Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Tell us about the ESLs (trying to tune out of bass trap boredom)? I've always been fascinated about how one would integrate them into a room with other stuff in it.

Yeah plants are good. Maybe just get a big pillar of acoustic foam?
And books definitely help.
I actually only have rugs in that room as the ones that get thrown out of other rooms end up in my multi purpose space.

A rolled up pair of socks in the bass port is another option - aka aperiodic loading.

Picked up a wiim mini as a replacement for a chromecast audio that was glitching out and pissing me off. Pretty impressed by the Wiim, app is pretty slick, it’s got a better range of connection options than the chromecast audio, didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Anyone using these in a multi-room setup? Tempted to get another one to go in the front room. Is it a faff to set up, does it work ok?

Can you ask Google Assistant / Home to play stuff on it?

Apparently you need the Wiim pro for compatibility with google home / assistant

No skin off my nose as I’m an iOS drone.

Wiim pro has 12v trigger so it’ll turn your amp on when you ask google to play something which is the killer feature for me!

Oh damn that is pretty good. Maybe I’ll move the mini to the front room and get a pro for the kitchen where the amp is.

These didn't come with any but I've seen those in bigger systems. Something I could try I guess.

A rolled up pair of socks in the bass port

This sounds like the kind of false advertising footballers would get up to.

Are your speakers decoupled from the surface they're on?

No. I have a set of isolation pads on order already though.

Since the bookcases went in behind me I've filled them with sleeping bags, tents, bivvys and some books (obvs) and it has either helped or I'm imagining it has helped so that's a plus.

I might have a play with blocking the ports but what I'd really like to do is somehow measure the frequency response over a range and see where the peaks are. Because if you're not testing you're just guessing.

Is there any free shit I could use on my PC that would do frequency sweeps or something to see where the peaks and troughs are? I guess the software would exist - that's probably the easy part but I don't have a mic (I could use headphones but I imagine that's a pretty shit solution). Maybe I could borrow a set off a muso I know. Hmm.

You want a measurement mic. Something like a umik
Free software is called Room EQ Wizard

Helpful, thanks.

https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1

Will try and find one to borrow and likely won't happen for an age anyway, but by then I should have the iso pads and stuff to help.

You might find that decoupling makes the difference as if they're coupled the surface they're on will act as a baffle.

I'm sure there's an app but I'm not sure how well your phones mic will deal with the bottom end.

I didn't even think about using my phone. But yeah, can't imagine mics tuned for voice are going to do well with boomy music.

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/p1xrnq/android_room_eq_analyser_apps_any_recommendations/

They have same opinion I had about phone mics.

Use https://www.roomeqwizard.com/ with a calibrated mic.

Anyone know anything about Omnitronic mics? They have a calibrated offering like Umik for half the price. MM2-USB

https://www.avnirvana.com/threads/omnitronic-mm-2usb-mic.3630/
"I've measured several 1/4" electret capsules and I don't believe that specs. They claim it's pressure gradient and omnidirectional... it's a shame."

Have you tried using a frequency generator to identify the frequency? You should be able to hear it when it peaks.

https://www.avforums.com/threads/minidsp-umik-1-to-borrow-hire.2442900/

This guy rents his out for £15/month

Nope. I think you suggested that before?

Actually, won't https://www.roomeqwizard.com/ do this? I could maybe run a sweep and pick the freq out

Behringer does a cheap one, few others in the same price bracket as well. See e.g.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/microphones_for_measurements.html

Note that you'll probably need a mic pre-amp with phantom power for these.

Yeah, I don't really want to buy kit that I'm only going to use once. So if I can borrow, sweet. or at least if I buy, the least stuff possible so no pre-amps, etc. I'll keep adding stuff to the room anyway so now's not the time to bother too much with measuring.

Thanks

You can use REQ to create a convolution IR from a frequency sweep. I've done it for 2 rooms and use Roons IR function to adjust the sound to that room. It's the best sound at the listening point that I've had so far.

If you don't have the mic yet you can use a db level meter on your phone to see where the loud spots in the sweep are. REW can also calculate based on room size and speaker position what your room modes are. You are unlikely to be able to treat them with only bass traps.

Definitely you will have improved the situation by having dense material on the shelves behind the listening position.

You are only trying to treat the room at the listening position, you will not be able to treat a domestic space at every position. If you build a studio space from a blank slate you can widen the neutral spot but it's still unlikely to be flat throughout the room.

Literally no idea what I'm doing. The sweep audio sounds terrible though, like it's clipping from the beginning all the way through, like when you run a sequencer and turn the lag down too far and the audio drivers can't keep up. I assume some kind of feedback or something isn't configured right.
I just ran this with the headset mic sat on the desk.

1 Attachment

You are only trying to treat the room at the listening position, you will not be able to treat a domestic space at every position. If you build a studio space from a blank slate you can widen the neutral spot but it's still unlikely to be flat throughout the room.

Excuse a pretty basic question; I understand that you're optimising for a specific point in the room, but does it also generally improve the room, albeit to a lesser extent, or is it actually unlikely to change much outside that spot because you're dealing with reflections from different walls etc etc etc

Bass waves move around the walls like water across a surface, they pile up in corners, especially in corners with floors. I have a pretty neutral listening position but there's an extra 6db of bass in the corner of the room behind the listening position. Room modes are often caused by the room length combining with a particular wavelength (50hz is 6.84m) so it reflects on the back wall and returns to mess with the outgoing wave adding and subtracting depending on the length of the room. This is why 50hz bumps are so predictable and difficult to cure in London sized rooms.

In short to answer your question, it doesn't improve the rest of the room much. High frequency reflection attenuation tends to improve the whole room but you are probably only going to get a small sweet spot overall, especially in a small room.