Room Correction Help – Analysis and Advice

[Banem]

Hey Wiimers, hope you’re all enjoying some great music and occasionally tweaking that curve that gives us all those sweet headaches

I could use some help analyzing and possibly further tuning my system. My setup consists of two bookshelf speakers with active subwoofer. The WiiM Pro is used as a streamer, and both the speakers and the sub are connected to the amplifier via speaker terminals. The subwoofer crossover is set to 55Hz, phase can be switched between 0° and 180°, and the volume is set to about two-thirds.

The speakers are rated down to 40Hz at -3dB, though of course the room likely have some affect. The sub isn’t quite on the same level quality-wise as the rest of the system and only goes down to about 30Hz, but it is what it is.

The sub is positioned next to the right speaker, on the inside, roughly aligned with the front baffle of the speakers. I manually calculated a latency of 8ms. I’ve experimented with different placements, and this is currently the best I can achieve given the room constraints.

I’m attaching screenshots of the same settings, just comparing phase at 0° and 180°.
B&K, 20-300Hz, Non Boost on, .... Which one looks visually better or more “accurate”? Sonically, the 180° setting sounds slightly duller in the high frequencies, while everything else sounds fairly similar.
I prefer a sound that feels open and airy, with solid slam when the track calls for it though I can always fine-tune that a bit further with EQ if needed.

 

[dominikz]

Hey Wiimers, hope you’re all enjoying some great music and occasionally tweaking that curve that gives us all those sweet headaches

I could use some help analyzing and possibly further tuning my system. My setup consists of two bookshelf speakers with active subwoofer. The WiiM Pro is used as a streamer, and both the speakers and the sub are connected to the amplifier via speaker terminals. The subwoofer crossover is set to 55Hz, phase can be switched between 0° and 180°, and the volume is set to about two-thirds.

The speakers are rated down to 40Hz at -3dB, though of course the room likely have some affect. The sub isn’t quite on the same level quality-wise as the rest of the system and only goes down to about 30Hz, but it is what it is.

The sub is positioned next to the right speaker, on the inside, roughly aligned with the front baffle of the speakers. I manually calculated a latency of 8ms. I’ve experimented with different placements, and this is currently the best I can achieve given the room constraints.

I’m attaching screenshots of the same settings, just comparing phase at 0° and 180°.
B&K, 20-300Hz, Non Boost on, .... Which one looks visually better or more “accurate”? Sonically, the 180° setting sounds slightly duller in the high frequencies, while everything else sounds fairly similar.
I prefer a sound that feels open and airy, with solid slam when the track calls for it though I can always fine-tune that a bit further with EQ if needed.

Hello!

Of the two, phase at 0° looks better to me. If you like how it sounds I'd say there's no need to tweak further.

The sub level seems to be set a bit high though, we can see that RoomFit is reducing almost 25dB just below 50Hz.
If you turn the sub off, how does RoomFit look with just the speakers playing?

By the way, how did you come to 8ms latency? That would imply that there's either 8ms of processing happening in the sub, or that the sub is 2,7m further away from the listening position compared to speakers (sound travels around 34cm distance in 1ms) - or a combination of both factors.

 

[Banem]

Hello!

Of the two, phase at 0° looks better to me. If you like how it sounds I'd say there's no need to tweak further.

The sub level seems to be set a bit high though, we can see that RoomFit is reducing almost 25dB just below 50Hz.
If you turn the sub off, how does RoomFit look with just the speakers playing?

By the way, how did you come to 8ms latency? That would imply that there's either 8ms of processing happening in the sub, or that the sub is 2,7m further away from the listening position compared to speakers (sound travels around 34cm distance in 1ms) - or a combination of both factors.

Hey dominikz,

Thanks for the reply, funny enough, your posts have actually helped me a lot.

Regarding the sub gain, I also realized I probably pushed it a bit too much. I was just too lazy to lower the gain and run RoomFit again, but if it’s going to improve things, I’ll definitely redo it.

Interestingly, I never ran room correction on the speakers alone without the sub. I used them even before getting the streamer, and the sound was always slightly boomy, I could never get it perfectly dialed in in this apartment. I’ll try that this weekend as well.
As for latency, I took into account the distance from the speakers to my listening position. Since the sub is placed roughly in line with one of the speakers, I calculated it as 2.67 / 0.34 = 7.85ms so it’s basically a combination of both factors.

 

[EddNog]

Hey dominikz,

Thanks for the reply, funny enough, your posts have actually helped me a lot.

Regarding the sub gain, I also realized I probably pushed it a bit too much. I was just too lazy to lower the gain and run RoomFit again, but if it’s going to improve things, I’ll definitely redo it.

Interestingly, I never ran room correction on the speakers alone without the sub. I used them even before getting the streamer, and the sound was always slightly boomy, I could never get it perfectly dialed in in this apartment. I’ll try that this weekend as well.
As for latency, I took into account the distance from the speakers to my listening position. Since the sub is placed roughly in line with one of the speakers, I calculated it as 2.67 / 0.34 = 7.85ms so it’s basically a combination of both factors.

Does your sub have DSP? There's usually a delay induced by that. SVS subs for example typically have anywhere from 3.2-6.7ms DSP-induced delay depending on the model.

-Ed

 

[Banem]

Does your sub have DSP? There's usually a delay induced by that. SVS subs for example typically have anywhere from 3.2-6.7ms DSP-induced delay depending on the model.

-Ed

Hey Edd,
No, my sub doesn’t have DSP it’s an older Canton model.

 

[slartibartfast]

Hey Edd,
No, my sub doesn’t have DSP it’s an older Canton model.

If the speakers and the sub are equidistant from the listening position the latency may be 0ms. Where do you set the latency?

 

[Banem]

If the speakers and the sub are equidistant from the listening position the latency may be 0ms. Where do you set the latency?

The sub is basically at the same distance from the listening position, give or take 5–10 cm. So I set the latency to 8 ms.

 

[EddNog]

The sub is basically at the same distance from the listening position, give or take 5–10 cm. So I set the latency to 8 ms.

5-10cm should be closer to half a millisecond or less.

-Ed

 

[Banem]

Yeah, that’s why I rounded it up to 8ms

 

[EddNog]

Yeah, that’s why I rounded it up to 8ms

Huh?

Rounding it up would be 1ms. Plus it should be under half a millisecond, really, so better to round down to no delay.

-Ed

 

[slartibartfast]

The sub is basically at the same distance from the listening position, give or take 5–10 cm. So I set the latency to 8 ms.

Where do you set the latency? 8ms seems wrong anyway.

 

[Banem]

Wait, isn’t latency calculated by dividing the distance in meters (from the listening position to the speakers) by the speed of sound and then multiplying by 1000 to get the result in milliseconds? That’s exactly what I did.

 

[EddNog]

Wait, isn’t latency calculated by dividing the distance in meters (from the listening position to the speakers) by the speed of sound and then multiplying by 1000 to get the result in milliseconds? That’s exactly what I did.

Hate to use AI but I figured it wouldn't hurt to check my math (in my head I know the calc is roughly 1ms per foot, because #merica):


-Ed

 

[slartibartfast]

Wait, isn’t latency calculated by dividing the distance in meters (from the listening position to the speakers) by the speed of sound and then multiplying by 1000 to get the result in milliseconds? That’s exactly what I did.

Does your amplifier have a latency setting? You still haven't told us where you are setting the latency. A WiiM with a subwoofer output has a latency setting to synchronise the sub with the speakers but your system has the sub and speakers connected to the speaker terminals.

 

[Banem]

Looks like idiot me completely mixed it up and set the latency totally of

Thanks for pointing that out

 

[EddNog]

Looks like idiot me completely mixed it up and set the latency totally of

Thanks for pointing that out

All good; everyone has to learn at some point or another.

 

[Banem]

I added the latency in the audio sync setting, which actually has nothing to do with the type of latency we’re talking about here, so thanks again for pointing that out.