Why tune your system with exotic cables rather than DSP room correction and equalization?

[mansr]

18 hours ago, miguelito said:

As a side note, my home theater amp is a Marantz SR6008, pretty well rated. I don't use any fancy cables on it, and the speakers are 5.1 Orbs. I run it's DSP engine many times. The resulting sound is flat and boring. I always end up tuning it by ear (starting from the flat and boring calibrated sound).

 

The SR6008 has Audyssey MultEQ XT room correction. The more advanced XT32 used in the current top Marantz models sounds much better.

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Understood. And related to this: the amps out of the Marantz are decent but running some old Adcom 535ii (three of them, out of the pre outs) sounds massively better even when running the tiny Orbs. My point is DSP cannot give you more power headroom. 

Obviously DSP can't fix an under-powered amp. I'm using an external power amp (also Marantz) for the front left/right channels with my SR7010. I'm not sure it makes any real improvement, but since it has the theoretical potential to do so, I'm leaving it.

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, miguelito said:

SR6008 vs Adcom 535ii: massive difference in effortlessness and dynamic range. I did many A/B tests, and wanted to avoid setting them up as they take space and power. And these are 60W/ch amps (designed by Nelson Pass when he was less famous).

Everything in our systems is different, so I suppose it's hard to reach any solid conclusions.

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

vocabulary is always difficult for explaining sensory impressions - I'd put hearing as easier than say wine tasting tho

Funny you should say that. Wine tasting is another thing I quite enjoy without believing in much of the BS.

[mansr]

3 hours ago, esldude said:

Very few room correction users or makers shoot for flat response in room.  It is too bright.  Almost everyone has a downward sloping target curve for in room response.

 

This is strange, IMO. It would make more sense to have a flat response from the reproduction system and master the recordings with whatever curve sounds best.

[mansr]

41 minutes ago, Jud said:

But then (1) speaker manufacturers would have a greater problem trying to achieve greater response at higher frequencies, and balance this with midrange response; and (2) people with less than usually responsive rooms at higher frequencies would have more work to do.

 

I suppose I favor allowing individuals to tailor response to suit them, and in general trying not to impose decisions before that point.

That would make sense if speakers were designed towards a standard target response other than flat. In actuality, manufacturers seem to be aiming for wildly varying "house" sounds. I don't see how having a standard baseline would prevent people doing whatever want.

[mansr]

2 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Are they aiming?  Or is a 'house sound' simply a side-effect of a designer's focus on solving a particular problem with speakers?

Same thing, to an extent. If a designer chooses horns, say, it is probably because he favours their characteristics.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Though house sound doesn't always equate to frequency response curves.

What is it if not?

[mansr]

23 minutes ago, Jud said:

Right.  The fact that people have so very many different ideas about what sounds right is why I would prefer a solution that left these sorts of changes to the end user rather than imposing the same non-flat uniform response curve on everyone at the recording end.

The recordings have to be made to some common standard. Otherwise how will you be able choose your preferred response?

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, crenca said:

I suspect that for everybody but start-ups, house sound is one of the most important requirements from any new products and is very intentionally designed in.

You're probably right. However, an established house sound may in part be the result of a designer originally choosing a technology based on arbitrary philosophical ideas about how things ought to be rather than how they actually are, e.g. "tubes are inherently superior to transistors."