The ARC System?

ARC is based on the Audyssey system, which I tested:

Audyssey Report

EQ cannot counter echoes and reflections, nor can it improve nulls. If you can fit a pair of speakers into your bedroom, surely you can find a place to prop a few bass traps on the floor and maybe hang a pair of thin panels on the side walls like pictures.

--Ethan
 
EQ "correction" (and I use the term loosely and with a taint of sarcasm) is semi-useful when you want to give a quick touch up to a boomy home theater - And that's about it.

It doesn't *fix* problems - It *hides* them (for lack of better terminology - It's late. I'm tired).

Problematic frequency? Not any more, it'll just be gone (Fine for watching movies - not what you want when you're shooting for "accuracy" and "consistency" and the like).

And as Ethan mentioned, if you have a null point (which you can bet you have several at various frequencies), no amount of EQ is going to fix that.
 
Right. The point is to hear what is happening accurately, not to be presented with a good-sounding but inaccurate sonic image.
 
hey there wise people, a less wise dude here.

so I just found this system and came here to see what people think. that review seems to say... not bad at making a flat response, but you should really treat your room?

its probably a good point about consistency. say you make a mix, rearrange your work space (because its also your bloody bedroom) and then come back to it (new double bed, cupboards etc), your going to have to re calibrate your room.... but that should bring you back to a roughly flat response right?


As a renter, im mixing in my bedroom. it periodically fills with shit, and I move roughly every year. to me, it sounds like this system offers some real pros given all my shitty cons. Right now im sitting in a rectangular room with a full 3 m row of cupboards behind me with a door too. theres no place for a bass trap or any treatment to my rear wall, or the option of rearranging my room. EQing out the holes (or mounds) is a far better option then the do nothing approach in this case, and will bring me to a flatter response (which will improve how well my mixes translate to other systems)?

Also, the sound coming out of your speakers would be inaccurate, but that's a replication of what acoustic treatment would do (flat response) so it would be a good thing? the issue would be if you took a mix to an acoustically treated room and then continued working on it... the whole thing would be balls? also listening to the mix with and without the plugin would equal the shitty sound of your room, and will likely also sound like balls? brain is doing circles

im new to this so let me know where ive gone wrong. Also sorry for the log post, had coffee and its an interesting thing to think about.

Cheers

Karl
 
EQing out the holes (or mounds) is a far better option then the do nothing approach in this case, and will bring me to a flatter response (which will improve how well my mixes translate to other systems)?
Click to expand...
I think you missed the point somewhere -- The system doesn't work even from the first point. You can NOT "EQ accuracy into a room" -- It's not possible. All you can do is REMOVE the problematic frequencies - making the room EVEN LESS accurate than it was -- and leaving you with a completely skewed and inaccurate rendition of an already problematic space.

That's fine for home theater (well, it's "okay" for home theater) when you're interested in "cleaning up" the room -- But it's crap otherwise.
 
hey man

its a hard one to get my head around, Im pretty new to this.

Yeah I think I get it. So in terms of accurate you want the frequency response curve of the sound out to = the frequency response curve heard at the listening position? so if sound out has been calibrated then... the sound out is not the same at the listening position (because its been influenced by the shitty room).

I hope that was right because that was a "click" moment

In the context of a renter though, is this system still good for improving how well you mix translates? at the end of the day you will be less prone to over/undercompensating particular frequencies?

cheers
 
Back in the early '90s I was going into some of the big studios in Nashville.. (called in because they had the room tuned and they still can't mix), The 'room tuner' had run pink noise and calibrated the system with passive White EQs in the racks going to the amps. I'd walk in, ask them to play a track... moved a bit, turned my head side to side.. Crazy stuff! I asked them, "you have EQ on this??" he said, yeah. I went straight to the racks, found the Whites and clicked the bypass.
WHAM! everything worked again.

If you use EQ, you can FIX a steady state issue, like flush mounting; you roll off the low end. But phase anomalies, reflections, LF peaks and nulls - forget it. Unless you can put your head in a vice and work that way.. but the problem is that your ears are NOT located in the center of your head. It's a compromise no matter what you do. AND if you actually succeed in 'getting it close', your BRAIN will 'fix' it.. and you're back where you started.

You guys that have mixed for some years, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You 'hear' past the room EQ.

My professional 2 cents..

cheers,
John
 
Karl_ said:
In the context of a renter though, is this system still good for improving how well you mix translates? at the end of the day you will be less prone to over/undercompensating particular frequencies?
Click to expand...
No, it won't improve anything. Adding to JHB's stuff -- The "room correction" stuff simply takes problematic frequencies and knocks them down -- usually at a single point in space -- which is ridiculous in the first place as you might have (for example) a 10dB peak in the 110Hz area at one point in space and a 30-40dB null point just a foot away. And as the system certainly isn't going to ADD 40dB of 110Hz (and it wouldn't matter, as that point in the room will not allow it anyway), it just goes "110Hz? Let's just get rid of that" and leaves you completely unable to hear that frequency even if you're NOT in the null point.

And all of that is due to reflected energy. You either absorb as much of that energy as possible (and that takes plenty of broadband absorption - for example, I have the equivalent of around 36 2'x4'x4" OC703/705 traps in here and "it's pretty nice") or you deal with the nasty energy (essentially, take a guess - because you aren't hearing what's happening, period).

Now -- EQ'ing the system is an entirely different and unrelated story -- I know a few guys who have EQ's inserted before the amps out of simple preference -- and that's all fine if that's what you need. But at that point, you're voicing the speakers. And that has nothing to do with the room.
 
man I swear I posted something this morning! gahhh dam you virgin mobile!!

anyways if this is a double post then so be it.

I was going to say that I need to get some eq response data for my room and then make decisions from there. the above review mentions the eq wizard and a behrenger mic. Are there any other room EQ data collection methods that you guys know about?
 
There are bunches of them - But REW, the Berry mic and RadioShack's SPL meter are (A) effective and (B) far and away the cheapest route by a longshot.

That said -- I know people that go out and shoot the room while untreated. That's an experiment - Nothing useful. I can already tell you what it's going to show: A giant, nearly unreadable mess.

I didn't even dream of shooting this space until I had a base of around 18 traps up in the "obvious" spots. And it *still* showed what I would consider a mess. Added a cloud, double-trapped the corners, added more high-side units -- THEN (30-ish total traps later) it started giving me useful information about peaks and nulls (at which point I added the last 5 traps).

Always assume your room sucks horrifically from the start. Always assume you need more broadband trapping even if you already have a bunch -- You CAN NOT have too much -- The worst thing that can happen is that you'll get "too close to perfect."
 
lol well that's not good.... hmmmm well as I said, im a renter... so maybe money towards a house is the best route to getting a good mixing space. LOL!

can you get any sort of information from the wizard plots? Im sure I would learn a thing or two about room acoustics in the process? at the moment I have this jumbled up mess of an idea about acoustics, but if the readings are equally as jumbled then its a waste of my time.
 
actually I recon the room eq wizard looks pretty usefull hey. will see how it pans out.

also cheers for the recommendations man!
 
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