Room EQ Wizard / Reference Mics

[Jarick]

Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about studio monitors and potentially trying some large ones as the Genelec 8020's (4" woofers) haven't been blowing me away. I was looking at the JBL 6.5" monitors as those are on sale for $170, as well as the Kali LP-6, just to see how they compare.

But then I realized I have no idea what's going on in my room and that's likely just another waste of money. So I started researching measuring room acoustics, and picked up a Behringer ECM8000 reference measuring mic.

I've been playing with Room EQ Wizard by sending pink noise through my monitors and capturing/analyzing RTA, and it's interesting.

As I expected, there's a big dip in the low end with the Genelecs, but it's surprisingly rolling off abruptly at 150 Hz where they should be playing down to about 62 Hz. So clearly something's off with my room. I put my JBL LSR 305's up and actually, it's rolling off at the exact same spot. So it's clearly the room causing issues and not my monitors.

Then out of curiosity I experimented with moving the monitors closer and further from the wall, and found there were way more issues the further they were from the wall. That was kind of surprising.

Also was able to visualize the difference between running the speakers on the shelf directly vs Iso Acoustics stands, and the stands do clean up the bass a little bit, reducing some peaks and increasing some dips. Also a little less peaky in the mids.

So my next move is to try and figure out how to improve the low end cancelation, if possible. I did move the mic around and if I move far away and nearer the wall, it helps a lot. I can hear a lot more bass as I get further away while playing music. Then the monitors are playing down to 55 Hz which is impressive.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I made another thread about this, but as well as experimenting with speaker (and listening) positions, subwoofers can really help in this situation.

https://carltatzdesign.com/downloads/elephant-room-article.pdf

 

[laxu]

You might want to check out Genelec's material on this: https://www.genelec.com/monitor-setup

I use the old M040 models which are roughly equivalent to the 8040. Even in a small room I like how they sound and you can even play standard tuned bass through them just fine without the help of a subwoofer. I tried them with a sub in my previous apartment but felt it wasn't necessary.

Room modes and speaker placement can certainly be its own problem. I have really no other option but placing them quite close to the wall on some DIY stands in my current apartment. In my previous apartment I had a huge boost around 130 Hz whereas in my current one it somehow ends up being surprisingly flat with only some dips in the lowest frequencies.

 

[Jarick]

Today I measured the left and right speakers and noticed a fair amount of discrepancy between the two, especially in the low end. I got a little worried as they were so different tonally, so I measured them both in the same spot and with some smoothing they are nearly identical, so that's good.

That's leaving me with the room being kind of a disaster and my positioning being also kind of a disaster, so I'll need to see how much flexibility I have there. My setup is really asymmetrical right now, but the room is also full of way too much stuff that needs to get cleared out, so that will be step one.

I think I may end up swapping my desk onto a different wall and seeing what that does, because there's a huge sliding door on one side. I think that's playing a big part in the low end being so different from left to right.

Also I think I'll try a subwoofer to see if that helps, probably something like the Presonus Eris 8 as I don't want to spend a ton on the experiment. I've seen some people posting that it can really help with the bass inconsistencies. The big thing would be getting the speakers positioned at a point where the null is below 100 Hz. Right now there seems to be a null at 70 Hz on the left side (causing a big null at 140 Hz too), and then on the right side there's a big null at 120 Hz. So no consistency between the speakers below about 300 Hz, hence the thin/boxy sound.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Have you got much room treatment? Ceiling cloud and corner traps? Are you able to adjust the speaker height much? The isoacoustics stuff should be helpful in that regard.

Once you find the best position, sonarworks can be really useful to tighten up the L/R discrepancies but obviously it’s best to get things as close as you can acoustically first before using DSP.

In the same way for measuring each speaker, do the same for the sub and find the spots where it’s giving you the best response in the room. I find it’s a lot easier because you can get the main monitors in their flattest position from say 80hz up, and then position the sub wherever gives the best response from your listening position.

 

[Jarick]

Have you got much room treatment? Ceiling cloud and corner traps? Are you able to adjust the speaker height much? The isoacoustics stuff should be helpful in that regard.

Once you find the best position, sonarworks can be really useful to tighten up the L/R discrepancies but obviously it’s best to get things as close as you can acoustically first before using DSP.

In the same way for measuring each speaker, do the same for the sub and find the spots where it’s giving you the best response in the room. I find it’s a lot easier because you can get the main monitors in their flattest position from say 80hz up, and then position the sub wherever gives the best response from your listening position.

Nothing yet for treatment. I'm hoping to get as much settled as possible with positioning and the dip switches on the speakers first, then moving on to some light treatment if necessary. I'm trying to avoid EQ as I don't want to be tied to running through software for monitoring. Not looking for perfect, just better.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Nothing yet for treatment. I'm hoping to get as much settled as possible with positioning and the dip switches on the speakers first, then moving on to some light treatment if necessary. I'm trying to avoid EQ as I don't want to be tied to running through software for monitoring. Not looking for perfect, just better.

I think treatment would go a hell of a long way and it doesn't need to cost a fortune to do. I'd really recommend doing that before spending money on any more gear.

 

[Jarick]

Okay I moved everything out of my office and put my speakers up against a different wall that has a little more symmetry, and that really helped things. I now have much more level in the bass frequencies, nearly in line with the midrange. It's still fairly jagged, and there's a big dip and 120 Hz followed by a big spike at 160 Hz, but I think those are things that could get solved with some acoustic treatment. Still think a subwoofer may be in order, but will continue to play around.

 

[la szum]

I purchased the Presonus Sub for a similar reason, based on advice from someone who knows
way more than me. I love it. I still have some buildup in the extreme far corners I want to address,
but man is it more pleasant than what I was dealing with subless. I think it also makes the Kali LP-6s
I use sound better. It's like an entire ecosystem and I understand better how everything impacts
everything else.

Being able to dial in that crossover frequency is.

 

[Jarick]

I purchased the Presonus Sub for a similar reason, based on advice from someone who knows
way more than me. I love it. I still have some buildup in the extreme far corners I want to address,
but man is it more pleasant than what I was dealing with subless. I think it also makes the Kali LP-6s
I use sound better. It's like an entire ecosystem and I understand better how everything impacts
everything else.

Being able to dial in that crossover frequency is.

Yeah I think that's what I'm going to try at some point.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

if you can, find a sub that allows adjustable crossover frequency AND an adjustable phase (not just polarity flip). It’ll give way more scope for getting things locked in nicely. Also 2 subs can work better than one if you have room+budget.

 

[TimOwens316]

On the recommendation of a friend I bought a DBX Drive Rack years ago. I installed it in my mancave and did the auto EQ thing with the calibrated mic. It kind of sounded good while playing a CD but when I ran my guitar modeler into it it was terrible. Since then I bypassed the auto EQ and simply use it as a crossover for my PA and all is good. Maybe I did something wrong? Since then I don't trust auto EQ, just do it by ear seems to work better for me.

 

[Jarick]

On the recommendation of a friend I bought a DBX Drive Rack years ago. I installed it in my mancave and did the auto EQ thing with the calibrated mic. It kind of sounded good while playing a CD but when I ran my guitar modeler into it it was terrible. Since then I bypassed the auto EQ and simply use it as a crossover for my PA and all is good. Maybe I did something wrong? Since then I don't trust auto EQ, just do it by ear seems to work better for me.

Personally I don't trust auto EQ unless I trust the room.

The vast majority of issues with speakers are related to the room acoustics and speaker placement. It all comes down to phase issues caused by reflections. If the sound wave bounces off a wall and hits where you're listening opposite the sound wave coming from the speaker, it cancels out and causes a big dip. Or the sound wave can bounce off a wall and reinforce the sound wave causing a big spike. EQ can't really fix that, especially the dips.

That's where you really want to get the speaker positioned optimally, then treat the room with sound absorption and diffusion, and then finally EQ as needed.

From what I was seeing using a reference mic, even though my speakers were supposed to play down to 60 Hz, they were only playing to 150 Hz. I moved everything around and now they play down to 60 Hz as they should, although with a couple issues between 100-150 that I have to fix.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Personally I don't trust auto EQ unless I trust the room.

The vast majority of issues with speakers are related to the room acoustics and speaker placement. It all comes down to phase issues caused by reflections. If the sound wave bounces off a wall and hits where you're listening opposite the sound wave coming from the speaker, it cancels out and causes a big dip. Or the sound wave can bounce off a wall and reinforce the sound wave causing a big spike. EQ can't really fix that, especially the dips.

That's where you really want to get the speaker positioned optimally, then treat the room with sound absorption and diffusion, and then finally EQ as needed.

From what I was seeing using a reference mic, even though my speakers were supposed to play down to 60 Hz, they were only playing to 150 Hz. I moved everything around and now they play down to 60 Hz as they should, although with a couple issues between 100-150 that I have to fix.

Yeah that auto EQ sounds like something to run a mile from.

That’s not to say that room correction EQ isn’t useful though - sure deep nulls will still null regardless of more level, but hopefully you address those as much as possible with speaker positioning and room treatment.

Room EQ is great for L/R disparities and fine tuning. Lots of the high end mastering studio’s are EQing their room to some degree these days, be it Trinnov, Sonarworks or some custom solutions.

Shouldn’t be the first port of call, but it can really be amazing for the last bit of work and I’d 100% recommend it to anyone

 

[laxu]

I'll also again mention that I don't recommend Sonarworks. Extensively test their trial version before buying it. I had to get a refund because the software kept getting worse and worse.

Just turning on another audio device made it crash or become non-functional on both Windows and MacOS. Didn't matter if it was my Axe-Fx 3 or even my external display's HDMI out.

When the software works it's good, but I'm just not confident in Sonarworks' development team. These issues have been going on for ages and they can't seem to solve them or even much simpler ones. They are also apparently incapable of implementing even simple feature requests like keyboard shortcuts to swap profiles.

 

[Jarick]

I’ve tried it twice on headphones and just didn’t like it. Also I don’t like being tied to the software for EQ as it doesn’t work with direct monitoring.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

I use and quite like Sonarworks although I use an older version. No issues with crashing as described above.

I first used it in my treated studio room, and now in my untreated (yet better shaped geometrically) master bedroom. It saves my skin when needed for critical listening and I've made a stereo IR of the corrections for applying to my main outputs via an IR loader when I don't want to run the taxing SW software. I've also mixed the stereo IR into a mono IR that works well enough with the room to stack onto cab IRs for playing at home.

Id like to do something with all of my treatment panels in storage but there's no way I'm going to be able to put any of them up in the master bedroom. I'll just have to wait until one of the kids moves out!

 

[la szum]

if you can, find a sub that allows adjustable crossover frequency AND an adjustable phase (not just polarity flip). It’ll give way more scope for getting things locked in nicely. Also 2 subs can work better than one if you have room+budget.

Best thing I ever did here. Also considering adding another sub.