I got an opportunity to learn all about Digital Room Correction from an industry expert. I was pleasantly surprised with the results on my main speakers. It makes a big difference in the clarity and smoothness once you get your speakers professionally calibrated for both Amplitude and Phase.

Essentially this process involves measuring and analyzing the Impulse Response Curves of your speakers, generating FIR Filters in Acourate and importing them into Roon’s Convolution Engine.

I wrote a comprehensive User Guide with annotated screenshots describing the entire workflow. This is the ideal way to apply digital correction to your studio monitors.

If this is something that interests you, here is the first installment of my Guide. It explains how to set up your ROON server on a mini PC.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Best,

David

DSP Room Corrections has been in use in the home cinema market for years, (Its been built in to pretty much all AV receivers for years (With some better than others) higher end Hi-Fi amps also have it, plus there are plenty of similar options if you are using a computer based system. (My favourites are Dirac, ARC (Anthem) and Room Perfect)
It is not however a magic fix for a bad room (You will need to do some room treatment first) but to finish off it is great.
A lot of HC subwoofers also have it built in. (The lower frequency's are what benefit the most)
A calibrated mic and mic stand are also essential to get the best results. (A lot of High End amps and receivers come with them)
There are also external modules and plug-ins available.
Best way to run Roon is via a NAS, as it makes it easy to service as many Roon players as you want.
Have fun using it, and don't be afraid to fine tune it to your personal preferences.

Bill

Hi Bill,

Thanks for that excellent summary of the state of Digital Room Corrections available today. I agree with everything you have pointed out.

The room is 50% of the equation. Poor acoustics can make the best speakers sound mediocre. As you mentioned the first line of attack to tame the bulk of the issues with room modes is to use proper room treatment – address the first reflections from the side walls, floor and ceilings, add bass traps on the 4 corners of the room and deploy the appropriate diffusers and absorbers.

Digital Room Correction should be applied as little as possible to smoothen out the residual peaks and valleys to confirm to the target curve chosen by the end user to maximize their listening enjoyment.

Here is the 2nd installment that explains how to set up your Audio Interface, position your measurement microphone and take the initial measurements using the Room EQ Wizard.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Taking Initial Measurements with REW.pdf


I have used a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Audio Interface with a Dayton Audio EMM-6 Calibration Microphone in this example.
Orient the Microphone horizontally at the listening position at ear height.

It should not be pointed to the Left or the Right speaker but rather straight ahead on axis.

Use a Psychoacoustic smoothing on your SPL curves.

In the next installment you will learn how to use ACOURATE to analyze the measured Impulse Response Curves, design your Target Curve and generate the FIR Filters.

Hi Tapas, and thank you for the info, you always bring cheer to this forum .

Hi Dengizich,

Thanks for the kind words!

Here is the 3rd installment that gives you step-by-step instructions on using ACOURATE.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Using Acourate to Generate FIR Filters.pdf


You would begin with the Measured Impulse Response curves of your Left and Right Channels.


You would analyze the measurements and design a Target Curve.


Next, you would run through the Macros and Test the Convolution.


If the Predicted Impulse Response curves from your Test Convolution are not to your satisfaction, you would start again with a different Target Curve.


Finally, you would generate the FIR Filters.


The next article will show you how to import these FIR Filters into ROON’s Convolution Engine.

Here is the 4th installment.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Importing the FIR Filters into ROON.pdf

It shows you how to import the FIR Filters from ACOURATE into ROON’s Convolution Engine.

Engaging this Preset will result in a 4.4dB Filter Insertion Loss. To compensate you can create another Preset with a -4.4dB Headroom Adjustment. This will allow you to better compare the before and after scenarios at the same volume level.

The next article will show you how to verify the results after Room Correction in REW.

Here is the 5th Installment.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Verifying the Measurements in REW.pdf


When you run a Test Convolution in Acourate, you get a plot of the Predicted results.

It is always a good practice to verify the Predicted results with the Measured results in REW after engaging the FIR Filters in ROON.

To do so, you need to play back the Test Tones through ROON with the Convolution Filters turned on.

Generate WAVE files of the Sweeps of the Left & Right Channels and add them to your ROON music library.

Take measurements in REW. However, mute your PC speaker this time. The reason being you do not want your microphone to respond to the internal test tones from REW. Rather, you want your microphone to listen to the Test Tones being played back by ROON after being passed through its Convolution Filter.

In the next article, I will leave my closing thoughts along with references to additional articles by industry experts for further reading.

Here are my closing thoughts and References.


https://bit.ly/4jczK16


Closing Thoughts and References.jpg


Acourate designed by Dr. Ulrich Brüggemann is the most advanced and feature rich Digital Room Correction software available.

The closest competitor is Audiolense, however it lacks the granular control that Acourate provides.

These two are head and shoulders above the rest of the pack that includes DIRAC, RePhase, and DRC.

This YouTube video by Mitch Barnett is an excellent introduction to understanding the “State of the Art” of Digital Room Correction.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfGAUvyvdNU


Dr. Keith Wong has written a couple of User Guides for Acourate that is a must read:


https://www.audiovero.de/acourateforum/viewtopic.php?t=410


Dr. Wong’s upcoming book on Digital Room Correction will become the ultimate reference.

Roon can apply multi-channel digital room correction filters for up to 7.1 channels.

One can utilize Roon's multi-channel DSP support to implement active crossovers for DIY loudspeakers. With eight channels, one can build up to a 4-way active crossover using Acourate and implement it via Roon's convolution engine.