subwoofer management

[dominikz]

i do agree with you, i tested several dacs and even though there is a slight difference.. its not day and night.
if you change the dac filter of the wiim ultra you can also hear a slight difference each time you switch. id like to think that a company like topping or smsl could make a new dac release for each of those filter changes if they wanted to and people would think its awesome.

TBH, it seems to me that audio companies don't even need to make the sound any different and still be able to convince buyers to spend their money - as long as they are clever with their marketing.

As for me, in the past I've spent quite a bit of time comparing DACs, amps and various other pieces of audio electronics. In the end I concluded it simply isn't worth the time, effort and money spent (once basic functionality and performance requirements are met), at least not for me.
IMHO focusing too hard on this takes focus away from things that demonstrably make a much bigger difference, but which aren't discussed nearly as much: like loudspeaker dispersion, optimal placement, corrective EQ, subwoofer integration, etc...
However, these topics require learning some physics/acoustics and signal processing theory, so I do understand why they are not as appealing to many people. On the other hand, buying a shiny new device has quite a universal appeal (to me as well)!

 

[slartibartfast]

TBH, it seems to me that audio companies don't even need to make the sound any different and still be able to convince buyers to spend their money - as long as they are clever with their marketing.

As for me, in the past I've spent quite a bit of time comparing DACs, amps and various other pieces of audio electronics. In the end I concluded it simply isn't worth the time, effort and money spent (once basic functionality and performance requirements are met), at least not for me.
IMHO focusing too hard on this takes focus away from things that demonstrably make a much bigger difference, but which aren't discussed nearly as much: like loudspeaker dispersion, optimal placement, corrective EQ, subwoofer integration, etc...
However, these topics require learning some physics/acoustics and signal processing theory, so I do understand why they are not as appealing to many people. On the other hand, buying a shiny new device has quite a universal appeal (to me as well)!

I once bought some Heybrook speaker stands and returned them because I was convinced the speakers had sounded better on a friend's speaker stands. Of course the dealer changed them without question since they believe in that kind of thing. Maybe the height was different. I also returned an Arcam Alpha 9 partly due to the remote control volume having a mind of it's own. The other reason was that a friend commented that CDs sounded a little bright which was something I hadn't even thought about. When I used a different input this brightness disappeared so only the CD input was affected. When I returned the amp we listened to it with a CD player connected to two different inputs and the dealer agreed there was a difference.I have up on the Arcam at this time and told the dealer I would go for an Audiolab 8000A instead. His parting shot was "You won't like the Audiolab" Coincidentally that dealer didn't sell them

 

[Goodnews]

Sabre DACs used to have a reputation for sounding "harsh," but that was then.

When it comes to room acoustics, physical correction should be prioritized over digital correction. This is often overlooked, with DSP being promoted as a panacea.

The disadvantage is that many users tend to implement it suboptimally, for understandable reasons.

Twenty-two years ago, after an almost complete renovation, accompanied by invisible room acoustic measures, it was completely different. There was no comparison.

The energy distribution in the room was completely different.

Today, my hobby has become much smaller in scale, also in terms of the measures taken. DSP alone is not enough.

 

[dominikz]

Sabre DACs used to have a reputation for sounding "harsh," but that was then.

When it comes to room acoustics, physical correction should be prioritized over digital correction. This is often overlooked, with DSP being promoted as a panacea.

The disadvantage is that many users tend to implement it suboptimally, for understandable reasons.

Twenty-two years ago, after an almost complete renovation, accompanied by invisible room acoustic measures, it was completely different. There was no comparison.

The energy distribution in the room was completely different.

Today, my hobby has become much smaller in scale, also in terms of the measures taken. DSP alone is not enough.

My opinion is that physical and digital correction are both useful tools, but they mostly don't solve the same acoustical issues. I wrote a bit about this here before.
DSP/EQ is definitely not a solution to every problem - many issues it cannot solve at all, but it provides a solution to some issues which are incredibly difficult to solve with physical treatment.

And you are absolutely right that with DSP we can't optimize the soundfield in the entire room (though multi-sub with MSO/DLBC, as well as solutions like DL ART are pretty impressive) nor does it affect any other sound sources (e.g. musical instruments or our voices), while physical treatment affects the whole room.

I guess the term "room correction" is quite misleading in that sense, as it implies EQ can somehow magically 'fix' any acoustical issue the room might create - but EQ in the wider context of sound reproduction is actually only useful for a few things:

1. Knocking down room resonances in the bass. This is really important, and it is something that RoomFit and similar tools are designed to do - this is the only part I consider "room correction".
2. Improving anechoic response of loudspeakers that have good/smooth directivity. This is NOT a task for RoomFit however, this is really loudspeaker response correction. As such this kind of EQ correction should be based on full CEA2034 anechoic data instead, like we can find e.g. on spinorama.org
3. Rough tonality shaping (e.g. bass/treble controls) to fit individual taste/preference or specific content. This is again NOT a task for RoomFit since it again isn't really room correction.

Other issues have other solutions - as discussed in the link above.

However, I feel we should also acknowledge that most people won't have the luxury to build a room optimized for audio reproduction.
Luckily, most residential rooms with a reasonable amount of 'soft' furnishings won't be terribly reflective anyway, so if we optimize placement of speakers/subs to avoid SBIR/LBIR notches, and if we add EQ to knock down remaining resonances, sound quality should be significantly improved.
So in that sense I find DSP a very much worthwhile time/effort investment for audio hobbyists.