Digital Room Correction vs Room Treatments

Ok, I need to add one more important thing.  In the past couple of days, I’ve decided to at least try bookshelf speakers in place of the Monitor Audio Gold 20’s.

Part of this is because I am wondering if the Monitors are still too big for the room and the bass output qty is still too much.  And part of this is just me being curious about whether bookshelf speakers can satisfy me as main speakers - I’ve been resistant to this in the past because I’ve always seen bookshelf speakers as “too small”.

But the reality is my room and free volume in this room is also small, so a bookshelf may be the most appropriate sized speaker for my situation.

While it’s by no means a given I’ll like the bookshelves and that they’ll become my main speakers over the Monitors, it’s very possible.  I anticipate the FR curve and overall interaction between a different speaker and my room will be different as well so wanted to give the thread a heads up so I’m not exercising people to help me find a solution for a problem that may possibly change.

So it's worth using the AM Acoustics simulator to see where your room modes are, but one possible solution would be to run soffit traps actually in the soffits.  If the modes are vertically in the corners though you'll want to put them to the side of the TV. 

@captouch that looks like a great music room. Think I understand better at what is going on. Everything looks a bit compressed, and yes, the room is filled. 

You might have a lot of speaker/power for that room, but that's ok. Had a thought, if you can get a wireless connection to your sub, find the room nulls, put the sub in the nulls, it might cancel out the room null. 

On the other hand, with your gear and that room, do you even notice the dip? Is it deep bass heavy? Do you feel the room is dead or alive? As most of us have realized, measurements don't always mean much to our ears. If it sounds good to you, then it's good. 

This is part of the reason why I don't want to measure my room. It's all analog (sans streamer), Done all the old school things, and it sounds good to me, so it is good. 

In my experience, room correction with DSP (MiniDSP+DiracLive) made a huge difference.  In terms of sound, it went from fatiguing to blissful.  The bass became more coherent, the mids and highs less muddy, more clear.  Instruments and voices became separated, imaging dramatically improved.  DSP is not simply about correcting issues with frequency response.  As previously mentioned, time domain problems can also be corrected, which I assume is why the imaging has improved so much.  

Below is my frequency response, measured with REW.  Yellow is with DiracLive turned on.

And here are the impulse responses as measured with REW, before and after correction with DIracLive.

My perception is that the magic comes with both the frequency and phase corrections that come with DiracLive implementation.

Before MiniDSP, my room was treated with some absorption panels, mostly to reduce some of the reflective wall surfaces to improve reverb.  The room includes a 77" TV, couch, furniture, large and dense wool carpet, and sits in the basement where two of my walls are concrete covered in sheetrock and insulation.  Speakers ('bookshelf') are 5 feet from the front wall, about 3 feet from the side wall (right, concrete, a little more open on the left side).

@mswale I think if I wanted to move my sub around to cancel the nulls, which I think is a good idea and ideal, I’d want to get a smaller sub.  The SVS was from my old HT system in a bigger space, and while no problem to reuse for HT in my new smaller space since the AVR will use Audessey to adjust level, it’s not an ideal sub for music.  

I don’t notice the dip or that anything is lacking, but it’s probably one of those things where you don’t know until you hear the alternative.

But as mentioned above, I’m going to try bookshelf speakers first before getting a new sub or committing to room treatments or digital room correction.  The Monitor Audios that I’m using now are spec’d down to 30Hz.  The new bookshelf speakers are spec’d down to 38Hz.  So they’re bound to create less of a 35Hz peak if they’re already down 5db or more at that frequency.  At least I think.

When I measured my friend’s Electa Amator II’s, which are spec’d at 35Hz or so, there was still a peak, but much lower in magnitude.  I’m sure I’ll still have the 60Hz dip and 180Hz dip tradeoff to some extent, but the overall balance of the FR curve may give me more speaker placement and LP options to help me find a better balance.

@atp001 I’m curious about trying something like Dirac Live - the price for entry just comes at a hefty price tag and the input I’ve received from this and other forums is that it could help in some aspects, but can’t help in others.  I think I’ll wait until measure and listen to my new bookshelves and see where I am after that.

It was suggested I try the trial period of Dirac Live, I just need to figure out which EQ software also has a trial period that will allow me to use it with their software and target curves.  I haven’t had the time to do that yet.