Ik multimedia Arc Studio - ARC 4

[Allexi]

View attachment 19125

Rarely do I agree with him, but this time I do.

 

[DrewJD82]

People also seem to like watching others hurt themselves. I have no other explanation.

Oh I can kill a few hours doing that.

 

[Jambi]

It will be here Friday. Super excited to try this out. I use my monitors outside of Logic, and outside of my computer, so to have “system wide” room correction will be amazing

 

[duzie]

It will be here Friday. Super excited to try this out. I use my monitors outside of Logic, and outside of my computer, so to have “system wide” room correction will be amazing

Waiting patiently for your opinion!

 

[dean701]

I think it's amazing. Like I said, I've been using ARC for years. The analysis portion is great. It's just nice to have it in a hardware form factor.
Listening to a flat EQ is not appealing to some and I can understand that. Ive seen some complaints about this and other correction software but it is truly doing its job. I chalk up those complaints to people that dont like the sound of totally flat response curves. For casual listening i dont either. For example, here is my studio through Kali LP-6 compared to my home theater system. The Kali's plus the room have issues between 150-250, higher up they are working well for flatness. I captured my home theater setup just for comparison sake as everything sounds great to me there.
Even if you just wanted to use this as a PEQ for listening, you can just grab the nodes and move them around.

fig 1. kalis in studio room with no correction

fig 2. home theater setup - no correction (never will)

fig 3.
correction performed for Kali's in Studio (I left everything below 50Hz alone but you can contain that too if you want) I have my interface connected to a Yamaha HS-8S and then from there out to the Kali's. I don't need to stifle the sub freq. My preference.

I do have a few small gripes. @IK Multimedia
- it would be nice to have a 'save as' feature instead of saving to custom1 to custom 8
- the measurement process is too strict with regards to the order of mic captures (you should be able to choose the order of mic placement to alleviate bouncing around with the mic). currently it asks for 21 measurements (7 at ear level, 7@6 inches higher and 7 @ 6 inches lower than ear level.) It asks you to do each height level in order but you end up bouncing left and right. I'd rather do all 3 measurements at that mic location for all 3 heights back to back. It would cut the time in half and I wouldn't be guessing where the mic was before

 

[Jambi]

Initial thoughts:

My tweeters work now!

My room is so low-mid heavy, its a wonder how I was able to have any spacial positioning or stereo imaging at all.

I *might* be able to get half of the results with a measurement microphone, REW, onboard DSP and outboard EQ, but ARC is doing all of that without any fight at all.

The correction graph speaks for itself:

This thing is amazing. Now to go listen to music and rework all of my Axe-FX patches.

 

[dean701]

Initial thoughts:

My tweeters work now!

My room is so low-mid heavy, its a wonder how I was able to have any spacial positioning or stereo imaging at all.

I *might* be able to get half of the results with a measurement microphone, REW, onboard DSP and outboard EQ, but ARC is doing all of that without any fight at all.

The correction graph speaks for itself:

View attachment 19722

This thing is amazing. Now to go listen to music and rework all of my Axe-FX patches.

That's quite a dip at 5/6k. Is the axe fx your audio interface? If so, is the global eq engaged? It looks like a high cut.

 

[Jambi]

That's quite a dip at 5/6k. Is the axe fx your audio interface? If so, is the global eq engaged? It looks like a high cut.

I used my FM9 to send the sweeps to the monitors and it didn’t have an EQ enabled. What else could cause a high cut there?

 

[dean701]

I used my FM9 to send the sweeps to the monitors and it didn’t have an EQ enabled. What else could cause a high cut there?

I'm not sure but that is a drastic drop and it happens exactly at the same frequency on both speakers. How did you connect the microphone to your FM9?

 

[Jambi]

I'm not sure but that is a drastic drop and it happens exactly at the same frequency on both speakers. How did you connect the microphone to your FM9?

Connected a mixer with 48v phantom power directly to my computer

 

[Jambi]

I re-ran a quick test running just the mixer, and voila. I can't wrap my head around what happened with the FM9. No global EQ on an empty preset.

 

[dean701]

That looks better

 

[Jarick]

Oh hey I didn't realize there was a real thread for this!

I ordered one yesterday off Amazon and got it today. I've wanted to try room DSP correction for years. Sonarworks SUCKS on my Mac and I want this to work with my monitors only and NOT headphones, so the physical unit made sense. Also, the price is very reasonable and the latency numbers were low.

So today I picked up a new mic stand for the reference mic, installed everything and here's my first impressions.

The packaging could definitely be easier to figure out what software to run. Everything took twice as long as necessary just because it wasn't documented super well. But not a problem beyond that.

Music with the Yamaha HS8's:

The ARC clears up the HS8's considerably. Listening with the ARC disengaged, it sounds kind of hollow and indistinct in the low end. It's kind of mid focused overall, although the HS8's can be a tiny bit bright. Turning the ARC on, the low end clears up and sounds much fuller and smoother, and the midrange smooths out as well so everything gets much clearer and cleaner. Even though I have 8" monitors, it sounds like I'm turning on a subwoofer.

Music with the Genelec 8020's:

This was absolutely night and day. Without correction, I find the Genelecs to sound really boxy and small despite the measurements and specs. Honestly was disappointed with them considering how much they cost. That's why I got the Yamaha's. Well with the correction turned on, they sound twice as big. All the missing low end was filled out despite no subwoofer and little 8" woofers, and all the clarity I was missing previously is now restored. These things sound absolutely fantastic now where I didn't like them before.

Software:

Haven't done too much here, but I really like the target curve options. Flat sounds a bit bright, default is nicely juiced, but I may prefer the "lively room" that rolls off the highs a bit. I'll play with these a bit, but I think this nicely helps tailor the sound.

I haven't really tinkered with guitar too much but will check that out later tonight.

Also, click the attachments for before/after with both speakers.

 

[Stone]

how would I get that to work for my powercabs ? Play and engage the looper and let it loop while the mic takes the readings?

 

[Jarick]

how would I get that to work for my powercabs ? Play and engage the looper and let it loop while the mic takes the readings?

Do you have an audio interface?

 

[Stone]

Do you have an audio interface?

yes motu 2 Fractal out XLR to L&R and 1/4 out Left to Motu, Motu2 speaker out to Eris 6.5 Monitors

 

[Jarick]

yes motu 2 Fractal out XLR to L&R and 1/4 out Left to Motu, Motu2 speaker out to Eris 6.5 Monitors

You only need the interface for the initial analysis. So you would run the measurement mic into the XLR input of the MOTU (with phantom power), and then the output of the MOTU into the Powercabs. The analysis software runs test sweeps out of the speakers and then measures the frequency response with the reference mic. You then save the correction curve to your computer. Then you have to hook the ARC box up to the computer and store the correction curve. After that, the box can operate standalone without being hooked up to the computer, and you can toggle the correction on and off.

I will note that I don't know that it's a good idea to try and get correction for the Powercabs. I don't think they are intended to be flat like studio monitors. But it may be useful to take a measurement of their frequency response so you would have an idea of how to EQ them to be a little flatter. I think the ARC is going to be better suited for studio monitors.

 

[Jarick]

Also for the @IK Multimedia folks, would definitely love to see an audio interface with this feature built in.

 

[Stone]

I will note that I don't know that it's a good idea to try and get correction for the Powercabs. I don't think they are intended to be flat like studio monitors.

I was also thinking this as well

 

[laxu]

This was absolutely night and day. Without correction, I find the Genelecs to sound really boxy and small despite the measurements and specs. Honestly was disappointed with them considering how much they cost. That's why I got the Yamaha's. Well with the correction turned on, they sound twice as big. All the missing low end was filled out despite no subwoofer and little 8" woofers, and all the clarity I was missing previously is now restored. These things sound absolutely fantastic now where I didn't like them before.

Based on the graphs looks like your room needs pretty drastic corrections in the lows and low mids. I don't remember seeing that much correction need in my previous apartment that had a huge 130 Hz boost to counter, while my current one is surprisingly working decently with minimal correction.

I always wondered why you had so bad results with the Genelecs that should be by all means really good speakers, I expected it was more to do with them being small monitors whereas mine are the same size as the 8040.