Cara is a worth wild investment is you have some time to spend learning how to use it. It also helps if you are a little interested in acoustics since it makes the process as well as the result enjoyable.
It's a German program and that probably explains a lot. (hyper detailed, adjustable everything, but not easy or straight forward for first time users) Does well in finding locations that smooth the frequency response, and sometimes this is not where you would expect. Doesn't do anything for soundstage / image location unless by chance that matches with frequency location.
The best thing to do with it is learn the program and then do a bunch of runs with different limits on the location of speakers and listeners and increasing room complexity. Since it gives a score for each location it is very useful to model and compare configuations (long wall vs. short wall) that would involve lots furniture moving in real life. I also liked what it does with asymetrical placments for which the standard rules of thumb don't apply.
Cheers
It's a German program and that probably explains a lot. (hyper detailed, adjustable everything, but not easy or straight forward for first time users) Does well in finding locations that smooth the frequency response, and sometimes this is not where you would expect. Doesn't do anything for soundstage / image location unless by chance that matches with frequency location.
The best thing to do with it is learn the program and then do a bunch of runs with different limits on the location of speakers and listeners and increasing room complexity. Since it gives a score for each location it is very useful to model and compare configuations (long wall vs. short wall) that would involve lots furniture moving in real life. I also liked what it does with asymetrical placments for which the standard rules of thumb don't apply.
Cheers