New loudspeakers & room digital correction service

[jamesg11]

On 6/4/2020 at 9:43 AM, rbaker said:

First point is I have a 10’x11’x10’ dedicated listening room. Not ideal.  I run Magnepan MMGs, Schiit amp, pre and dac and a REL T5i sub.

Similar room size here, though I can open large sliding doors behind the listening position into the rest of the house.

 

What about speaker positions - maggies & sub? How did you optimise this before measurements? Did Thierry suggest anything for that?

[rbaker]

1 hour ago, jamesg11 said:

Similar room size here, though I can open large sliding doors behind the listening position into the rest of the house.

 

What about speaker positions - maggies & sub? How did you optimise this before measurements? Did Thierry suggest anything for that?

I had my setup in what I found to be the best position before I sent the files to Thierry. I didn’t ask for setup advice but I did tell him what I was working with. The maggies are tricky to position and the distance from the front wall (37”) and toe-in took about 6 months of listening and adjusting. At this point the sound doesn’t come from the speakers but from behind and across. The imaging only slightly improved with the filters with better integration of the upper frequencies. The sub ended up between the speakers vs REL’s recommendation of a corner. I tried for the lowest crossover frequency and the least amount of gain. Thierry took out a room mode/node. The opening you have Into another room should help.

[jamesg11]

Thanks for this. Yes, I’ve been tinkering mainly with position of 2x subs - they’re now almost beside the front Elacs. I keep wondering if Thierry’s adjustments - when I bite that bullet! - might work better with the subs elsewhere ...

[fresponse]

Hi all,

 

I just published a video to make Room Shaper plugin effect more tangible for anyone

 

 

 

Thierry

[R1200CL]

@fresponse and @agillis

How is implementation with the Sonicorbitter progressing?

 

Unless direct into Roon will be an option?

[agillis]

Looks like this is Mac or Windows only. Not sure how it could be used with sonicorbiter.

[agillis]

But it seems like once you generated the filters they could be loaded onto a sonicTransporter.

[fresponse]

Room Shaper is an audio plugin, so a piece of software that is inserted into the audio reproduction chain to modify the digital signal. The processing is different from filtering and so can't be converted into filters.

 

You can use Room Shaper directly with audio players like Audirvana, JRiver and Foobar as they accept external DSP plugins (the processing is quite demanding so a computer based solution is required - like a server / player configuration)

 

Roon is not offering the option to load external DSP modules but there are some different workarounds for Mac or Windows,

 

Thierry

 

[R1200CL]

On 6/17/2020 at 7:48 PM, agillis said:

Looks like this is Mac or Windows only. Not sure how it could be used with sonicorbiter.

I hope you and @fresponse are able to find a solution and adding this audio plugin to SonicTransporter. Maybe even @Miska can help, if he where interested in offering this as a service, or assist with his knowledge and support SGC ? 

I have no idea how much work it will be to offer an external DSP module into either SonicTransporter and/or HQPlayer embedded. 

Maybe the SonicTransporter isn’t powerful enough? 

 

(Filters by HAF is already working with either HQPLAYER or Roon itself using the SonicTransporter, as you indicated). 
 

@fresponse

The reason for this request is of cause to avoid another computer into the digital playback chain. 
 

If for some reason it is impossible to use the SonicTransporter with Roon (and HQPlayer embedded) for the task, will then an extra NUC running Windows solve this, or is it basically meant to be used those specific audio players that’s accept external DSP modules ? (And the exclude Roon). 

 

 

[fresponse]

Yes, the easiest solution would be an integration of my algorithm directly into Roon or HQP... and an i5 CPU is powerful enough to run Room Shaper plugin.

 

As workaround, you can use an extra NUC in your network using this topology :

 

Roon -> network streaming using the squeebox/UPnP tool -> NUC running Room Shaper plugin with Foobar has host -> UPnP network streaming -> renderer (endpoint)

 

Not really straightforward... but you can contact me to get the detailed procedure if you want to make a test.

 

 

 

 

 

[fresponse]

Hi all, 

 

As mentioned in the Room Shaper review article discussion, the procedure and required files to set-up a VST plugin host for network based systems is available here

 

I have developed a tool to perform headphones equalization using the equal loudness method promoted by David Griesinger and it can be downloaded for free here

It make the perfect companion for Soundstage shaper plugin...

[fresponse]

Hi all,

 

I took benefit of the new lock down in France to update Room Shaper with a simple visualization of frequencies where the algorithm is active.

The updated versions are available here

 

Stay safe !

[fresponse]

Hi all,

 

I am happy to announce upgrades and new stuff on the plugins side :

• Room Shaper : I have continued my quest for the perfect tool to solve low&mid frequencies room issues. While the original version was focused on the resonances decay time issues, the new version is adding a correction for the onset side. I call it "impact" correction as it brings back the controlled punch we can have in very good listening conditions. I have added a new graph to show how much your room has perceptual issues. The plugin is available here

• Soundstage Shaper : the beta testing phase discussed in this thread came to a positive end and the new plugin and its configuration tool are available here

 

And finally, a new tool to smartly compensate for hearing loss (linked to age or specific disease) Discussed in this thread and available here

 

Cheers,

Thierry

[Panomaniac]

I was lucky enough to try the Beta of Thierry's Soundstage Shaper.  I like it.

Headphones are something I use, but don't really like, they seem very artificial to me.  Over the years I've tried every headphone plugin and process I could find, from passive circuits to Dolby, DTS, JRiver, my own DSP experiments, HRTF and anything a Google search would turn up.  None of them lasted long term for me, they always got old and just didn't feel right.

 

Soundstage Shaper is different.  It's subtle, but desirable.  The goal is to place different frequency ranges in the same virtual space, left-center-right.  Headphones can alter that space in surprising ways - more than I expected.  Calibration of the plugin is a two step process and I did not understand the first step on my first try.  Once that was in place, the rest was easy.  I did setups for several different headphones.

 

What does it sound like?  More natural than the normal headphone space.  The sound moves out of the headphones some, but it never gave me that complete "out of the head" virtualization like the Smyth Realizer does.  But the improvement was welcome and certainly resulted in lower listening fatigue and more musical enjoyment.  It simply sounds more natural than headphones straight up, and it leads me to listen longer.  Bottom line, it's the only headphone process or plugin that I've kept using past a week or so.

 

No, I don't know Thierry and have no involvement other than a beta test.   But when an audio plugin works this well for me, I'm not shy about saying so. :)   FWIW - Some of you may know me over at diyaudio.com under the name Pano.  

[Bill Brown]

Thank you for the great report @Panomaniac.  I, too, have tried many, many solutions, Can Opener being my favorite, but after fiddling and fiddling, thinking I have it right, I eventually go back to plain listening.

 

I will have to give this a try!

 

Bill

[LarryMagoo]

Great to hear Thierry has something new to try.   I just really love his filters both Regular and Crosstalk!!    The bottom end in my system sounds so good and as I like to say 'plays nice with the rest of the FR"!   I have stereo Subs and with Thierry's help made them seamlessly fit well together with my main towers!

 

This makes me want to send Thierry some new measurements  since I have changed a couple things around. 

 

Can the Soundstage Shaper and the Room Shaper be used separately or together?

[Panomaniac]

Hey Bill Brown.  The quest for a natural headphone sound has been long and tiring, sometimes frustrating.

The Soundstage Shaper is odd, at least to me.  It fixes a problem that had never even occurred to me that it existed.  If you run thru the calibration you will hear what I mean - not all frequency bands sound like they are coming from the same direction!  Some of that shift seems to be head/ear dependent, and some of it headphone dependent. The plugin fixes the oddball offset of some frequency ranges.  I find the result just plain easier to listen to.

[fresponse]

Hello @LarryMagoo Yes you can use plugins separately or combined (the only limitation can be processing power)

[LarryMagoo]

8 hours ago, fresponse said:

Hello @LarryMagoo Yes you can use plugins separately or combined (the only limitation can be processing power)

Thanks for the reply!    Do theses get installed in Roon like your other filters do?    My Roon streamer is a  dedicated MAC Mini with an 2.6KHz i7 with 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD to play from.     So I should be good.

 

Thanks Thierry!!! 

[fresponse]

As Roon is not accepting third party plugins, you still need to use one of the workarounds I have listed here

[LarryMagoo]

I install Thierry's Filters as convolutions in Roon now.   I also have a DDC in the chain between my MAC Mini and my DAC.  It changes the USB signal to an AES signal for input in to my DAC.   So then how would that work?

 

Thanks!

[fresponse]

You need to do all processing in your Mac mini and use one of the options listed in the "My DAC is connected to my computer via USB" chapter

[Bill Brown]

Ugh.  I hate to confess to being a computer simpleton, but I must.  I am trying to get going with Soundstage Shaper.  I have a long history using an EQ Audio Unit plugin with Audirvana for headphone listening, but I am very frustrated that I can't get any plugin to run in the latest (non-studio) Audirvana.

 

I am working through the calibration.  Interesting.  I think I got the standalone version going at one point, and it was promising!

 

Saving the calibration results in a ".dat" file.  All of my other AU presets are ".aupreset" and ".dat" is not recognized?

I own and tried AudioHijack, but it doesn't access presets like DAWs, they are all local to the program?  Is it possible to get the calibration "into" these programs?

I downloaded Soundsource and it seems even more limited with preset functionality.

 

Still wanting to hear it, I went the standalone app route, hoping to try Swinsian to app.  Using your Roon page and lots of other pages on multioutput/aggregate devices as a guide I tried BlackHole, Loopback. I can't figure out what I am doing.  Maybe had it going at one point?  Not sure.  Sample rates seemed a problem?  Something else caused a crash?

 

Sorry to be a pain.  I sure do wish I hadn't lost plugin capability with Audirvana, that would be my preferred route.

 

Bill

[fresponse]

Hello @Bill Brown

 

The configuration file you get with the configuration tool has a specific format as it can only be used by Soundstage Shaper.

 

I don't fully understand why you can't use any plugin with Audirvana ? don't hesitate to email me ([email protected]) if I can support you for the standalone version

 

 

[Bill Brown]

Thank you for responding.  If the configuration tool produces a specific format, how is the calibration put into the AU plugin in an AU host?

 

I am not sure why plugins aren't working in Audirvana.  It has been off and on historically, based on looking at their forum.  Strangely, I never had difficulty until lately.  I can load them, but if attempt to control in real-time the track begins to load then stops.  If real-time control is disabled the tracks load and play, but the AUs have no effect (Apple's, anybody's).  I have been reluctant to bother the developer (I don't use plugins with my main rig) as he has his hands full with the release of Studio.  I have been tempted to try Studio, but don't stream, so not sure I will.

 

Thank you for offering to help.  I will reach out to you.  I need to begin using your products :).

 

Bill