Tír Na HiFi

You know that setup of your hi-fi is important, some would say critical, to the performace of your system and the sounds you hear from it. Having spent a fair bit of time with a measuring tape and moving speakers a centimetre at a time etc., I have come up with a different way of achieving the objective of getting the best possible sound......

[Sorry analogue guys, this idea is for the digital brigade.]

Why not allow the DAC or the CD Player to self adjust its frequency outputs to suit the room that the system is in? Broadly speaking: Place a microphone at the seated position, the DAC outputs a frequency sweep for one speaker at a time and it records the audio signal from the microphone. Using a computer it ought to be simple to examine the waveforms and instruct the DAC to boost or cut frequencies as required. The file with the modifications could be loaded into the DAC by means of a smart card.

Anyone think of a reason why such an idea would not work? Dare to dream.......

Hi Tom,
I've tried some of this using REW from http://www.hometheatershack.com/ ( join to download) where you connect your laptop to your sound system a sweep through the audio frequencies and using a microphone on the same laptop record the resultant spectrum. Then with REW you make response files that boost or reduce frequencies as appropriate. You can add these to something like HQPlayer or Foobar. I think the trick is to make small adjustments and use a calibrated microphone.
Simples!
KM

Yeah, there was a Copland product that did exactly that that I sampled once. It worked reasonably well. Isn't this the idea behind Tact as well? They were so hot for a while.

Diapason wrote:Yeah, there was a Copland product that did exactly that that I sampled once. It worked reasonably well.

Same here. I wasn't all that impressed really. My AV amp does all that room correction across 7 speakers and a sub.... I still adjust them all to suits my own preferences afterwards.

Yamaha HomeCinema amplifiers works like this too, they re coming with a microphone to do the setup

Must admit, I got much better results with room treatments in the end, but then again I'd the luxury of a dedicated room. You wouldn't be putting those in a living room!

sdiesel77 wrote:Yamaha HomeCinema amplifiers works like this too, they re coming with a microphone to do the setup

Exactly the same with Onkyo, I think it's the same software.

Like a lot of things, the idea is great, but what happens in practise is that it falls down on implementation. Every bit of that signal then has to go through a processor and something can get lost in the process.....


Fran

Fran wrote:Like a lot of things, the idea is great, but what happens in practise is that it falls down on implementation. Every bit of that signal then has to go through a processor and something can get lost in the process.....


Fran

and even still... we have personal preferences. The software might think I want a particular level of bass but I might disagree. I take those systems as a starting point but that's all.

Ivor wrote: The software might think I want a particular level of bass but I might disagree. I take those systems as a starting point but that's all.

That is my point Ivor, at the moment we can manufacture the type of sound we want by shifting the speakers closer to or further from the wall. What I am suggesting, and it now appears that this has been done before, is that the speakers are positioned somewhere close to where they are domestically acceptable and the software in the DAC balances the sound to suit the listener. Buy a new couch or an extra display cabinet, re-run the setup programme, adjust what you want on the computer and upload it to the DAC.