Ik multimedia Arc Studio - ARC 4

just made a calibration, and the software crashed right at the end without saving the file. 30 minutes wasted=the joys of being a customer of IK.

Bug reported to IK, fully looking forward to a shrug of the shoulders and nothing being done to help. My options now are basically take a 30 minute gamble every time I need to do a new measurement. I wish IK took bug's and customer service seriously, they're one of those companies who have been told repeatedly by customers where they are not doing well, and IK basically tell everyone they're wrong rather than doing something about it. How bad does the customer experience have to get before IK shakes it up and improves things?
I can undertstand your frustration. When I do captures, I do one, then I will close the software and re-spawn for the next. I've had crashes This seems to catch most of problems. Having said that, overall, I think they try. With the tonex software, people complain about the UI but little things do keep getting adjusted so they are watching. They do some things well and others not so much. The main strong point for me is that they offer decent products at very competitive pricing. Cons: a ridiculous email helpdesk. I always have to remind myself they only have about 200 employees.
 
They do some things well and others not so much. The main strong point for me is that they offer decent products at very competitive pricing. Cons: a ridiculous email helpdesk. I always have to remind myself they only have about 200 employees
This is it in a nutshell with IK.

Pro's:

They do make products that customers are in demand for.
They price them very affordably.
They mostly deliver what they are supposed to, the results often compare with products much more expensive

Con's:

They rush products for launch that aren't properly tested or ready
They often miss obvious features or design flaws that should have been dealt with prior to release
The upgrade policies are borderline insulting to existing customers
Customer service is some of the worst I've encountered (I have nearly 1000 3rd party plugins on my studio computer and deal with a lot of companies - I'm not saying based on emotion)
Bug fixes are inconsistent and rarely fix everything. I own IK products almost across their entire line and I don't think any of them are truly stable.


I was just going to add too, before I bought ARC 4, I also demo'd DIRAC Live. That software is much more expensive, the HW options are more confusing and the software is much less intuitive to use, which is ultimately why I didn't buy it. But I did speak with their customer service who were prompt and helpful with replies, they actually helped me achieve what I wanted with the software (which required tweaking a config file in text edit) and the results were very good. They also extended my demo (without me having to ask) so I could actually trial it the way I wanted to, and checked in with me to see how I was getting on. They have some features beyond what ARC is capable of and is closer to what Trinnov does (at lower cost). I'm still not sure it would have been a better option than ARC for me but I think they are well worth considering. Its easy to rant on forums when things don't go well, but when people go above and beyond its worth recognition.
 
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and another crash right on hitting save after doing a bunch of measurements. absolutely infuriating.

Do I message support just so I can be gaslit? I'm not sure their support has ever actually helped with anything, any fixes have come with updates months after reporting issues.
 
and another crash right on hitting save after doing a bunch of measurements. absolutely infuriating.

Do I message support just so I can be gaslit? I'm not sure their support has ever actually helped with anything, any fixes have come with updates months after reporting issues.
Don't waste your time. They are absolutely f'n clueless and couldn't care less.
 
and another crash right on hitting save after doing a bunch of measurements. absolutely infuriating.

Do I message support just so I can be gaslit? I'm not sure their support has ever actually helped with anything, any fixes have come with updates months after reporting issues.
I appreciate you sharing your experience with this product.
 
I appreciate you sharing your experience with this product.
I hope its providing some entertainment/someone to laugh at.

I'm absolutely exhausted but wanted to try and get this measuring out the way. I did a quick "7 point" measurement but my OCD won't allow me to use that when I know a 21 point one is slightly more work once but benefits in the long run.

Just went through it all, half in a daze. Curve at the end looked suspiciously weird - I'm sure I forgot to bypass the previous ARC correction (which it does warn you to do, but wont do automatically).

Hopefully I have the energy to give it one more go tonight.
 
I hope its providing some entertainment/someone to laugh at.

I'm absolutely exhausted but wanted to try and get this measuring out the way. I did a quick "7 point" measurement but my OCD won't allow me to use that when I know a 21 point one is slightly more work once but benefits in the long run.

Just went through it all, half in a daze. Curve at the end looked suspiciously weird - I'm sure I forgot to bypass the previous ARC correction (which it does warn you to do, but wont do automatically).

Hopefully I have the energy to give it one more go tonight.
It’s a product that caught my eye and I take to heart real world experiences.
Hopefully all goes well during your next attempt 👍
 
and I sold it.

since working on my room and treatment, the monitors are measuring very flat with no eq at all. RME Totalmix has room eq correction that I can manually apply, or I can use REW to generate curves.

Benefit of doing it manually means I can avoid any boosts being too narrow or in areas that won’t help. a dB boost at 100hz and a cut at 1.5kHz seems to be all I need.

The automatic correction stuff is good, but as ever, there’s no free lunch. For every problem they fix, they create at least one more. And most problems are time domain related, so correcting the frequency domain alone isn’t going to be that effective on its own.
 
Honestly I haven't used mine much either. It does improve some things but I've focused on positioning quite a bit and that has helped.

However I'm really intrigued by the iLoud Precision 5 and close to pulling the trigger. It looks to be well built and has integrated DSP for both internal frequency response smoothing and room correction. The 5" models are flat down below 40 Hz.

It looks really competitive against the Genelec 8330 and Neumann KH120 II...originally were $900 each but they dropped the price to $600 each (compared to $1000 each for Genelec or Neumann). Plus no additional hardware for DSP tuning.
 
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