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SwissBear's system
#1
Hi everyone,

Having been asked via PM about the active/passive room treatment and room correction I had done, I thought it could be useful to share with the community.

My system is:
Roon/HQPlayer with REW/rePhase correction impulses on a MacMini with Uptone MMK + LPSU -> SOtM sMS-200 with Uptone LPS-1 -> Mutec MC-3+ USB -> AES/EBU -> D900 -> B&W 802D3


Quote:Thank you a lot for taking the time to mail with me!

I purchased a Devialet 400 and B&W 802 D2’s a couple of weeks ago.
Then I progressed to Dirac, which made a huge improvement. After reading all the rave about Mutec MC-3+ USB, I also now have that sitting between the PC and the Devialet. So USB to Mutec and then AES/EBU to Devialet. This already sounds quite nice.
But as the Dirac is a trial version, I am now a bit unsure how to proceed. What is clear is that digital room correction is something I really must have.

Just yesterday I got a MiniMac and will now proceed to install Roon on it. Although as I understand it Roon has it’s own DSP, going through HQPlayer would be the best way? This would also then enable me to use the room corrections at this level of the system. And if I want to go down this route, I basically have 2 options: Acourate and REW/rePhase. With Acourate I would have to make the filter in PC, but could then use it on the MiniMac I understood from what you have written on the Devialet chat.
The advantage of REW/rePhase is the added flexibility, although it requires investing more time in understanding the whole process.
Am I getting it correct so far?

Another question I have had a hard time finding an answer to is how does room treatment relate to digital room correction?
Do you have any experience in this field? Would it e.g. make sense to also consider bass traps etc. to further improve on the sound? In a way, is everything possible to do with digital corrections?

On the first question: Acourate vs REW/rePhase, I would say that both provide very reasonable results. I have a small bias in favor of REW/rePhase as I spent more time trying to achieve the best out of it, and I was also involved in the process of organizing the interface between REW and rePhase by their respective developers. Having said that the cost for the Acourate license is not huge, and certainly worth the saving in time if making measurements is not your cup of tea.

So my personal recommendation would be to start with Acourate, together with this short e-book: https://www.amazon.com/Accurate-Sound-Re...ourate+dsp

Then, if you are still motivated, you can dig into REW/rePhase.

To illustrate the differences, a few charts:
SPL: I sligthly prefer the blue over the green, but both are much better than the rose one Smile
[img][Image: 540892SPLComparisonAcourate.jpg][/img]

ETC (Energy Time Curve): the pics after the first impulse represent the early reflections on the walls, ceiling aso. Slightly better managed by rePhase than Acourate, but nothing significant.
[img][Image: 625983ETCComparisonAcourate.jpg][/img]

Distorsions: same comment here
[img][Image: 227594DistorsionComparisonAcourate.jpg][/img]

Step response: this is where I found rePhase better (having reached a correction close to minimum phase with rePhase, I get a better amortization of the initial step than with other corrections). But Acourate has a better management of the pre-ringing, which is not audible in my setup.
[img][Image: 404863StepComparisonAcourate.jpg][/img]

On the second question: passive vs active room correction, I would say that both are complementary. One thing is difficult to master with passive correction, and this is the level of bass. Having had difficulties implementing my 802D3, I can imagine that you might be facing the same difficulties with you 802D2. But speakers positioning (1st) and active correction (2nd) helped me a lot.

On the opposite, I had a very high level of reverberation in my room (nakes walls, no carpet on the floor, aso). My RT60 was north of 1.2s which is awful. I had an acoustic ceiling implemented last September and this really changed my acoustic life. I now have 0.4s RT60 on most of the spectrum, which is fine. An illustration is given here with (red = without ceiling, blue = with ceiling). The picture represents the Energy Time Curve (time the energy takes to decrease). You can understand that I have a much better audibility now than before.

[img][Image: 292156Plafond.jpg][/img]

On the last unanswered question which is using Roon vs HQPlayer for room correction, I would answer that I had HQPlayer before Roon and I kept it. I also have the highest respect for the work of Jussi Laako, the developer of HQPlayer and trust he has better upsampling/convolution filters/technology than the competition. Finally, using HQPlayer in NAA mode is what brought the best level of emotions to my listening. So this is where I am sticking. But you can decide for your own as HQPlayer offers a 30 days trial license. My recommendation would be to solve the acoustic problems before moving to this stage as the cleaner your sound is, the more you will be able to notice differences in sound quality further down the road.

Hope this helps.
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#2
Hi SwissBear,

thanks a lot for this very useful information!
This is the way I want to go, too.

If I understand correctly, all I need is my Mac mini (Win 7 installed as a second OS), Acourate or REW/rephase and a measurement microphone.
Which microphone are you using? AudioVero sells the Behringer ECM8000, however, using a USB mic like the UMIK-1 seems easier, since you do not need an additional sound interface card.
When doing the measurements, what is in your case the path of the signal to the speakers, i.e. which input of the Devialet are you using?

Christian
Mac Mini - HQPlayer 4 - USB - D1000 - Gauder Akustik Cassiano
Isolated cables made from conductive material
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#3
Hi Christian,
(12-Apr-2017, 12:29)mobaer Wrote: thanks a lot for this very useful information!
This is the way I want to go, too.

Glad if this is helpful.

(12-Apr-2017, 12:29)mobaer Wrote: If I understand correctly, all I need is my Mac mini (Win 7 installed as a second OS), Acourate and a measurement microphone.

Yes you can go this way. But in this case, you will need a display as well as mouse and keyboard connected to the MacMini in order to operate Acourate on the MacMini. Depending how your system is installed, you might be in the middle between the speakers during the measurements, which is not so pleasant. I personally used an old laptop running Windows to run Acourate, and then moved the correction impulses to the Mac via an USB stick when the corrections where finished.

(12-Apr-2017, 12:29)mobaer Wrote: Which microphone are you using (AudioVero sells the Behringer ECM8000) and how do you connect it to your Mac mini?
Do you use an additional sound card? Audio Vero recommends this when using USB microphones, right?

USB microphones (UMik for instance) include their AD digitization card inside the mic. This has the inconvenience that the DA (for sending the impulse) and the AD for analyzing the measurement will be done by different processors. This is the reason why Mitch, the author of the small ebook I pointed to, recommends using a separate sound card.

I personally went this way and purchased a calibrated mic from Uli Bruggeman and added a cheap soundcard (I chose this one: https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_scar...nd_gen.htm), but you can find slightly cheaper ones). I found the best measurements made at 96kHz, with a sweep up to 33kHz, and therefore avoiding the brutal drop in frequency near the Nyquist frequency, which produces some ripples in the impulses.

Do not forget to buy the adapted cables and the microphone stand. People at Thomann are helpful for this. I personally bought these two cables:
Hope this helps.
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#4
A short howto I wrote about REW/rePhase:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10xdhh83jokzbx...o.pdf?dl=0
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#5
SwissBear - that looks interesting and helpful, thank you for making it available.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#6
Hello Bear,

De Demetrios, content de te lire ici aussi !
Thanks for sharing your great experience on this so important topic, room correction. I'm still with Dirac for the moment, waiting for the new Devialet OS card and convolution.... Maybe.
Happy to discuss.
Upgraded Mac Mini - Audirvana - Dirac plugin - Air3 Wifi - Roon & Roon Air - D250 pro - Thiel CS 3.7
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#7
(17-Apr-2017, 21:58)Inox Wrote: Hello Bear,

De Demetrios, content de te lire ici aussi  !
Thanks for sharing your great experience on this so important topic, room correction. I'm still with Dirac for the moment, waiting for the new Devialet OS card and convolution.... Maybe.
Happy to discuss.

Hi Inox,

Glad to read you here. Welcome Smile

As you know, I was sick using AIR and moved in the direction of an external network reader+Mutec. This allowed me to experience HQPlayer+NAA I fell in love with. The same way you would have difficulties to part from Audirvana+Dirac.

Both tracks seem valid to me. The important part is to get a proper restitution of  the emotion of the music. And as technical as the tools we are using may be, they are vectors of emotion and this is what I am looking for.

Looking forward to meeting you again Wink
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#8
The process of making a customized room correction with REW/rePhase will be drastically simplified in the next days/weeks after JohnPM, the author of REW, kindly accepted to implement significant part of the process automation inside REW.

See this post: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way...ost5055503
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#9
(17-Apr-2017, 19:29)SwissBear Wrote: A short howto I wrote about REW/rePhase:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10xdhh83jokzbx...o.pdf?dl=0

Thank you again for this tutorial!
I don't want to invest too much, so I decided to use REW/rephase (saves the license for Acourate) and a UMIK-1 (saves the external sound card) and see how far I can get with this. So your tutorial is extremely helpful. I'll start the measurements this weekend...
Mac Mini - HQPlayer 4 - USB - D1000 - Gauder Akustik Cassiano
Isolated cables made from conductive material
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#10
(20-Apr-2017, 14:36)mobaer Wrote:
(17-Apr-2017, 19:29)SwissBear Wrote: A short howto I wrote about REW/rePhase:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/10xdhh83jokzbx...o.pdf?dl=0

Thank you again for this tutorial!
I don't want to invest too much, so I decided to use REW/rephase (saves the license for Acourate) and a UMIK-1 (saves the external sound card) and see how far I can get with this. So your tutorial is extremely helpful. I'll start the measurements this weekend...

Glad if this is helpful. Don't hesitate if you have questions.
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