Popular Post Keith_W Posted April 2, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted April 2, 2018 I have been using Acourate for slightly more than two years now, and I think I know enough about this software to write an honest review. If you can't be bothered to read the entire review, this is it in a nutshell: it offers unprecedented power, allows you to do nearly anything you can think of, but is severely limited by pointless interface issues that slows you down and makes learning it difficult. There is almost zero automation, and doing simple tasks requires multiple repetitive actions that you have to perform over and over again. I will not go over what Acourate can do because it has been covered by Mitchco here and by Archimago here. Suffice to say it offers everything that I can certainly think of - crossover generation, individual driver correction, driver time alignment, IACC measurement, pre-ringing compensation, and overall room correction. There are even some people who have used Acourate to create a virtual double bass array (also see Red Spade Audio description here). What you can do with this package is only limited by your skill and the computing power you have available. If you use a third party convolution engine like HQPlayer, it is possible to "max out" the settings by using a 192kHz .WAV file, convolve in DSD512, use very long FIR filters, and do it in 8 channels. My PC (which was no slouch at the time it was built) isn't powerful enough to run all the settings maxed out unfortunately. All the reviews I have read so far are typical of audio reviews - they are universally glowing, and very rarely point out the shortcomings of the product. Some of these shortcomings can be real dealbreakers (e.g. did you know that Dirac ONLY generates filters in its own proprietary format which can not be exported, so the ONLY convolution engine you can use with Dirac is its own!). Fortunately Acourate allows you to generate filters in .WAV format or its own proprietary .CPV format in a number of sampling frequencies from 44.1kHz all the way up to 192kHz so it doesn't suffer this particular limitation of Dirac. The major problem with Acourate is the interface. One example: creation of a full set of filters requires four steps - 1. Create the basic crossover, 2. Convolve the crossover with your previously measured driver response (if you haven't done this, add another step), 3. Measure pulses and adjust the time delay (you have to do this manually by looking for the peaks yourself), 4. Perform overall room correction. Each of these steps requires creation of a separate folder, copying of the previously generated filters into the new folder, and then you have to change the working directory to point at that folder. Add all this up for an 8 way system and there is a tonne of unnecessary mouse clicks and work. For me to generate a set of new filters takes me a couple of hours easily. I would suggest the author do this: the author of Acourate should realize that most people do not change the configuration of their systems very much once it is in place. For example, if you have a 2 way crossover, you will not be changing this configuration every week (e.g. 2 way this week, 3 way next week and then back to 2 way). When you open your new copy of Acourate, it should invite you to perform a series of individual driver measurements which it can save somewhere safe. This is what most of us do anyway. It can then use all these measurements to generate whatever crossover you want, all you need to do is to specify the details of the crossover. This alone would merge steps (1) and (2) above and save about 30 minutes of opening and closing files, copying into new directories, and so on. Another example: loading pre-saved measurements or crossover curves. You select the radio button that you want to load it into. Then "File - Open", and it opens into the active curve. If you accidentally fail to choose a new radio button, then the newly loaded file will over-write your current curve. It would be much easier if every curve you load automatically opens in a new chart. And if you want to close a chart, you have to select the radio button to activate the chart, then go "Edit - Close". Why not do what other Windows programs do and have an "X" which will close it down immediately? Why is there a limit of 6 charts that can be open at any one time? This limit means that you have to open and close charts multiple times just to create a filter for a single channel. I would suggest that an interface like REW's (where the curves are presented in miniature form in a pane on the left) would be the easiest way to do it. The other problem with Acourate is the lack of automation. If you want to perform time alignment, this is how you do it: - Generate a four way crossover (XO1, XO2, XO3, XO4) - rotate XO1 by 0 samples - rotate XO2 by 1000 samples - rotate XO3 by 2000 samples - rotate XO4 by 3000 samples - perform a measurement sweep - create a dummy XO and rotate XO1 by 0 samples, XO2 by 1000, XO3 by 2000, etc. - Zoom in to sample 0 and note where the measured peak is compared to where it should be. You do this by selecting the sample that you want, then typing in the magnification that you want in the little boxes on the y-scale (it would be far easier if you there was a shortcut, e.g. in photoshop you hold down the ALT key and drag the mouse). Write this down. - Repeat for XO2, XO3, and XO4, but each time with different magnification - Go back and adjust XO1, XO2, XO3, and XO4 by the number of samples that you wrote down earlier. - Repeat all the above steps for the other channel. This procedure takes an hour, easily. We could save an hour by getting the software to perform the rotation and look for the peaks itself rather than requiring human eyes and lots of repetitive effort to do it. My other criticism of Acourate is that it is rather opaque. The menu system does not make sense to me, and some of the menu options are written in engineer's German English (e.g. why use "Project Workspace Definition" when it is easier and clearer to use "Active folder"; or "Rotation" which actually means "Adjust time delay"). This unnecessarily steepens the learning curve. And the last but most important problem: there is no manual. There are other resources (see below) but there is no manual. For all these reasons, Acourate is nearly impossible to use if you are a beginner. When I started using Acourate, I already had some experience creating digital crossovers and using DSP but even with that background I found it impenetrable and was not able to do anything. Even now, having used Acourate for a couple of years, I suspect there is even more functionality that Acourate can provide which I have no idea of because the interface is so obtuse and the labeling is so difficult to understand. Purchase of Mitchco's eBook is mandatory, but I have some criticisms of that book too. The main one is that it does not explain all the options available in Acourate. I suspect there is a lot more that Mitch knows but did not put in the book in order to keep it shorter and more readable. For this reason I have been crossing my fingers and harassing him in PM's for a second edition of the book which alas I feel is not going to happen now because he seems to be more interested in Audiolense these days. Your other option for help with Acourate is to look at the Acourate Wiki, but as far as Wikis go this one is quite incomplete and is nearly as opaquely written as Acourate itself. But if you know what you are looking at, it will fill in some things that Mitch's book does not tell you. Your last resort is to ask Uli himself in his own forum, which is a Yahoo group frequented by a number of other knowledgeable and helpful Acourate users. I have asked many questions on that forum, and I find it genuinely useful and a fantastic resource. Unfortunately, it is a closed forum and you require approval to join. Yahoo groups isn't a great way to communicate and it would be much better if Uli used conventional forum software like VBulletin like everybody else. I think that Uli could spend less time answering questions in that group if the interface were redesigned and he wrote a better manual in the first place. In short: Acourate is an extremely powerful toolbox which is limited by its interface and its insistence on boring, unnecessary, and repetitive tasks that really should be automated or simplified. It takes me hours to generate a new set of filters when I am convinced it could be done in less than half that time if the interface was redesigned. I know that asking for an interface redesign is not a small task, but Uli needs to realize that the interface is creating problems for users by needlessly increasing workload and making navigation difficult. I doubt if he would redesign the interface, so I haven't bothered asking. For this reason I am going to move away from Acourate and try something else. Nikhil and hvbias 2 Link to comment
Keith_W Posted April 3, 2018 Author Share Posted April 3, 2018 Hi Mitch, thanks for posting in this thread. Do you know of any good resources to learn more about DSP besides the book that you wrote? Link to comment
Keith_W Posted May 14, 2018 Author Share Posted May 14, 2018 Come to a halt for now. I am doing some extra work to buy new toys Link to comment
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