Measurements, EQ, and what we actually hear

[James]

Hi Alleric,

Thanks - I actually went ahead and got a mic and REW. Short version - it's very interesting, many of the things it found I had already heard, but not all of them, and it improved the system in audible ways.

We had some corner bass traps before, and the speaker positioning was very good, based on years of moving/listening/using a test CD/repeat.

I used the old B&K house curve, based on theoretical and audible grounds, after a lot of experimenting with others, like Bob Katz and Harman. The simpler implementation with fewer points worked better than a more complex one:

20 Hz 0, 200 Hz -0.5, 2000 Hz -3.0, 20000 Hz -6.0

None of the corrections were very wide bandwidth and the cuts weren't very large, confirming my sense that our system and the speakers were already very very good.

There are a couple of things REW didn't measure (I'm not sure why) so I'm doing some final tinkering by ear with those.

With the Behringer equalizer on, there is a very slight decrease in sound quality generally, but it's really only noticeable in direct comparisons - kind of a more crystalline sound, a bit harder and cooler. And the improvements in frequency response outweigh that downside.

It was fascinating/fun/frustrating/confusing, and ultimately very satisfying.