Dirac, etc... Yep, I'm familiar with them, but you are right: "I have no interest in them". In the case of software, there's another issue: It only works when your DAW is running!So I assume you have no interest or experience with things like Sonarworks Reference and the likes.
Big deal! It won't do anything for you if your DAW is off and you want to listen to something...It's also in totally the wrong place in the signal path: if you are going to do EQ ("room correction"), then the only correct place to do that is as the very last step in the signal chain, directly before the speakers. It makes no sense to do it any earlier in the signal chain. The only way to do that is with a dedicated hardware box (precision parametric equalizer).
And yes, that's what I do. If I'm going to tweak the tuning as far as it can go, then I put a hardware PEQ immediately before the speakers, and do all the tweaking there. That way, it works for all signals, no matter where they come from, with or without DAW, and it guarantees that nothing downstream is going to change it or interfere with it (except the speakers themselves).
For the same price as good "room correction" software (maybe a little more), you can get a really good PEQ box that will do a much better job. If you do want to go down this path, then that's the way I'd suggest you do it. Forget trying to do it in software. Do it the right way.For the record, I was wondering about integrating room correction software after I had done everything possible with proper acoustic treatment, not as a replacement.
You could ask John Sayers! Or you could ask me!No, and it's mostly because I have no idea who to ask.
You do not need a studio designer from where you live! Not from the same city, nor even in the same country, nor even in the same hemisphere! (but from the same planet is probably a good idea....There is very little market for studio building over here. Not only don't I know people who do this... I'd also want them to be reliable!
)This might seem like a terrible concept, but it absolutely does work: with modern technology, it is entirely feasible to design and tune a room remotely, from any place on Earth.
Personally I have designed and/or tuned dozens of studios, all around the world, and I have NEVER actually been to any of them! (Except one). John has done hundreds of studios, and as far as I know, he has only ever been to a couple of them.
You have already seen the results of Studio Three (that I linked you to above): I have never been there. I have never met the owner, nor even spoken to him on the phone. Every single part of that design and tuning was done over the Internet, by "remote control". And that's not an isolated case: that one is in the USA, the same is true for studios I have designed/tuned in Canada, Australia, Spain, Indonesia, the UK... etc.
As long as you can take photos, use a tape measure accurately, set up a measurement mic, and run REW acoustic analysis software, then I can design and tune your room from where I live, thousands of kilometers away. It would be much faster and easier if I was there in your studio myself, yes (and I'd love a trip to Italy!), but it's a lot cheaper to just do it all over the internet.
So you don't need to find a reputable, capable studio designer with a proven track record in Italy: you can look for one anyplace in the world.
We are still taling about the same room that I diagrammed before, right? If you set it up the way I showed you, then the distance is 139 cm, not 188 cm... What happened?the way you suggested I place the speakers would place my head about 188cm from the front of the speakers, but then I don't have the enough room behind me to place the Ls and Rs speakers. At 110° I'd have about 135cm between me and the speakers (and that's without space for 10cm of absorption behind them), and at 125° I'd have ~160cm (still, without absorption).
Did I get a dimension wrong, or did you change the layout?
If necessary, you can do that, yes. But it's better if you can do it just by geometry.Could I get away with it by simply delaying the signal feeding the rear speakers
Just treatment details, not construction details.That's very interesting. Would you mind sharing what kind of details I should take into consideration when designing the acoustic treatment of the studio if I wanted to turn it into a 5.1 room? Or are you referring to construction details
The problem is that if you do typical treatment in an RFZ room, then the front of the room is highly reflective, so the rear surround speakers can cause nasty first reflection problems. You need to plan that very carefully, and ray-trace even more carefully, if you want to have a 5.1 room. You would design it from the outset such that there won't be reflection problems for the rear speakers, even if you only use it as 2.0 or 2.1 to start with.
That's fine, except it is thicker than I normally use it. But there's no problem there, either. It just means that your hangers will be a bit further apart than I would normally place them, so you won't be able to fit in as many, probably. But as long as you can hit the 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 spots, you should be OK. You probably would not have been able to hit 1/16 anyway.I found a good deal on some Knauf material and purchased an extra 75m2 of 85mm, 30kg/m3 glass wool assuming it was going to be low density enough for bass absorption. Is that low density/thick enough?
On the other hand, you could consider actually flush mounting them ("soffit mounting")! That is, if you really do want your room to be as good as it possible can be...P.S. I'm going to build some thick, concrete blocks or bricks speakers stands following the suggestions on the forum. What an incredible resource!
- Stuart -
