I wanted to create some filters for my old room which was pretty tricky. I originally followed a thread on the roon forums, bought a UMIK mic and used REW (free software), I am not sure where I stand with linking to other sites but the thread is pretty easy to find. I then decided I wanted some pro help to create the filters and used a company called Home Audio Fidelity (its their graphs you see above), you just use your mic and their software and measure the room, its very easy. You then send the results to them, they create the filters and send it back. You do need some software to load up any filters, I have used Roon in the past and now HQ Player. You could of course just not bother with generating filters but just measure the room with the MIC. Thanks for the link, I will have a good read of that!
I may start off easy and purchase a mic and use the program to see where my room stands. If things look good which I believe they will, then this would just be confirmation, but if things look like they may need a little help then the next step could be the filter. I use Roon at this point, so does the filter get utilized by Roon? I need to look further into the entire process to understand it better. Thanks for the info and heading me in a direction.
within roon, you go to the dsp setup for your zone. then add the convolution filter and upload the files.
Actually, this is a way better document that I'm currently using with my laptop, HDMI to AVR, and UMIK-1 as the microphone. Dropbox - REW 101 HTS Current Version.pdf - Simplify your life
this thread needs more action! i had some ref 1s and made the mistake of selling them, thinking something bigger would be better. not the case! it didn't take me long to realize how great the ref 1s are in my small/medium sized room (10' x 15'). ref 1s are back and i'm quite happy -- soundstage is wide and deep with fantastic imaging. i love how they disappear with well recorded music!
Really nice room setup, simple which is how I like to set my system up. Nice room treatment although I am curious about the window on the front wall. Have you tried treating that to hear what differences that makes? I am guessing it is far enough from the listening position so the reflected waves are not an issue but I am guessing glass reflects differently than sheet rock or plaster. I have a window in a similar position in my dedicated room however there were wooden interior shutters on this window prior to making it into a dedicated listening room so I don't know what difference bare glass verses the wood shutter makes. None the less gorgeous room and wonderful speakers. I like the way they are set on the butcher block. You have inspired me, and may give that a try. I believe that is a Parasound amplifier, what model?
@mds - yes, ideally there would be some sort of treatment (diffusion, i think) in front of the window. i do have a shade there (pulled up in the pic) that is pulled down when listening and i do have absorption on the wall behind the listening position. i think that'll have to do for now -- not sure i want to put anything over the windows (even curtains) at this point. front of speakers is 36" off the wall, listening position is a bit more than 3' off the back wall, so speakers are about 8' away. yes, the amp is a parasound -- it's a jc-5.
Great set up and I agree having the light and view is critical, certainly when not listening. The shade you have is probably all you need. I bet that JC-5 makes those Ref 1s sing a beautiful tune.
what was the speakers that replaced them? And nice setup…nothing like listening in a dedicated space./space.
if you don't mind, i'd rather be not be specific as they were very good speakers, just too big for my listening space . . . they needed more room to breathe. i can say that they were floor standers that were 4' tall and weighed over 100 pounds.
QUOTE="jcn3, post: 27155620, member: 13189"]if you don't mind, i'd rather be not be specific as they were very good speakers, just too big for my listening space . . . they needed more room to breathe. i can say that they were floor standers that were 4' tall and weighed over 100 pounds. [/QUOTE] I have a pair of KEF Reference 3 speakers iny dedicated music room which is 12' x 15' with 9' ceiling height and they sound wonderful. Just mentioning so folks know that a 3-way floor standing speaker can work in a room this size but you might need to be more selective in your selection.
The more I look at your photo the more I love how clean the room is in terms of wire management, equipment, no coffee table and no CDs or Album covers laying all around and taking up wall space. Al though I have no idea what is behind your couch. This is a serious listening room with nothing to distract. Looking at your profile I notice no turntable nor CD, I have a similar set up. I never went the vinyl route but did have a CD player in my system that I recently removed since my entire CD collection (1,598) has been ripped to FLAC files for some time. Now after looking at your room I just may move all my CDs and racks out of the room and put them somewhere else, maybe boxes. Thanks for the inspiration.
thanks for the kind comments. i do enjoy the space and am pleased with the sound. there is a side table and lamp to the left of the couch (you can see the front edge in the pic). the couch is about 3.5' in front of the back wall which has two gik panels behind the listening position (behind the couch is a walkway to a bedroom). the equipment is on a rack to the right (see below). i'm too lazy to do vinyl, but i certainly appreciate what it brings to the table. i've ripped all the cds i have that i thought were worth ripping (they're in boxes in the basement!) and subscribe to qobuz. i'm a dedicated roon user -- it is an awesome piece of software. the core is on a fanless nuc and feeds a simaudio moon mind 2 player. a chord dave goes straight to the amp. i've tried hqplayer, optical modules, and fancy power supplies which created a lot of clutter. after i heard the moon mind 2 player, i took it all out . . . happy listening! i don't really understand how people don't understand the joy you can get from hearing great music on a competent audio system.
I wonder when KEF are going to roll out the meta material for the Reference series. I would love to upgrade to Reference from my R900s (which are brilliant). But I feel like the current series is likely to get updated at some point with it.
I am sure you are correct about when the Reference Series refresh does arrive it will probably include the meta panel behind the tweeter, however how big of an improvement will just that make? Have you listened to the LS50 speaker with and without the Meta panel? Certainly if it is incorporated into the reference series there will be some nice sales going on and that is where my interest would be if I did not already own one of the Reference Series speaker and wanted to upgrade. My guess however is that the entire design of the speaker will be changed and KEF was only testing out the Meta panel on the LS50 series speaker. For the cost of the Reference Series more than just a Meta panel needs to be added to make current owners want to upgrade. I am just making a guess based on the fact that they haven't already added the panel to the line since it seems an easy manufacturing change. I tried to make a search to see if there is indeed any talk of a major refresh of the KEF Reference line but came up empty handed. I think adding the meta panel to the LS50 and coming out with the R line was it for awhile. I could be wrong though.
I agree with you. It took more than just the meta part to update the existing LS50 and make an audible difference. I think, Uni-Q driver in reference is already optimized and it's probably hard to improve on. I think their passive design is already pushing the limits. The next frontier is the speaker/room interaction and IMHO, they will need to do more than just port tunning. If history is any indicator, they could refresh the line next year. We shall see.
So are you saying there isn't a huge difference between the original 50 and the meta? I haven't heard either, but I'm curious if it's worth the price difference.
I haven't either, but most reviewers agree that there's a difference and to my knowledge, KEF didn't increase the price of the new models. I have the original LS50W and it's a very nice little speaker that I use for TV and background music in my living room. If I was in the market again for LS50 and have a small to medium size room, I would pick the new LS50W II together with the KEF KC62 or KF 92 subwoofer.
What I am saying is if I owned a KEF LS50 I would not upgrade to the Meta just for that level of improved sound, but if I were in the market for a small stand mounted speaker I would purchase the LS50 with the Meta feature. If I had a small stand mounted speaker and wanted the Reference Series I would not hold out for one hoping the Meta feature was going to be added, I would go out and purchase one now. I do not believe the Reference Series is going to be refreshed any time soon, however if they indeed added the Meta feature as a small incremental upgrade I do not believe you would be disappointed that you didn't wait and had purchased the Reference Series without it. The sound is so good with the Reference Series that it is hard to believe just adding the Meta panel is going to make that much of a noticeable difference that owners without it are going to want to upgrade unless there was a tremendous upgrade allowance offered.
The thing about it is that having the slightly lesser version would eat at me over the months and years until I sold and upgraded… that’s just the hobby though.
