Room EQ (Tweaks)

by Bert @, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 11:11 (5098 days ago)

Being dragged into this once more and playing around yesterday at a friends place to EQ his system I found out that I was wasting my time again...at least the part where room conditions were playing their role.

What I have learned (in the past) and got confirmed again yesterday is that trying to cure room problems with an electronical device does not work on the long run...:fool:

It only seems to have cured things but that is merely your brain fooling you that you have managed to fool nature but this euforic feeling only remains for a while...

In short time you will redo the whole EQ thing again from the start because after a while your brain tells you that something must be wrong :wacko: and you will repeat this foolish behaviour until you finally found out that it does not do the things you actually want and that is sitting back and enjoy the music without being bothered about the technical aspects...

EQ-ing the room will NEVER be perfect as it will always have serious negative side affects.

If you have a very nasty listening room and room threatments (including moving speakers around and changing listening position) do not work out sufficiently then such an EQ device might give you a better compromise in the end but ONLY by removing strong peaks from the room response, NEVER add gain to strong dips as this will ALWAYS degrade the sound.

Using such a device to improve the speakers themselves is something else. My first though would be to get yourself better tuned speakers though but if that is not an option and you do not want to fool around yourself too much then please get yourself some measuring tools which show you some aspects of the things you are trying to do. Without knowing what you are doing will be equal to running circles in the dark until you finally give up...

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

Room EQ

by leifchristensen @, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 11:21 (5098 days ago) @ Bert

I agree and only use my eq for deductive tasks to avoid extra strain on amps
as a bonus:most often a removed peak in the room will fill in a dip
best
Leif

Room EQ

by Eddie @, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 22:44 (5098 days ago) @ Bert

Hallo Bert and others,

I have the same problem in my listening room: a very irregular bass respons. Your first solution does not help me, I already have BD-15's. I do not know if there are better units, but if so I most likely do not want to pay the price. I tried the second option: optimize the bass response by tuning the DCX2496, it helps but not very much. You leave out a third, but in principle, the best option: change the room acoustics. I have been reading on Internet about this lately but filling the room with absorption panels, bass traps and whatever more seems even much more complicated than equalizing the respons. Furthermore the rest of the family probably will not like these changes.

Do you or other readers of this forum have experience with adaption of room acoustics? For example: can I expect benefits from simple measures such as hanging up a few curtains behind the speakers?

Kind regards,
Eddie

Room EQ

by Bert @, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 23:19 (5098 days ago) @ Eddie

Hi Eddie,

Your first solution does not help me, I already have BD-15's.

What do you mean with my first solution? Having BD15's does not make any difference in room acoustics...

Do you have measuring tools? Can you measure the amplitude and phase in your listening room?

Do you or other readers of this forum have experience with adaption of room acoustics? For example: can I expect benefits from simple measures such as hanging up a few curtains behind the speakers?

I do not think you will measure any serious changes with or without curtains behind the speakers but your ears will tell you differently.

Remembering correctly I think your main problem is in the bass and then tube traps (better use more simple and sharper tuned resonators - passive or even active) will work best if tuned properly (Q, frequency and placement)...

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

Room EQ

by Don Reid, Rural Northwest Georgia, USA, Monday, April 26, 2010, 01:59 (5086 days ago) @ Bert

"Room EQ (Tweaks)
by Bert , The Netherlands, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 11:17 (13 days ago)
Being dragged into this once more and playing around yesterday at a friends place to EQ his system I found out that I was wasting my time again...at least the part where room conditions were playing their role.
What I have learned (in the past) and got confirmed again yesterday is that trying to cure room problems with an electronical device does not work on the long run..."

Hey Bert,

You failed to mention which electronic device you attempted to use for room EQ. I feel this is highly relevant because using the DEQX HDP-3 the results I have acheived are the opposite of those you report. Both by instrument measurement (19Hz-20kHz plus or minus less than 4dB in room at the listening position) and from subjective music listening by me as well as by younger audiophiles with better hearing I deem the results to be highly satisfactory.

I sacrificed about 8dB of woofer horn sensitivity in order to make the EQ all subtractive (pulling down peaks) as opposed to additive. That is no problem since the sensitivity of the bass horns started out at 105dB/w/m and they are powered by a 500 watt/channel (@ 4 ohms) amplifier.

I believe that acoustical treatment of the room is quite important because that enables the digital EQ to work best. I take a digital signal from the disc player to a digital input on the DEQX so there is only one D to A transformation. This is, of course, not the case with phonograph or tape signals.

I am not alone in this opinion. Consider that the famous speaker designer, Alon Wolfe, prefers the sound of his $400,000.00 Magico Ultimate horn system with a modified DEQX crossover and time frequency and phase correction.

Don Reid

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