passes for advice here is so totally impractical as to be outright comical.
You simply do not understand Toole's Critique. The room sound environment never goes away no matter how you fiddle with the EQ.
Granted, there is a certain charm to your ardent espousal of a simple mechano-minded viewpoint in room acoustics or the notion of perfectly transporting the recording control room sound into your living room.
B.
I'm guessing the reason gated measurements were suggested was in response to this. Even if everything else in the room remains exactly the same as the last time a difference of position of even a couple of cm for the mic position will give different results.
If you want repeatable measurements you have to take the room out of the equation. It is that simple. You will still need to make sure the mic is on the same axis with the speaker, and that the distance is the same, and the same gating is used, temp and air pressure may also have some small effect. The reality is that getting repeatable measurements is actually really hard!
If you haven't already seen it, I'd suggest a look at the MMM thread. Moving Mic Measurement great for getting an idea of what in room adjustments may be needed, not good for crossover design
Tony.
Yes we all know the cure to all disease which affect mankind is an electronic circuit. Such a fool i'am.
And this is not as we were on a diy forum where a little bit of sawdust could have you a nicely crafted basstrap which will integrate with the furniture and see the wife happy to have a place to locate some nice flower bouquet.
Mostly crap as an automated routine can't compete with a bit of intelligence and understanding of a particular situation.
Ok now we have drifted in over self confidence territory.
That's fine however everyone needs a bit of ethnocentrism to face the world confidently.
That said spreading wrong information is not a way to cure the plague the amateur audio world is fulfilled.
'Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored'. Aldous Huxley, note on dogma, Proper studies, 1927.
Wow ... are you even reading what I write?
1) I have NEVER said that using DSP or EQ will fix a bad room. Not once in my entire 40+ years in this game. I have no idea where you got that from. What I did say is that in many cases it can compensate for it.
2) The entire goal of High Fidelity is that of accurately reproducing the sound encoded into our source recordings ... be they Vinyl, CD, Files or Tape ... this isn't my idea. It is the stated purpose upon which the entire home audio industry functions.
3) Except in the "I have more money than god and no common sense" world of audiophiles, practicality always trumps theoretical perfection. When I'm out on a service call, I'm being paid a fee to set up some equipment or perhaps recommend a better room setup. So far this has never included even the first mention of ripping someone's system all apart and rebuilding it to some bizarre ideal "voicing". Mostly I'm asked to smooth out the sound or find something that's rattling... Really, the average consumer doesn't care a rats backside about half of the stuff people are talking about in this thread.
4) People don't generally hire me to make their rooms ugly ... most often they are looking for a way to integrate their new sound system into their existing rooms. I'm not about to start recommending wild changes or even isolated listening rooms, when someone just wants the best music they can get in their living rooms.
Seriously, guys, all this baffle gab is wonderful in a theoretical discussion and often very educational to the participants ... but when the question is "Measuring bookshelf speakers-what am I doing wrong?" ... it does nothing to help the person asking the question solve their dilemma.
I don't usually do this, but I did go into PMs and offer a very simple way to solve the problem... Which seems to have worked out.
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Yes we all know the cure to all disease which affect mankind is an electronic circuit. Such a fool i'am.
And this is not as we were on a diy forum where a little bit of sawdust could have you a nicely crafted basstrap which will integrate with the furniture and see the wife happy to have a place to locate some nice flower bouquet.
Did you even look at what the question was that started this thread?
The guy just wanted to know how to measure his speakers in the room.
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