Why is everything so complicated?

[CliffyBC]

I was just reading page after page of instructions on how to use "Roomfit" and EQ's and I suddenly thought "why is this so complex?
I can remember when you had an amplifier with a couple of knobs on the front that you turned and listened until you liked the way it sounded.
Just what do all these graphs now mean, and how doe the Ultra alter the sound to fit the acoustics of the room, just what does it do to achieve that?
I could carry on reading page after page but maybe someone on the forum could give me a shortened version that's easier to digest?
Thanks all,

 

[hgo58]

I was just reading page after page of instructions on how to use "Roomfit" and EQ's and I suddenly thought "why is this so complex?
I can remember when you had an amplifier with a couple of knobs on the front that you turned and listened until you liked the way it sounded.
Just what do all these graphs now mean, and how doe the Ultra alter the sound to fit the acoustics of the room, just what does it do to achieve that?
I could carry on reading page after page but maybe someone on the forum could give me a shortened version that's easier to digest?
Thanks all,

The graphical equalizer (EQ or GEQ) is like your old knobs. There are just more of them.

The parametric equalizer (PEQ) do the same as EQ, just with more control of the frequency and type of filters.

The RoomFit uses its own level of PEQ to fix issues in the system (speakers and room) so that you get a "flat" sound. A flat sound mean that the level of the sound is the same for all frequencies, including where the room would else amplify or cancel some frequencies.

The "flat" sound can never be perfect, so that is why you see all these complicated graphs and all the options for the measurements, allowing you to get as close as possible in your setup.

The most important thing when doing RoomFit is however that you have a good and calibrated microphone on your phone. The one in the iPhones should be ok, else get a USB-C external microphone.

 

[Danny Linguini]

You can still do it the ‘simple’ way, manually through the app. You’ve just got virtual sliders now instead of physical knobs. I think it’s cool that WiiM provides the tech, but still allows you to tweak to your heart’s content. But I’ll tell ya, at first I played with the EQs myself, but when I messed with Room Correct, it was better than anything I could finagle. The good thing is, you can save settings every step of the way, so if you experiment and end up in a mess, it’s easy to go back to something you liked better. I’m no expert, so I’ll leave the tips and suggestions to those more knowledgeable than I.

 

[castalla]

Useful when you do a whole room furniture re-arrangement & change the curtains

 

[Machiavelli]

Useful when you do a whole room furniture re-arrangement & change the curtains

and my fear is reaching a never ending loop. know me too well. so no. i stay with small adjustments in geq. even when rf is free.
important addition. this is valid for the wiim room.

 

[audiobliss]

I was just reading page after page of instructions on how to use "Roomfit" and EQ's and I suddenly thought "why is this so complex?
I can remember when you had an amplifier with a couple of knobs on the front that you turned and listened until you liked the way it sounded.
Just what do all these graphs now mean, and how doe the Ultra alter the sound to fit the acoustics of the room, just what does it do to achieve that?
I could carry on reading page after page but maybe someone on the forum could give me a shortened version that's easier to digest?
Thanks all,

Totally agree, it's worse than rolling tubes to find what you like.

 

[harkpabst]

Totally agree, it's worse than rolling tubes to find what you like.

I don't think so. Room correction is based on scientific research, not based on trial and error and lots of believes beliefs.

 

[hgo58]

Totally agree, it's worse than rolling tubes to find what you like.

I think it is simple. Run the RoomFit with default settings for a start. Just follow the instructions. Don't think too much about how it works for now.

Then, when done, adjust the graphical EQ to the sound you like, e.g. adding a bit of bass.

The RoomFit gives you a baseline and it may not sound good but it has equalized the worst room resonans and when adding the EQ on top it gives you the clean sound of your liking.

Later you can play with the different options and see if it gets even better.

 

[dominikz]

I was just reading page after page of instructions on how to use "Roomfit" and EQ's and I suddenly thought "why is this so complex?
I can remember when you had an amplifier with a couple of knobs on the front that you turned and listened until you liked the way it sounded.
Just what do all these graphs now mean, and how doe the Ultra alter the sound to fit the acoustics of the room, just what does it do to achieve that?
I could carry on reading page after page but maybe someone on the forum could give me a shortened version that's easier to digest?
Thanks all,

There's probably no short answer to this, but I'll give it a shot.

For a very long time there was really not much you could (easily) do to improve the sound in your room. You could of course exchange the speakers, you could move them around the room - but that as about it, unless you were willing to shell out serious bucks to hire a professional acoustician and treat your room. If you could find some combination of loudspeaker and placement you were happy with that is great, but the process was largely trial-and-error based; and given the huge variability of loudspeakers, combined with the many possible variations of room positions, and the variability of quality of recordings, it was IMHO not that different to looking for a needle in a haystack.
While this 'tuning' process itself perhaps didn't require a lot of technical understanding, whether or not it would result in high(er) fidelity reproduction in the end was quite uncertain.

In recent decades a lot of that uncertainty was cleared due to a few key development:
1) Good loudspeakers are more widespread and often affordable,
2) DSP/PEQ is cheap and available in many devices,
3) Reliable acoustic measurements have become accessible for everyone (with cheap USB mics and REW),
4) Room correction, SBIR and loudspeaker placement is becoming more widely discussed and understood

Having access to acoustic measurements and room correction IMHO changes the game completely - now anyone willing to learn how to use these tools can get much closer to perfect bass reproduction in their home, even without investing much in physical room treatment. The process also makes subwoofer integration much easier and more reliable making it possible to get full range high quality reproduction for (relatively) cheap.

But as you noted, all this is far from 100% automated, and to achieve this you need to learn a bit about how all that technology works. This is for sure a downside for many people - I can fully understand this position.

In case of WiiM RoomFit, I agree that this is still far from being user-friendly for a non-technical person, and how good of a result you get is still too dependent on finesse that requires a deeper understanding of the technology. The UI and parameter names/descriptions are not intuitive enough, and documentation is often confusing or incorrect. My hope is that in time we will get a more reliable 'simple' RoomFit wizard mode, that would be able to always get good basic results for everyone; while keeping the more advanced fine-tuning for the experts.

Lastly, you can always choose to have RoomFit disabled and use the devices as you would any analog device without EQ - but IMHO it would be a waste to do so. Getting rid of room resonances in the bass with EQ is really one of the really big improvements to sound quality you can do in your home - and the functionality to do so comes free in WiiM devices.

Just my 2 cents!

 

[castalla]

So what would be the impact on a room containing 3-4 itinerant persons? Surely the sound profile will change as each moves around or 1 or 2 leave/re-enter the room.?

It all 'sounds' a bit like snake-oil to me

 

[hgo58]

So what would be the impact on a room containing 3-4 itinerant persons? Surely the sound profile will change as each moves around or 1 or 2 leave/re-enter the room.?

It all 'sounds' a bit like snake-oil to me

Theoretically you are right. In practice it doesn't really matter. It's the speaker placement, the walls and the room openings that really matters.

I was also thinking, what can this really do. Does it really matter? That was until I got a good microphone and started to do RoomFit. It does matter! My system sound is now much more controlled and relaxed. Especially in the low frequency.

 

[dominikz]

So what would be the impact on a room containing 3-4 itinerant persons? Surely the sound profile will change as each moves around or 1 or 2 leave/re-enter the room.?

It all 'sounds' a bit like snake-oil to me

Remember that wavelength at 20Hz is about 17m, and still about 1,7m at 200Hz.

So if you measure your in-room response in the cases you suggest you'd see that a couple of people more or fewer in the room won't change the response at the listening position much - unless perhaps if they're standing right in-between the speaker and the measurement mic.
Minor furniture movements (like chairs) or minor furnishing changes also typically don't make a big difference.

What will change the response very significantly is changing loudspeaker or listening position placement (look up SBIR and LBIR for more info, this article by Genelec is a good start).
Another thing that will affect the response to some extent (but much less than placement) is if you e.g. open or close the windows and doors of a room (see here for some examples). This last part is why I have a couple of RoomFit tunings to cater for "room open" (i.e. summer) and "room closed" (i.e. winter) scenarios.

 

[dominikz]

Theoretically you are right. In practice it doesn't really matter.

I'd argue that there's no real discrepancy between theory and practice here, though it is true that some of this goes against a few common beliefs in audio.

 

[goodmore]

The answer is easy. Audiophiles are never content. They need complicated adjustable settings to fine tune their equipment knowing that it will be fine for a few days max.

 

[Wiimer]

Mr Roomfit must be aware that he too is difficult. He is very complex and esoteric, especially compared to Mr Ypao.

It would be nice if the WiiM's own AI chat could be introduced to RoomFit, so that the user only needs to answer a few questions and the AI will choose the best settings and set up the system.

But first, the AI chat may need to be trained more

 

[Danny Linguini]

Mr Roomfit must be aware that he too is difficult. He is very complex and esoteric, especially compared to Mr Ypao.

It would be nice if the WiiM's own AI chat could be introduced to RoomFit, so that the user only needs to answer a few questions and the AI will choose the best settings and set up the system.

But first, the AI chat may need to be trained more

From what I’ve seen of AI so far, whatever it tells me to do, ima do something else.

 

[Wiimer]

From what I’ve seen if AI so far, whatever it tells me to do, ima do something else.

Agreed , but here AI can be used as a wizard to provide and also easy-to-follow explanations for beginners.

And according to the team, RoomFit already has AI; it is unclear how RoomFit is utilising AI, but it is possible that it is storing data on user usage.

 

[dominikz]

And according to the team, RoomFit already has AI; it is unclear how RoomFit is utilising AI, but it is possible that it is storing data on user usage.

The only useful thing I can think of AI doing in RoomFit is to speed up filter parameter calculation using supervised learning, since AI's 'guess' of initial EQ filter parameters is likely pretty close to already optimized values.
Of course EQ filter parameter calculation could be done without AI, but it would be an iterative optimization process that just might take a little bit longer. Given that filter calculation is done centrally (on WiiM servers), I suspect using AI was perhaps a way to reduce processing time and reduce WiiM server load. It is just an educated guess, however - no way for me to be certain!

So I personally don't see how using AI could e.g. improve sound quality in RoomFit (compared to not using AI), but I do see how using AI in any capacity can be helpful for product marketing.

 

[harkpabst]

So I personally don't see how using AI could e.g. improve sound quality in RoomFit (compared to not using AI), ...

Taking @Wiimer seriously even when he's joking (I always do), his suggestion would rather lead to having AI individually optimise the RoomFit settings prior to performing the actual measurement and filter calculations, e.g. based on an interview. It could go ahead and check if these parameters are actually consistent and coherent with measured results.

But then again the same could be done purely based on algorithms, no need for AI.

... but I do see how using AI in any capacity can be helpful for product marketing.

That's for sure.

 

[Wiimer]

So I personally don't see how using AI could e.g. improve sound quality in RoomFit (compared to not using AI),

I agree with that point.
My thought is to use AI as an assistant and make RoomFit more accessible.

In terms of sound quality, AI would be a better match for EQ than RoomFit.
I like Yamaha's Surround AI