A Few Questions About Acourate

[kilroy]

I purchased Acourate and have managed to create a few filters to use in JRiver. Don't like the sound at all and prefer to run without it. The sound is thin, closed, constrained, and certainly not as musical and enjoyable. I'll assume I've done something wrong based on all the positive reviews of the program. The program does seem simple for basic use but still has a steep learning curve. And the room is less than ideal, with big room modes due in part because of limited speaker placement options. I'm hoping DSP could make some small improvement but nothing so far. Maybe it's all trial and error, but that looks like it could be a long process. I'm hoping to get some user feedback here.

 

But it gets me wondering, is there a "sound" to DSP that is fundamentally different? Maybe it's an acquired taste, because I'm certainly not wowed by it, at least not yet.

 

With so many settings in Acourate, is there a best path to follow in making changes to improve the SQ? i.e., target design, FDW, etc.

 

If I make multiple filters based on different targets, I've heard these can be switched in JRiver while playing music for comparison. How can this be done if all the filters and config files have the same name due to the required naming convention.

 

Can just the low frequencies, say 20 to 300hz be treated, by setting up the logsweep for this range, to address just these problems?

 

I cannot seem to eliminate all pre-ringing to get the flat line shown in some of the tutorials. Is low level pre-ringing actually audible, or should this not be something to be concerned about?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[SwissBear]

Hi Kilroy,

A few answers to your questions:

- yes the sound of DSP is somewhat flatter than what your are used to as it is supposed to get rid of the sound signature of your system/room to reproduce what is on the recording; you will get used to it and recognize later that your former signature was erroneous

- I would advise you to start as proposed by Mitch. His tutorial/e-book are very informative

- to test different impulses, create different directories one per target curve

- pre-ringing is not necessarily audible

- do not hesitate to contact Uli Brueggemann from AudioVero. He is very friendly and helpful

- you can post your measures/target curves here too

[Keith_W]

kilroy, I encourage you to persist. I have more than $100k invested in my sound system, and NOTHING has made a bigger difference to the system than Acourate. If I had known about Acourate earlier, I could have saved myself plenty of time and money.

 

The "sound" of DSP is really what you have set it at. This will depend on many factors - is your microphone calibrated? Have you taken the measurements properly? Have you used the program properly? What is your target curve? Acourate can make your system sound wonderful, or ... if you have failed to follow one of the steps ... the result can be horrible. Read Mitchco's book very carefully - my early attempts at Acourate sound woeful compared to the results I am getting now. As I learn how to use Acourate better, so do my results.

 

Target design, FDW, etc. - the defaults are a good place to start, but Uli left them adjustable for a reason. I have tried a few different target curves, and I find that I like the one suggested by Mitchco the best (i.e. flat from 20Hz - 1kHz, and then a negative slope to -6dB at 20kHz). If you leave it flat, it will probably sound too thin and bright.

 

How do you switch different filters in JRiver - do what I do. The config file in Jriver points to a directory called CURRENT. All the filters which I am experimenting with are in their own folders, e.g. Filter Set 1, Filter Set 2, etc. Whenever I want to listen to a new filter set, I just copy and paste the .WAV files into CURRENT. No need to re-edit the config file every time I want to change the filter.

 

You can most definitely confine correction to the low frequencies only, but (as far as I recall) you have to do it manually and not via the Room macros.

 

As for the pre-ringing, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Using smaller values in Excess Phase (I use 2 / 3 / 2 / 3) will result in less pre-ringing. The default (6 / 6 / 6 / 6) results in more.

[SwissBear]

Two other tips:

- after the inversion macro (Ctrl+F3), Acourate gives you an indication of the level adjustment which is done by the correction applied. You should compensate for this correction by adjusting the volume of your system accordingly

- you might need to make progressive adjustments, starting with a flat target curve, just to get used to the correction process, and gradually adjust to correct further problems; this way you will gradually get used to the new sound of your system

[kilroy]

Gentlemen, thanks for the info and support. I do have a different target and filter now and the sound is much better. It really is a different type of sound than without DSP, and when I switch DSP in and out their is an odd and surprising truthfulness with the DSP that comes out. Not saying I'm used to it, but I can begin to see what it's about.

 

There are so many details in mitchco's book and the tutorials that it really does need to be read and re-read. I can see futzing around with this for a while while trying different targets and settings.

 

Uli build in the ability to roll off the target highs and lows to match the room response, but most examples show a straight line to the frequency extremes. Is there any advantage to rolling these off or should it be left for future tweaking?

 

Haven't gotten around to swapping different filters in and out yet but thanks for the tips on how to do that.

 

I hope to get more practice in in the next few days and will report back here. Thanks a lot again guys.

[tboooe]

@kilroy, I am curious, could you share your target curve? Are you trying to go for a flat curve or one of the downward sloping variants as described by mticho? I ended up with a slight variation:

 

80db from 20-100hz

downward slope to 75db from 100-1000hz

downward slope tp 70db from 1000 -20000hz

 

That seemed to give me a sound that is well balanced with a good amount of bass and higher freq extension without it sounded bloated or bright.

[kilroy]

@kilroy, I am curious, could you share your target curve? Are you trying to go for a flat curve or one of the downward sloping variants as described by mticho? I ended up with a slight variation:

 

80db from 20-100hz

downward slope to 75db from 100-1000hz

downward slope tp 70db from 1000 -20000hz

 

That seemed to give me a sound that is well balanced with a good amount of bass and higher freq extension without it sounded bloated or bright.

 

The curve displays in Acourate so not sure how to get it out of there yet. In any case, definitely not a flat curve, I think it was about 0db flat out to 1khz then slope to -6db at 20khz. I'll try to share it later. (Not a lot of free time to play right now!)

 

Those four curves he mentions are all from different sources, yet they were all pretty similar in that they are all flat out to a certain point, then all sloped to minus value. So they seem to be a good starting baseline. My plan going forward in experimenting is to stick to the mitchco curves and tweak them to see what the result is.

 

I read on another forum somewhere that another approach is to set up a curve like these, then gradually move the deflection point (where the slope begins) to lower frequencies and give those a listen. Believe the writer said he went as low as 500hz on the deflection point in his tests.

[kilroy]

@tboooe, here is the target curve.

 

Obvious room modes that will require some changes to the room as well but that's another story.

 

[Keith_W]

kilroy, that curve looks OK to me. What is wrong with the sound?

[tboooe]

@tboooe, here is the target curve.

 

Obvious room modes that will require some changes to the room as well but that's another story.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30290[/ATTACH]

Thank you Kilroy! Yeah looks like you a real peak at 40-50hz. I spent a lot of time adjusting my speaker placement to get the best possible curve so that I wouldnt have to use too many filters. From my experience, peaks are more easily handled with at least REW but dips do not response very well even with max gain applied. I have to look into adding some bass traps to deal with some massive room modes.

 

I also did not apply any filters about 500hz. For the higher frequencies try very small changes to the speaker position. It is amazing how the higher frequencies above 1000hz can change dramatically with small adjustments to the speaker position. BTW, I am gong to try Acourate to see how it compares to REW.

[kilroy]

kilroy, that curve looks OK to me. What is wrong with the sound?

 

Keith, this is a new curve that sounds not bad, or at least much better than my first attempt. Think I got too fancy on the first one and the level was too low as well.

 

Question, on room macro 4 all the tutorials show 4 excessphase windows, 2 for each channel. Mine shows only 2, and when I hold the cursor over them they say left channel low and high. No matter whether the left or right channel is loaded. No right channel. Do I have a setting off somewhere? Thanks.

 

[Keith_W]

The reason why Mitch's tutorials show four windows for excessphase is because is running a three way system. Yours is one way.

[kilroy]

Got in touch with Uli, he gave me a line to add to the .ini file that added two more excessphase windows for a total of four. No idea whether it was a program issue or what.

 

Couple more questions for you guys, if I may.

 

Does anyone use the Subsonic box in Macro4? Seems to be conflicting (or confusing) info on when and how to use this.

 

Is there any advantage to rolling off the highs and lows to match the room curve when doing target design?

 

Understand that settings might be unique to each user's situation, but are there any rules-of-thumb so to speak for these items?

 

So far I've just created a single 44khz filter and config file, hoping later today I can add other sample rate filters and mod the config file so it can automatically switch according to the source file and JRiver settings.

[kilroy]

I had forgot all about this thread, but will update it with something interesting to me at least. As the OP I had just started playing with Acourate and had created filters and installed them in JRiver. I was having a huge problem with the sound, even after generating filters that worked pretty well, compared to the first ones. Last I remember I had set JRiver to not use the filters.

 

Well I got distracted away from Acourate for various reasons and have just now come back to it after a year. Wanted to start fresh and create new filters, taking the time to do it right and experiment with different targets, etc.

 

To my surprise, going into JRiver settings again, the filters have been in place all this time, over a year. So I switched them out, and the sound changed again, and it was terrible! Just sounds out of control, an assault on my ears. So the Acourate filter "sound" had become my new normal, and I have to admit that it would be really hard to go back to not using them. Funny how things work out.