So, that was it. You have sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears to set up your stereo system. You may have spent an entire afternoon on it, maybe even an entire day. You’ll probably make small changes over the next week or month to see if you can just make it a little better. It’s all part of it, and the more you play with it, the more you will love your own beautiful hi-fi system!
But what if you did not have the space to park your speakers three feet inside the room? If the only place you had room for your subwoofer was behind the couch? In other words: If you had a regular living room? This guide can help you a lot along the way, and with room correction, you can get completely to the finish line.
Room Correction is the system that measures the behavior of your speakers in your room and modifies that behavior with DSP (Digital Signal Processing). As you learned in this guide, the sound from your speakers is greatly affected by your listening room, and room correction is one way you can minimize this effect.
Basically, this means that you can place your speakers in your living room where they fit best in the decor. Room correction will then make sure they sound tight, balanced, clean, and more or less perfect. Even if you have a dedicated listening room and have positioned the speakers very carefully as described in this guide, room correction can in most cases make your stereo image tighter and sharper and make your bass less rumbling, deeper, and generally much fatter.
SPACE CORRECTION IS NOT MAGIC
There are several advanced room correction programs available, and many modern high-end amplifiers have a system built-in. Denon and Marantz use Audyssey in their surround amplifiers and receivers. NAD collaborates with DIRAC, which specializes in room correction software for several different purposes. And Lyngdorf has created its own system called room perfect. In this guide, we will dive into DIRAC and room perfect.
Before you start room correction, set up your speakers as well as possible. You must be well satisfied with the sound without room correction because software can only handle the last details. The less the signal needs to be changed and converted, the more natural your music will sound, no matter how amazing the space correction is (and it’s really amazing). For each step of changing the volume and timing, you risk losing naturalness and realism.
“You MUST NOT absolutely use room correction. If you have an amplifier that can do that, give it a try. Use it for a few days and listen. If you end up deciding that the sound is just fine without room correction, then that’s fine too. In fact, a well-developed and carefully set up hi-fi system should not need room correction.”
DIRAC
Dirac is the room correction software used in many modern NAD amplifiers, from their Masters series to their NAD C 658 preamplifier and their surround amplifiers. It works through an app called Dirac Live. The cool thing about Dirac is that it is completely adjustable to your own preferences, but it also means that it takes some time to learn and you will probably need an entire afternoon before you are happy with the result. That being said, it is a powerful tool that will bring out the best in your system. Dirac comes in two versions.
The standard version included in most NAD amplifiers corrects between 20 Hz and 500 Hz, which is where most problems caused by space occur. The Full Frequency version expands all the way up to 20 kHz and can therefore also correct the midrange and treble. If it sounds exciting to tweak your system as much as possible, this is the version for you.
Follow the instructions at nadelectronics.com/Dirac-live. Connect your NAD amplifier to your network, update your firmware through the BluOS app, and use the waiting time to set up the included microphone. We recommend that you use a microphone stand, as the microphone must stand completely still during the measurements. You can also use a more advanced USB microphone, which will provide more detailed measurements and even better results. Use a laptop if you can, as this will make it easier to make adjustments later.
Related: How to get great Sound in a regular room
THE INSTRUCTIONS
In the first step, make sure that the volume of your speakers and your subwoofer is the same. Do not panic if there is a slight difference between the right and left speakers, but pay attention to the volume of your subwoofer. Now select your listening position. This significantly changes the way your DIRAC profile will sound, so try different.
The “Chair” configuration is made for listening to music alone. It will make the sound very tight and controlled with a completely magical stereo image. If you are the type who moves while listening, this may not be the configuration for you. The other configurations are intended if you listen to music with others. It requires more measurements so that everyone gets a more balanced sound, but the stereo image will be less sharp. If you have a large listening room, it may be a good idea to choose this configuration, even if you are usually alone, as it measures more of your room.
Now you need to make your measurements. Follow the instructions very carefully and make sure your home is completely quiet. Your speakers will play a series of sweeps to determine how they sound in your room. When done, DIRAC will show you the response curve for your speakers, from 20 Hz to 20kHz. Here you can see how they behave in your room. You can see how deep they go in the bass and where the subwoofer takes over. You will in all likelihood see some highs and lows in the curve, and they are just exactly why we do this. The rest of the curve should be relatively smooth, but there may also be highlights in the treble range. Don’t worry, this is where Target Curve comes into the picture! DIRAC will calculate a smooth response curve based on your measurements. You will see an unchanged curve and a corrected curve. Most highs and lows should be smoothed out, and generally, the curve should be very smooth. Since it is much easier for the amplifier to turn down for highs than it is to turn up for lows, you will still see some lows in the corrected curve.
When you press “Next”, you can save this profile in your amplifier. Now you can hear the result!
YOU CAN KEEP ADJUSTING
There is a pretty high probability that you will find the result a bit… unspectacular. And you’re right. Dirac’s Target Curve is very linear. Objectively speaking, it’s perfect, but it’s not the way most people like to hear their music. Therefore, NAD has developed its own curve that you can download from its website. It turns up the bass by about 4 dB, which gives a much more lively and warm sound. Upload this profile to your amplifier, and listen for yourself. Satisfied? Fantastic! Then you have officially corrected your hi-fi system for your room.
But the concept behind Dirac is that you can play around and adjust indefinitely until you are completely satisfied. You can switch back and forth between different profiles. You can drag the frequency curve so that it is exactly as you want it. So if you take the NAD curve as a starting point, you can screw up the bass by 8dB or even 10! If you want, you can turn down the treble a bit for a softer, more relaxed sound. There is nothing right or wrong when it comes to Dirac.
An important factor is the “curtains” that set the frequencies at which Dirac takes hold. Most problems occur in the bass, and this is where room correction is most effective. But from 300 Hz and up, some corrections can create more problems than they solve. In most rooms, Dirac can significantly improve the stereo image, and the sound will be clearer and more relaxed. But because our ears are so sensitive in the middle and high-frequency range, you might feel that the sound loses some of its naturalness. You can solve this by adjusting the “curtains” so that Dirac corrects the bass frequencies, but not other frequencies. You can save several different profiles on your amplifier, so you can easily compare “curtain” settings and curves and find the setting you like best. Listen to your corrected system for a few days and make the adjustments you think are necessary. The difference between Dirac turned on or off is amazing – in every room!
ROOM PERFECT
While Dirac is great because it lets you change the sound of your system exactly to suit you, Lyngdorf’s RoomPerfect does the exact opposite. You follow the instructions on the amplifier, and when you are done, the sound is phenomenal. It’s not called Room Perfect for nothing!
It takes much less time to get to know RoomPerfect, but therefore we can still give some tips and tricks. room perfect was developed by Lyngdorf to completely remove the room’s acoustics from the equation without damaging the signal in any way. In addition, it should be super easy to use.
room perfect works with its own microphone that comes with all Lyngdorf amplifiers. You even get a microphone stand in the box! room perfect will ask you to place the microphone at your listening position at ear level. Your system will now play a loud sound that contains all the frequencies in a signal. It’s very similar to the way your speakers play music. When the first measurement is complete, place the microphone in random places in your room. When you do, RoomPerfect will learn how your speakers interact with your room. It shows a Room Knowledge Percentage, and when it hits 100, new measurements do not add much more knowledge about the room. However, you can still make the sound tighter with additional measurements.
You can change the way RoomPerfect sounds by measuring strategically instead of randomly. For example, you can choose to measure only in the area you are listening from. That way, RoomPerfect does not include the entire room in its calculations if you are only sitting in a certain corner when listening to music. You need to measure your listening space, not the kitchen twelve feet away. It also helps to measure in line with reflection points as they will have a big effect on the clarity of the sound. If you place the microphone close to a wall or in a corner, it picks up more bass, and RoomPerfect will end up with a thinner, tighter bass. If you prefer a bit more liveliness and warmth in the bass, you should measure at least a meter away from walls and corners.
When you are done, your Lyngdorf amplifier will calculate an audio profile that gets the most out of your speakers and your room. Listen to it for a few days to find out if you like it. You can always make a new measurement, with new measurement points, and see what it does to the sound.
SEE YOU AT THE HIFI CLUB
Now you’re done! You have carefully placed your speakers, listened, adjusted, listened, made room correction, and listened again. Your system has never sounded better and you are going to love it more with each passing day. There’s a good chance your adventures with hi-fi will not stop here! You will still make small adjustments long after you set up your system for the first time. It’s all part of this amazing hobby. Remember that the HiFi Club is ready to help and we would love to hear questions about setting up your system! Visit us at the nearest store.
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