RoomFit™ is Dumb as Rocks

[EddNog]

I ask for Harman, it gives me this (I used red to mark the resulting curve based on its automatic correction algorithm) when setting correction range up to 250Hz:


Hilariously bad. This worked better months ago the last time I tried it. Whatever, “enhancements,” have been made seem to have broken it. These results are absolutely terrible and would completely wipe the bass. Better to just use no correction at all.

The algorithm is clearly failing to look at the average level of the curve and then properly aligning the Harman profile to the natural response above the correction cutoff. Look at the distance between the yellow and the blue lines to the right of 250Hz.

Am I supposed to turn down the speakers myself to manually align the blue and yellow? The system is not smart enough to realign these by itself?

-Ed

 

[EddNog]

Okay I figured it out.

It has to do with how LinkPlay implemented cut-only mode. Well this stinks because it makes cut-only mode unusable. Basically have to fall back to limiting boosts to like 0.5 or 1dB and disabling cut-only mode.

-Ed

Edit: meant cut-only mode

 

[slartibartfast]

Okay I figured it out.

It has to do with how LinkPlay implemented boost-only mode. Well this stinks because it makes boost only mode unusable. Basically have to fall back to limiting boosts to like 0.5 or 1dB and disabling boost-only mode.

-Ed

Cut-only mode? . It seems to choose a better target level if you use a wider frequency range.

 

[EddNog]

Cut-only mode? . It seems to choose a better target level if you use a wider frequency range.

I ended up just forgetting RoomFit™ all together and applying just one cut at 45Hz/-4.5dB/Q=3.0 to fix this:



And I’m all set.

-Ed

 

[dominikz]

I ask for Harman, it gives me this (I used red to mark the resulting curve based on its automatic correction algorithm) when setting correction range up to 250Hz:
View attachment 26744

Hilariously bad. This worked better months ago the last time I tried it. Whatever, “enhancements,” have been made seem to have broken it. These results are absolutely terrible and would completely wipe the bass. Better to just use no correction at all.

The algorithm is clearly failing to look at the average level of the curve and then properly aligning the Harman profile to the natural response above the correction cutoff. Look at the distance between the yellow and the blue lines to the right of 250Hz.

Am I supposed to turn down the speakers myself to manually align the blue and yellow? The system is not smart enough to realign these by itself?

-Ed

This is IMHO incorrect implementation of automatic target level match function in RoomFit, I fully agree.
This kind of behaviour was already discussed a bit in this thread with @jiaxin.li (WiiM), and at least part of the issue was acknowledged, but unfortunately not all.

 

[EddNog]

This is IMHO incorrect implementation of automatic target level match function in RoomFit, I fully agree.
This kind of behaviour was already discussed a bit in this thread with @jiaxin.li (WiiM), and at least part of the issue was acknowledged, but unfortunately not all.

Yeah it appears to be a half-assed attempt at forcing the algorithm to be cut-only, but this is only in any way, shape, or form functional for people applying full-band correction, so for people like me looking to correct only in the lower frequencies where room/boundary interaction occurs, it’s not going to work at all.

-Ed

 

[dominikz]

Yeah it appears to be a half-assed attempt at forcing the algorithm to be cut-only, but this is only in any way, shape, or form functional for people applying full-band correction, so for people like me looking to correct only in the lower frequencies where room/boundary interaction occurs, it’s not going to work at all.

-Ed

IMHO the issue is not with the cut-only mode per-se (since filter calculation part works fine), but with the unjustified assumption that only the response within the RoomFit correction range should be used to set the automatic target curve level.

It should be pretty obvious that this assumption only works well in cases where the fullrange measured response shape already roughly matches the target curve shape.
In other cases you can get some kind of unexpected behavior. Your example in post #1 is IMHO a very graphic illustration of why this was a bad design choice by WiiM.

As mentioned in the other thread, I'd personally suggest to WiiM to use a wider and possibly even fixed frequency range (e.g. 80Hz to 4kHz) to find the target curve level, unrelated to the RoomFit correction range. Also, I'd allow manual adjustment of target curve level by the user, useful if the algorithm misses the mark.

Let's hope that @jiaxin.li (WiiM) and @WiiM Team consider this.

 

[WiiM Support]

Hi Ed, dominikz, team

Thank you for your insightful feedback, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is aware of this problem and will release the fix next week. Please stay tuned!

 

[Mr Ee]

Hi Ed, dominikz, team

Thank you for your insightful feedback, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is aware of this problem and will release the fix next week. Please stay tuned!

For clarity, is this a release for wiim firmware or a back end / cloud server fix that's transparent to users?

 

[WiiM Support]

For clarity, is this a release for wiim firmware or a back end / cloud server fix that's transparent to users?

Hi Mr Ee,

It's a back-end/cloud server fix that's transparent to users. Thank you!

 

[khuntim]

Could this have something to do with this? I have set the sub latency timing with the Ultra in the listening position, and also moved the subwoofer to the right and left, tried both 0° and 180° still the same null right where I want bass. using 30-400hz B&K

Also, when I run RF it does not offer Stereo or L+R option now, I have a ticket in. Ultra has been factory reset.

 

[dominikz]

Could this have something to do with this? I have set the sub latency timing with the Ultra in the listening position, and also moved the subwoofer to the right and left, tried both 0° and 180° still the same null right where I want bass. using 30-400hz B&K

Also, when I run RF it does not offer Stereo or L+R option now, I have a ticket in. Ultra has been factory reset.

View attachment 26762
View attachment 26763

This doesn't look related to me, since in your case target level is correct and the dip is visible in the measurement already.

The dip is almost certainly related to placement, sub crossover and/or sub/mains delay configuration. If you draw a layout of your room with sub/speaker positions and their distances from all walls, floor, ceiling and your listening position, and list subwoofer crossover and sub/main delay setting we might be able to help.
I'd suggest to open a new thread for this, however.

Lastly, in case you have Moving Mic Measurement (MMM) enabled in RoomFit not that it only works in "stereo" mode for now. Disable this option (MMM) and you will have the Individual Channel RoomFit again.

 

[dominikz]

Hi Ed, dominikz, team

Thank you for your insightful feedback, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is aware of this problem and will release the fix next week. Please stay tuned!

Thanks, appreciated!
May I ask how will the behaviour be changed?

 

[MCG555]

I ended up just forgetting RoomFit™ all together and applying just one cut at 45Hz/-4.5dB/Q=3.0 to fix this:
View attachment 26751
View attachment 26752

And I’m all set.

-Ed

I do that in a similar fashion @47Hzin my setup!

 

[dominikz]

I ask for Harman, it gives me this (I used red to mark the resulting curve based on its automatic correction algorithm) when setting correction range up to 250Hz:
View attachment 26744

Hilariously bad. This worked better months ago the last time I tried it. Whatever, “enhancements,” have been made seem to have broken it. These results are absolutely terrible and would completely wipe the bass. Better to just use no correction at all.

The algorithm is clearly failing to look at the average level of the curve and then properly aligning the Harman profile to the natural response above the correction cutoff. Look at the distance between the yellow and the blue lines to the right of 250Hz.

Am I supposed to turn down the speakers myself to manually align the blue and yellow? The system is not smart enough to realign these by itself?

-Ed

It seems version v3.3.8 fixes the poor target curve placement.
Here's how it now looks in my system when setting correction range 30Hz-100Hz (i.e. where the response level is significantly above average):
As you can see, target curve level is now set based on full-range response rather than just the correction range.
IMHO now it works as it should.

 

[EddNog]

It seems version v3.3.8 fixes the poor target curve placement.
Here's how it now looks in my system when setting correction range 30Hz-100Hz (i.e. where the response level is significantly above average):View attachment 28035
As you can see, target curve level is now set based on full-range response rather than just the correction range.
IMHO now it works as it should.

Agreed. That was how I expected it to look from the start.

-Ed

 

[canard]

It seems version v3.3.8 fixes the poor target curve placement.
Here's how it now looks in my system when setting correction range 30Hz-100Hz (i.e. where the response level is significantly above average):View attachment 28035
As you can see, target curve level is now set based on full-range response rather than just the correction range.
IMHO now it works as it should.

Things seem to be progressing well... ;-)

As you see *, what are the points to finalize and progress on this RoomFit ( and peq) ?
In summary?

;-)
(*or of course, other forum members invested in this topic? ;-) )

 

[Valentino]

Only tried RoomFit with WiiM Home 3.3.8 on iPhone and it seems smarter than rocks.

 

[dominikz]

As you see *, what are the points to finalize and progress on this RoomFit ( and peq) ?
In summary?

These are some of the things I believe could still be improved in RoomFit:

1. Make the screen rotation during measurement optional! Forced screen rotation is very inconvenient when using external microphones.
2. Implement "variable" smoothing option (mentioned here).
3. Implement EQ config import/export function, with REW-compatible format support (mentioned here).
4. Improve default RoomFit parameter values, and allow to reset all RoomFit settings back to default with a single tap.
5. Implement support for (optional) manual fine-tuning of the relative target curve level before filter calculation.
6. Implement support for import of custom target curves.
7. Implement support for the built-in microphone of the WiiM Voice Remote, with factory pre-calibration (see link).
8. Improve the implementation of moving microphone method (MMM) for room correction - specifically change the weighting of MMM vs sweep responses (see here) and implement the "Individual Channel" variant.
9. Implement headroom calculation in "EQ" and "RoomFit" views, and add a corresponding configurable pre-gain (trim) control that allows the user to compensate accordingly (see this REW help article for an example). This is related to the "autogain" topic we discussed several times.
10. Look at ways to make the entire process more user friendly. E.g. perhaps add a dedicated (optional) function with a guide for speaker placement optimization and for speaker-sub integration (maybe even an automatic subwoofer crossover optimizer function), etc.

Not strictly part of RoomFit, but related:

• Implement easily accessible post-RoomFit tone 'tilt' control for simple tonality adjustment (e.g. see here and here).
• EDIT: Consider implementing flexible, semi-automated loudspeaker and headphone correction, to pair with RoomFit for fullrange response optimization (see here for a more detailed description)

 

[canard]

These are some of the things I believe could still be improved in RoomFit:

1. Make the screen rotation during measurement optional! Forced screen rotation is very inconvenient when using external microphones.
2. Implement "variable" smoothing option (mentioned here).
3. Implement EQ config import/export function, with REW-compatible format support (mentioned here).
4. Improve default RoomFit parameter values, and allow to reset all RoomFit settings back to default with a single tap.
5. Implement support for (optional) manual fine-tuning of the relative target curve level before filter calculation.
6. Implement support for import of custom target curves.
7. Implement support for the built-in microphone of the WiiM Voice Remote, with factory pre-calibration (see link).
8. Improve the implementation of moving microphone method (MMM) for room correction - specifically change the weighting of MMM vs sweep responses (see here) and implement the "Individual Channel" variant.
9. Implement headroom calculation in "EQ" and "RoomFit" views, and add a corresponding configurable pre-gain (trim) control that allows the user to compensate accordingly (see this REW help article for an example). This is related to the "autogain" topic we discussed several times.
10. Look at ways to make the entire process more user friendly. E.g. perhaps add a dedicated (optional) function with a guide for speaker placement optimization and for speaker-sub integration (maybe even an automatic subwoofer crossover optimizer function), etc.

Not strictly part of RoomFit, but related:

• Implement easily accessible post-RoomFit tone 'tilt' control for simple tonality adjustment (e.g. see here and here).

Thank you...top...


I hope that the Wiim technical managers in charge of these topics will read your comments and agree to discuss these various topics here...I think it will be very useful.

;-)