SAM %

[Dr Tone]

What % is everyone running SAM at? I started at 100% but have now backed off to 85% as I felt there was some bass passages that got a little out of control in my room.

[audiowout]

Also started at 100% but a bit overwhelming in the bass department. Now using SAM at 80% which sounds great. Had a shootout with some audiophile friends and they agreed 80% is the right setting for my room and setup.

[Rufus McDufus]

I've found it dependent on the source. Firstly I was using a small Asus Eee PC as a source through USB and found SAM totally overwhelming. I had it dialled back to 10% as it was just too much. Since putting a Cubox in I've found it's better, but with USB I dial it back to about 80% but with Toslink which I'm using right now it sounds a little thinner, so sounds great with SAM at 100%. Funny isn't it?

[Confused]

I've found it dependent on the source. Firstly I was using a small Asus Eee PC as a source through USB and found SAM totally overwhelming. I had it dialled back to 10% as it was just too much. Since putting a Cubox in I've found it's better, but with USB I dial it back to about 80% but with Toslink which I'm using right now it sounds a little thinner, so sounds great with SAM at 100%. Funny isn't it?

Interesting to see (hear) such differences via USB Rufus! Did you ever try the Eee PC via AIR Ethernet?

[Confused]

I had posted this previously, however, it is far more relevant to this, rather interesting, thread....

I have been approaching the optimising of my newly SAMed and dual mono'd system from a different angle. With SAM at 100%, I might occasionally play a specific track where perhaps I feel SAM is doing a bit too much with the bass, or indeed there are occasionally what I call "SAM artefacts", where something sounds just a little bit wrong with the bass, a bit like SAM is working too hard at the very extremes of bass extension. (I get very rare cases where the lowest bass seams to kind of "stall", hard to describe in words) When I happen across such tracks, I stick them into a playlist reserved for such music. The plan is, that when I have built up sufficient examples of such recorded music, I am then going to take some time to re-visit speaker positioning, maybe a bit of room conditioning and similar, to see if this can remove the issues. Such trials would be attempted with other music also, I don't want to risk optimising purely with what might just be a playlist of badly mastered music, for example. And I do think that some of the occasional material where SAM 100% might appear problematic is due to mastering issues, SAMed Blades may well have far deeper and louder bass extension than the original studio monitors. Once I'm happy that speaker positioning etc. is optimised for 100% SAM, then I might try experimenting with 80% 60% or whatever. I suspect the end result might be personal preference or music / mastering dependent anyway.

It's worth mentioning that much of what I have tried to explain here is possibly related to my own personality defects, that is if I have something good that can be set to 100%, then that I where it must be set, I want 100% of it, no less! I'm like this with many things, I couldn't buy a 3 litre engine car, for example, if there was a 4 litre version in the range. I agonise over buying the cheaper "normal" unleaded petrol, when lovely "super" stuff is also available.

That said (having psychoanalysed myself), I think there is some merit in trying to get SAM to work at 100%, because it is designed to work, to be correct, at 100%. Once happy with this, it may well be worth some serious experimenting with lower percentages. I'll keep you posted with anything I find in the future!

[Rufus McDufus]

I did. I had Windows 8 running in it with JRiver. It's a first-generation Eee PC so not exactly speedy. It sounded much like it has done when run from other PCs. I did try Fidelizer to focus the OS a bit more and that was noticeably better. I did find direct USB from the Eee PC nicer than AIR.

I've found it dependent on the source. Firstly I was using a small Asus Eee PC as a source through USB and found SAM totally overwhelming. I had it dialled back to 10% as it was just too much. Since putting a Cubox in I've found it's better, but with USB I dial it back to about 80% but with Toslink which I'm using right now it sounds a little thinner, so sounds great with SAM at 100%. Funny isn't it?

Interesting to see (hear) such differences via USB Rufus! Did you ever try the Eee PC via AIR Ethernet?

[amabrok]

I had posted this previously, however, it is far more relevant to this, rather interesting, thread....

I have been approaching the optimising of my newly SAMed and dual mono'd system from a different angle. With SAM at 100%, I might occasionally play a specific track where perhaps I feel SAM is doing a bit too much with the bass, or indeed there are occasionally what I call "SAM artefacts", where something sounds just a little bit wrong with the bass, a bit like SAM is working too hard at the very extremes of bass extension. (I get very rare cases where the lowest bass seams to kind of "stall", hard to describe in words) When I happen across such tracks, I stick them into a playlist reserved for such music. The plan is, that when I have built up sufficient examples of such recorded music, I am then going to take some time to re-visit speaker positioning, maybe a bit of room conditioning and similar, to see if this can remove the issues. Such trials would be attempted with other music also, I don't want to risk optimising purely with what might just be a playlist of badly mastered music, for example. And I do think that some of the occasional material where SAM 100% might appear problematic is due to mastering issues, SAMed Blades may well have far deeper and louder bass extension than the original studio monitors. Once I'm happy that speaker positioning etc. is optimised for 100% SAM, then I might try experimenting with 80% 60% or whatever. I suspect the end result might be personal preference or music / mastering dependent anyway.

It's worth mentioning that much of what I have tried to explain here is possibly related to my own personality defects, that is if I have something good that can be set to 100%, then that I where it must be set, I want 100% of it, no less! I'm like this with many things, I couldn't buy a 3 litre engine car, for example, if there was a 4 litre version in the range. I agonise over buying the cheaper "normal" unleaded petrol, when lovely "super" stuff is also available.

That said (having psychoanalysed myself), I think there is some merit in trying to get SAM to work at 100%, because it is designed to work, to be correct, at 100%. Once happy with this, it may well be worth some serious experimenting with lower percentages. I'll keep you posted with anything I find in the future!

Hi Confused

Interesting post, thanks for sharing.

I think of SAM as a calibration tool.
Coming from a very warm County I will use the analogy of an air Conditioner. So like you, I will try and go for the best and most powerful air Conditioner I can afford, but I won't run it on the coldest temp all the time but I will set the thermostat according to the condition. Same thing with SAM %, I think of it as a calibration tool to optimize the listening experience which of course depends on source, material, production, room, etc... And as such I don't feel the urge to have it set to 100%

[f1eng]

I am a bit baffled as to what a partial SAM might be.
To produce a SAM file they measure transfer function of the error in amplitude and time of the speaker. They invert the tf and this is then multiplied by the input signal thereby producing the SAM correction.
If there is only partial SAM does that mean the errors are not corrected, or only partially corrected? This would simply be WRONG from a technical PoV.
Or is it just a tone control for those whose room acoustics can't accurately enough cope with the extra bass?

[Confused]

I am a bit baffled as to what a partial SAM might be.
To produce a SAM file they measure transfer function of the error in amplitude and time of the speaker. They invert the tf and this is then multiplied by the input signal thereby producing the SAM correction.
If there is only partial SAM does that mean the errors are not corrected, or only partially corrected? This would simply be WRONG from a technical PoV.
Or is it just a tone control for those whose room acoustics can't accurately enough cope with the extra bass?

When SAM is activated, the full 100% phase & timing correction is implemented irrespective of SAM % setting. The SAM % then reduces the amount of bass gain correction only.

[Dr Tone]

When SAM is activated, the full 100% phase & timing correction is implemented irrespective of SAM % setting. The SAM % then reduces the amount of bass gain correction only.

Good to know! Reputation +1