Acoustical Voodoo

[Ron McKernan]

I recently purchased a Trinnov ST2 Hifi wanting to explore the wonderful world of room correction. Given my sub-optimal listening room setup, I was quite convinced that the device would be nothing but beneficial.

Let me also say up front, that the Trinnov is an incredibly powerful (and complex) piece of equipment. If you are someone who loves to tinker with this stuff (like myself), then it has almost endless possibilities.

So, I did a a couple of calibration runs and sat down to listen to the results and it sounded really ..... different.

When going through the 5 system defined presets resulting from the calibration, each gave me insight (or earsight) into sound signatures of my system that I had truly never heard before. Some of them positive, others not so.

The biggest surprise (and main reason for my post) came after I toggled the optimizer on/off (on the fly). As I listened to my system without any correction, the sound suddenly seemed ..... stale.  

My expectations were that yes, it might not sound as good as optimized setup, but I did not expect that it would sound as bad as it did.

What had I been listening to over the last months/years? I had the previous perception that my system sounded anything but ... stale. How did it happen that over the course of time my mind/ears became so convinced that I was having a really good listening experience? After the A/B comparison it was evident that I was not.  

Whatever the reason, I can't explain it. Perhaps it is just Acoustical Voodoo ...

I had exactly the same experience after the implementation of Dirac. First, there was a big relief that I got rid of my room modes. But when I switched Dirac off I realised that not only the "boooms" have vanished, but all bass is tighter and straiter forward now than without room correction, the overall SQ has improved as well. I do not want to (I can't!) listen to my music without room correction any more. BIG Problem: My vinyl collection, because the signal from my record player of course cannot be corrected by Dirac. Therefore I am considering to buy a Trinnov ST2, but would wait a while, maybe (sic!) Devialet will keep their promises and integrate RC into the experts. Because the Trinnov is not exactly cheap. But will Devialet RC (Roon RC would be worthless for me: vinyl) have the same quality as Dirac/Trinnov?

I would be very curious how your T+A G 2000 R goes together with the Trinnov ST2!