Quick and easy PEQ for room correction

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Plutonian

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The WiiM app only allows 4 points of PEQ adjustment, but I found a free app, HouseCurve, that will use the phone mic to take a measurement and then let you set the number of PEQ bands you would like to use to make adjustments. You can also tell it to focus on certain frequency ranges and just lower peaks (since we hear peaks more readily than we notice dips).

I was able to tame a 2 kHz reflection and a bass node plus a couple of other peaks. I did use a umik-2 plugged into the iPhone by USB-C, but the HouseCurve app can use the builtin microphone. The app will connect to the WiiM Amp by Airplay or Chromecast to send the test signal. It worked perfectly.

The HouseCurve app gives you the 4 adjustment parameters (freq., dB level, and Q), so you can just enter them into the WiiM Home app manually (by clicking on the numbers in the EQ table). You do have to change the first and last EQ bands to be peak (PK) and not shelf settings.

I found that dialing back the corrections by 0.5 dB sounded slightly better.

It's not a night and day difference, but in some tracks it seems to refine things.

The HouseCurve site has a nice explanation and tutorial on making adjustments as well: https://housecurve.com/

(I just happened across this via an app store search. I'd never heard of it and have no affiliation.)
 
If you search this forum a little you will find that others have been using HouseCurve with some succes as well. Unfortunately, it's iOS-only, so us lowly Androids have to do it manually, e.g. using REW, an external mic and a computer.

Cool thing is that WiiM have already officially announced to bring us integrated room correction. So far it's not clear as to what mics are going to be supported and how it's going to work on different mobile platforms.

Personally, I'm not sure if the DSP is powerful enough to handle the much requested 10 point PEQ or EQ on top of room correction. Would certainly be cool.
 
Cool. It makes sense that 10-point PEQ might tax the processor. I did a quick search of EQ and didn't turn up the HouseCurve threads, but I'm not surprised it's been discussed.

I also used HouseCurve to generate a 10-point PEQ that I setup in Roon (playing to the WiiM Amp via Airplay), and that seemed too processed. I actually like the four-biggest-problem-peaks approach with HouseCurve and entering it into the WiiM Home app.

I also have REW, and I might play with that as well, setting the WiiM Amp as output via Airplay from the computer.
 
I did play around with it last week using the built in mic on both my iPhone and iPad but kept getting odd results - a peak in the treble with both my 3030i and wharfedale diamond 9.1. No equaliser set. IMG_2613.png
 
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That's a really odd peak. I used a Umik-2 and uploaded its calibration file into HouseCurve. It looks as if HouseCurve is not correctly compensating for the response of the iPhone mic in the above case.

Buchardt, for example, state that they find iPhone mics to be poor but somewhat consistent across each model number. Their room correction app includes calibration for each model number, and they've decided to stop allowing use of the iPhone app after the iPhone 15. They sell a stand-alone mic to avoid the issues.

So, caveat emptor, it seems, when using the iPhone mics.

I hope that WiiM will allow use of a umik if they introduce room correction. Otherwise they could have a lot of users getting wonky results.
 
Plutonian said:
Buchardt, for example, state that they find iPhone mics to be poor but somewhat consistent across each model number. Their room correction app includes calibration for each model number, and they've decided to stop allowing use of the iPhone app after the iPhone 15. They sell a stand-alone mic to avoid the issues.
Click to expand...
Interesting to see Buchardt pull the trigger. In the past it seemed like many companies have been supporting iPhones, pointing out that calibration info provided by Apple per devices was somewhat sufficiently accurate. I don't know of a single case of support for built-in Android phone mics.

Plutonian said:
I hope that WiiM will allow use of a umik if they introduce room correction. Otherwise they could have a lot of users getting wonky results.
Click to expand...
Feel invited to express your thoughts here: 😁

Room correction

Dear @WiiM Team, can you share anything about the room correction feature you are supposedly working on? Thanks for information in advance!
forum.wiimhome.com forum.wiimhome.com
 
I don't know of a single case of support for built-in Android phone mics.
Click to expand...

Buchardt have said that there are just too many Android phone manufacturers for them to support dozens of different mic calibrations, and they also found that even within a single manufacturer's phone model, they were not consistent in the mics they used. Apple having just a few new models each year with a very tightly controlled supply chain seems to help in this case.
 
DavidGriffiths said:
I did play around with it last week using the built in mic on both my iPhone and iPad but kept getting odd results - a peak in the treble with both my 3030i and wharfedale diamond 9.1. No equaliser set. View attachment 4896
Click to expand...
Odd, indeed.

Is there any recommendation in HouseCurve on how the orientation of the iPhone should be when performing measurements?
 
I did not read the HouseCurve site thoroughly enough to know if they have a recommendation.

My guess would be that the phone should held vertically, front face of the phone towards the speakers since the microphone is on the front at the bottom, facing upwards from the face of the phone. This is consistent with the recommendation from Umik for stereo systems: point the mic towards the speakers and keep it level. Only for home theatre systems would umik suggest pointing the mic towards the ceiling, and they provide a separate calibration file for that.

It's not entirely clear, however. The glass on the face of the phone is a big reflecting surface. Even though the mic faces upwards it might give better results to point the bottom of the phone at the speakers so that big sheet of glass on the face of the phone does not introduce reflections into the mic.

So, I have nothing useful to say, I suppose.
 
I realised that I’d had the phone vertical but facing me when I did the tests. Just tried again with phone vertical and facing away and also horizontal - exactly the same curve as above.
 
So, either there is some wild room/loudspeaker issue or that model of iPhone has mics that are not being correctly compensated by HouseCurve. I would have to suspect it's just HouseCurve not having a good calibration file for that model of iPhone (or production variations in iPhone mics).

Another good reason for WiiM to make their planned room correction work with Umik-1 or Umik-2, at a minimum.
 
Wiim stated before that they plan to expand peq somewhere down the line. This may put mini not to be included since it doesn’t have power like the pro. Do you remember when wiim mini first came out? It’s optical was limited to 48khz and not bit perfect. Fast forward, it has more features not just mini but the rest of the line. We’re getting more and more each passing month. I like when company actively keep fixing bug as well as adding more features that don’t break the bank.
 
We haven’t heard from wiim on what’s the progress on room correction for beta release. I hope they would answer back as they read the forum in daily basis.
 
Smartplug said:
We haven’t heard from wiim on what’s the progress on room correction for beta release. I hope they would answer back as they read the forum in daily basis.
Click to expand...
I imagine it’s a fairly complex area and not an insignificant development to undertake. Hopefully they’ll be in a position soon to open the beta up to testers
 
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