CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[perisoft]

So, I just got a Radio Shack SPL meter (for other reasons, but now that I have it...).

I also grabbed a copy of Room EQ, and managed to make the Creative Labs 5.1 in my office not sound like complete turds using the RealTek equalizer. It would sound even less like turds, except the RealTek EQ hasn't got enough range to compensate for the massive blowout at 100hz...

Anyway, I'm obviously going to try this in my HT. Being as I don't have separate hardware EQs per channel, I'm going to use AC3filter to do the job, as the new version has a 10-ish band EQ per channel, IIRC.

So, my questions are:

a) Is there a better way than AC3filter? Something low level that will do anything going through the analog outputs? I'm not sure if my HT Omega software can do any EQ at all, much less per-channel.

b) What are reference levels for theater? Equal SPL for all speakers, or different?

c) Should I manually force a crossover for the subs? My fronts and center are full range, so I don't want to roll them off - but how do I match it?

d) Do I -want- completely flat response, or is there some other standard used for some odd reason?

e) Are there other filters (question related to A, I guess) that compensate for room reflections, etc? I know people talk about this, but I don't know if they just use it to place baffles/etc/whatever, or if there's some software correction which can help. One thing I know I've got is a nasty fast delay that makes sharp high frequency sounds (like a clap) do about 5 echoes for about 1/10th of a second. Yeah, I can hear the number of echoes in that period of time; I'm crazy. Everybody else thinks I'm crazy, too, but in a different way.

Anyway, advice is appreciated! Until now my audio has been done by ear, but having heard with roomeq and a compensated mic can do with the system in my office, I'm psyched...

[benareeno]

hmmm...no replies?

I trust you are doing analog out from the htpc?

[akajester]

I do 8 channel analog out from my htpc. I use the ffdshow audio codec. I also use it to set LFE crossover. I'm not familiar enough with the options to know if it would fit your needs.

I have used RoomEQ Wizard and took some nice response graphs of my room. I posted them on the REW forum and they said it looked good and not to mess with anything, so I left it as is.

Dale

[akajester]

They did recommend a behringer feedback destroyer to help tame the subwoofer output, but I didn't feel it was worth spending the money on.

Dale