Any REW experts?
Discussion
I'm in the process of playing around with this and haven't got a clue what I'm supposed to be looking for.
Despite big sofas, carpet and rugs my room is a bit echoey. Mainly due to lots of full height windows and only blinds on them and nothing on the walls yet. And at times (the start of Edge of Tomorrow for example) my sub can hurt my ears (its only a Yamaha RSW300).
So I'm looking to get a base line and tweak the room from there (as finances allow).
The problem I have is I'm unsure of a lot of the terminology and what I should be aiming for.
I've never heard a good set up to compare and have no idea what room nodes, muddy bass or harsh highs sound like compared to a good set up. And my nearest hifi store is 5 hours drive.
Cheers
Alex
Despite big sofas, carpet and rugs my room is a bit echoey. Mainly due to lots of full height windows and only blinds on them and nothing on the walls yet. And at times (the start of Edge of Tomorrow for example) my sub can hurt my ears (its only a Yamaha RSW300).
So I'm looking to get a base line and tweak the room from there (as finances allow).
The problem I have is I'm unsure of a lot of the terminology and what I should be aiming for.
I've never heard a good set up to compare and have no idea what room nodes, muddy bass or harsh highs sound like compared to a good set up. And my nearest hifi store is 5 hours drive.
Cheers
Alex
I've used REW to EQ my sub (as opposed to moving it around the room as unfortunately that's not an option for me). Ideally you would do both - position it in the best place and then EQ it. But I don't think positioning alone will give you very good results unless you are on your own and always sit in exactly the same place. Even then some EQ will help a lot to tame boominess.
I use a Behringer UCA222, sound meter (can't remember which but fairly standard recommended for REW) and a laptop. REW will show you the frequency response for wherever you place the SPL meter. The graph will change with the position of the microphone, so use some smoothing/averaging to get a feel for what's going on. It's not rocket science tbh, you just want as flat a graph as possible
.
When you've found the best placement, you could consider using a DSpeaker antimode if you don't want to get into the business of programming a parametric equaliser. These are super easy to use and will make a big difference. Un-EQ'd subs can sound terrible!
I use a Behringer UCA222, sound meter (can't remember which but fairly standard recommended for REW) and a laptop. REW will show you the frequency response for wherever you place the SPL meter. The graph will change with the position of the microphone, so use some smoothing/averaging to get a feel for what's going on. It's not rocket science tbh, you just want as flat a graph as possible
.When you've found the best placement, you could consider using a DSpeaker antimode if you don't want to get into the business of programming a parametric equaliser. These are super easy to use and will make a big difference. Un-EQ'd subs can sound terrible!
Edited by FarmyardPants on Monday 12th March 14:03
Tony Starks said:
I'm in the process of playing around with this and haven't got a clue what I'm supposed to be looking for.
Despite big sofas, carpet and rugs my room is a bit echoey. Mainly due to lots of full height windows and only blinds on them and nothing on the walls yet. And at times (the start of Edge of Tomorrow for example) my sub can hurt my ears (its only a Yamaha RSW300).
So I'm looking to get a base line and tweak the room from there (as finances allow).
The problem I have is I'm unsure of a lot of the terminology and what I should be aiming for.
I've never heard a good set up to compare and have no idea what room nodes, muddy bass or harsh highs sound like compared to a good set up. And my nearest hifi store is 5 hours drive.
Cheers
Alex
I would always recommend placing the sub in the best location you ( or domestic harmony ) will allow. If you can place the sub in an ideal place then the benefits of REW type correction are relatively small. REW is however very good at fixing room modes and improving sound when the sub can't be placed in an ideal position. REW is used to measure the sub output at various locations in and around the listening position; once the measurement is complete the REW software creates an 'inverse mirror' curve to correct the flaws in the original measured curve.Despite big sofas, carpet and rugs my room is a bit echoey. Mainly due to lots of full height windows and only blinds on them and nothing on the walls yet. And at times (the start of Edge of Tomorrow for example) my sub can hurt my ears (its only a Yamaha RSW300).
So I'm looking to get a base line and tweak the room from there (as finances allow).
The problem I have is I'm unsure of a lot of the terminology and what I should be aiming for.
I've never heard a good set up to compare and have no idea what room nodes, muddy bass or harsh highs sound like compared to a good set up. And my nearest hifi store is 5 hours drive.
Cheers
Alex
The correction curve created by the REW software has to be 'hosted' on hardware of some kind. REW have a close relationship with MiniDSP; I would advocate using one of their 2x4 products to host the REW generated correction filters.
There is a huge amount of information on the REW forum and MiniDSP / REW forum plus there are many online help videos too. https://www.minidsp.com/applications/auto-eq-with-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4uSR3cUUSY
You can buy a Minidsp 2x4 here. http://cpc.farnell.com/mini-dsp/mdsp-24/digital-si...
Good luck.
Edited by Crackie on Monday 12th March 21:36
Just to add that REW has a good simulation section, provided your room is a standard rectangle shape: You put in your room dimensions and seating position, then play around moving the position of the sub(s). I did this when I was planning my room and found that when I measured with REW it was pretty close to the predicted response.
You don't even need a mic to play with this part of the program, IMHO it's much better than the 'sub crawl' that gets trotted out on certain forums every time someone talks about setting up a sub.
You don't even need a mic to play with this part of the program, IMHO it's much better than the 'sub crawl' that gets trotted out on certain forums every time someone talks about setting up a sub.
I use an old Dell laptop with the Umik-1. A camera tripod gets placed on the settee at ear height, with the mic on top. You'll get the calibration curves for the mic from the miniDSP website, those are requested by REW when you plug in the mic.
The easy stuff is very easy - the laptop sends the sound via HDMI to the AV amp, the mic measures the sweeps (USB connected) and REW shows you the graph. Obviously there are a multitude of things you can actually do, but a general sanity check of the frequency response in the room is the place to start. Loads of info in the miniDSP forum or the REW forum within Home Theater Shack. Seeing the peaks/troughs of the response at the listening position (especially for the low frequencies) is where you can start adjusting the eq, the room treatments or the positioning of stuff.
The easy stuff is very easy - the laptop sends the sound via HDMI to the AV amp, the mic measures the sweeps (USB connected) and REW shows you the graph. Obviously there are a multitude of things you can actually do, but a general sanity check of the frequency response in the room is the place to start. Loads of info in the miniDSP forum or the REW forum within Home Theater Shack. Seeing the peaks/troughs of the response at the listening position (especially for the low frequencies) is where you can start adjusting the eq, the room treatments or the positioning of stuff.
Room correction is a very powerful tool but it is important to remember one important thing before you start.
Try and position the sub in a position where large peaks rather than large nulls are measured at and around the listening position. The reason for this is that correcting the big peaks involves reducing amp power at the relevant frequencies. Filling in nulls / troughs in the response uses a great deal of amp power, this can saturate/clip the line stages and in the end the whole operation is usually futile because the room dimensions, in conjunction with speaker / listener locations, are actively suppressing the low frequency output at that location.
Its certainly worth fiddling with the sub and listening position to achieve these low frequency peaks before starting out with the correction process. OldSkools suggestion to use the REW simulation will help you find the optimum sub placement before having to physically shift stuff about.
Try and position the sub in a position where large peaks rather than large nulls are measured at and around the listening position. The reason for this is that correcting the big peaks involves reducing amp power at the relevant frequencies. Filling in nulls / troughs in the response uses a great deal of amp power, this can saturate/clip the line stages and in the end the whole operation is usually futile because the room dimensions, in conjunction with speaker / listener locations, are actively suppressing the low frequency output at that location.
Its certainly worth fiddling with the sub and listening position to achieve these low frequency peaks before starting out with the correction process. OldSkools suggestion to use the REW simulation will help you find the optimum sub placement before having to physically shift stuff about.
Crackie said:
Room correction is a very powerful tool but it is important to remember one important thing before you start.
Try and position the sub in a position where large peaks rather than large nulls are measured at and around the listening position. The reason for this is that correcting the big peaks involves reducing amp power at the relevant frequencies. Filling in nulls / troughs in the response uses a great deal of amp power, this can saturate/clip the line stages and in the end the whole operation is usually futile because the room dimensions, in conjunction with speaker / listener locations, are actively suppressing the low frequency output at that location.
Its certainly worth fiddling with the sub and listening position to achieve these low frequency peaks before starting out with the correction process. OldSkools suggestion to use the REW simulation will help you find the optimum sub placement before having to physically shift stuff about.
This.Try and position the sub in a position where large peaks rather than large nulls are measured at and around the listening position. The reason for this is that correcting the big peaks involves reducing amp power at the relevant frequencies. Filling in nulls / troughs in the response uses a great deal of amp power, this can saturate/clip the line stages and in the end the whole operation is usually futile because the room dimensions, in conjunction with speaker / listener locations, are actively suppressing the low frequency output at that location.
Its certainly worth fiddling with the sub and listening position to achieve these low frequency peaks before starting out with the correction process. OldSkools suggestion to use the REW simulation will help you find the optimum sub placement before having to physically shift stuff about.
Personally I did without REW and the hassle and went for a used DSPeaker antimode for around £100. Up and running within 10 minutes and it worked wonders with a big SVS cylinder sub. Gives you a couple of house curves too - not totally accurate but the 25Hz boost was fun with action films, 35Hz great with live rock music.
I used to have a bad null at around 50-60Hz which took a chunk out of the bass, so even when I had an antimode it didn't really help because the location of the sub relative to the listening position was the problem. I blew the driver on a BK Monolith I used to have trying to turn it up enough to 'fill' the null.
Later on I tried all sorts of different positioning options in the REW room sim (and some test measurements using a spare sub as I wanted to try out two subs at that time).
If you can find a good spot for a single sub with peaks and minimal dips (there will always be some with a single sub) then the antimode is a good shout for a simple set up. For the rest of us with nulls in the middle of the sub range then 2 or more subs and lots of time with REW is the answer.
...I ended up with a sub in each corner at the last rebuild, but thankfully they are all hidden; two built in and two in wall. It was worth the effort though because I get even bass in various seats in the room and great bass where I sit. It wasn't a 5 minute job to install and set up though.
Later on I tried all sorts of different positioning options in the REW room sim (and some test measurements using a spare sub as I wanted to try out two subs at that time).
If you can find a good spot for a single sub with peaks and minimal dips (there will always be some with a single sub) then the antimode is a good shout for a simple set up. For the rest of us with nulls in the middle of the sub range then 2 or more subs and lots of time with REW is the answer.
...I ended up with a sub in each corner at the last rebuild, but thankfully they are all hidden; two built in and two in wall. It was worth the effort though because I get even bass in various seats in the room and great bass where I sit. It wasn't a 5 minute job to install and set up though.
Gassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff