I just wanted to write a quick note regarding the importance of digital room correction and digital equalization in terms of priority of the 800 series offerings. IMO upsampling, DVD-Audio with an all digital pathway (vs analog) are no comparison to digital equalization. There is just magnitudes of order of benficial difference provided with digital Equalization. In actuality, I doubt any of us would pass double blind listening tests between upsampled vs not upsampled, analog out DVD-A vs all digital DVD-A, etc... Of course I am all for improvements, but ultimately we must put in perspective what will bring us closest to 'perfection'.

In the heirarchy of importance, there is no question, IMO, that room response is the weakest link in all of our systems, even the very few of us who have dedicated rooms that were new construction, optimized by acoustical engineers. Even in the best case scenerio with new contruction acoustically engineered dedicated rooms, there is still a need for digital room correction. While almost none of us would want to entertain putting our pure digital signal through an analog EQ, there is really no detriment if maintained and processed in the digital domain. There are still many arguments that the benefit of analog EQ, still easily outweighs any disadvantage such as group delay, phase, and additional potential noise introduced by an analog EQ. In the order of importance we should not be concerning ourselves with trivialitles and little upgrades that for all intensive purposes will not make an 'audible' difference, or at least very minute that you might have to spend three hours trying to detect any difference whatsoever (and if under a DBT, would almost defintely fail to do do so in any significantly significant manner).

In the grand scheme of things, the digital room correction card from Meridian, is what *ALL* of us should be desiring, ASAP.

Here is some good reading, although anybody should contribute to this thread.

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What Software/Hardware Do You Use to Measure Your Listening Room?

Use both LAud & the Behringer Ultracurve 8024 RTA & graphic EQ.

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I was just wondering what software and hardware people here use to measure the acoustics of their listening room and if somebody could sum up the advantages/disadvantages of what is all available...

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The advantages of the Behringer is that it works in real-time, and the
measurement microphone can be any high quality condenser as the XLR mic
input is phantom powered. The disadvantage is that it will not graphically represent waterfall, but only one-third octave. For more info see this Behringer review by Thorsten Loesch.
http://enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0101/behringer8024.htm

LAUD advantage is that it is a defacto standard with many many uses, but is difficult to set up as the Fiji cards are hard to find, it only runs well on Windows 95, and if you are not a computer genius (Windows) as well as an electrical engineer, the instruction manual can be quite incomprehensible.

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How many people here use devices like RPG diffusers and Helmoholtz resonators to achieve good room response?

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I use eight home brew Helmoholtz resonators, built into and behind the
walls & corners and ceiling of my small listening room. Bass in my room
is NOT boomy... <grin>

BTW, I use Strike's BassZone test CD as a signal source for above. I literally wore out my first copy using it to EQ my listening room.

Paul B

--
Paul Butterfield
Squeaky Chair Recording Studio
Central Florida Audio Society


In any case, feel free to contribute, and please read the link above, as it contains some useful info.


[This message has been edited by Health Nut (edited 12-23-2001).]

7.1 System