Fair enough. I just had a go with a random mic and a pink noise file. I played the file on my streamer, selected “no timing reference” on the measurement settings window and pressed measure. Got the following plot…
I hope I am doing this well but I have no idea to be honest. First result from a Sweep sound that I created.
1MMeasSweep_0_to_20000_-12_dBFS_48k_PCM24_LR_refL
You can apply some smoothing in preferences to make the plot a little less erratic and to make it easier to interpret. I’ve chosen 1/24 octave for my plot above. You’ll need to make another measurement after changing the settings.
Did your UMIK come with a calibration file?
If not, you can get it here… https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1
Nice! That massive peak at 35ish looks like a room mode.
Once you’re happy with the measurement setup, I’d suggest taking one of your speakers out to the garden and taking a measurement (away from any boundaries, calm day etc) which will give you a baseline freq response to aim for when positioning them indoors. REW allows you to overlay plots so it will give you a really good look at the effect of your room once you get them back inside
That will be very tricky since I live in an apartment. I am working on a plan for room treatment which you can find more information on this here:
And also a few posts below the third link.
yep bravo - whether its correct or not I don’t know - but that is exactly what I did and it worked well and was specifically matching to my Naim and other replay equipment this way. Remember hifi equipment adds its own colour and character to the audio as well to a certain degree.
BTW I wouldn’t worry about anything much below 40Hz to 50 Hz or so - it will be full of errors - and no real musical info is there - its more about feeling the sound to reinforce higher harmonics
I say actual deep bass in a musical context is around 70 to 150 Hz, and bass warmth is from about 150Hz to around 350 Hz…
If you have peaks between around 100 to 350 Hz your sound may appear muddy or boomy… with one note bass sounds etc
Which sounded best in your listening room. I suspect red may sound tighter and green slightly more fuller but less punchy
I wonder how much that sub bass peak changes when you change the speaker positions - the mids to upper mids which are in many ways are crucial for musical information and timbres look to be well behaved.
I had a quick look at the pics you posted in the other thread. It looks like your getting major low frequency standing waves because of the size of your room. I think you can enter your room dimensions into REW somewhere and it will calculate your room modes for you. I’d focus on eliminating these before moving on to reflections.
What’s the measurement from your left hand wall to kitchen wall? Also whats measurement from rear wall (behind speakers) to wall behind listening position?
Wavelength of 35ish Hz is ~9.8m and you’ll get excitation at half and cancellation at quarter wavelength. Is you room about 5m wide?
I suspect red may sound tighter and green slightly more fuller but less punchy
Thanks!! I am going to pay attention to that and see which one I prefer
Perhaps this helps?
The sofa is not anymore where it is shown on the floorplan. The sofa was about 120cm from the wall before and it was bass lean. Perhaps this was the bass null?
From wall to wall on the listening position it is 488cm.
OK, so the overall dimensions (4.9m (λ/2), 11.94m (probably around 10m (λ) taking into account the return by the door)) do roughly look like they are, at least in part, the cause of your problem. I think your assessment from the other thread that you install treatment behind speakers/tv and on wall to left of speakers would help. Essentially the effect of the treatment is to lower the speed of sound in the material thus slightly changing the wavelength of the problem frequency and eliminating the standing waves between the parallel walls.
Nice apartment by the way!
The next question is whats causing the dip at 55ish Hz. λ=6.23m so cancellations at 1.56m and 4.68m
Thanks! I’m very happy with the way I designed the place so I would like to treat the room with minimal derogation (hope that is the correct wording) of the design. The faux wall and acoustic paintings on the left wall seem to be the best way forward for this. As I hate the looks of those standard acoustic panels as bulbs on the wall.
4.68m is roughly where my head is and where I measured the listening position with the sofa close to the wall I believe.
Actually that is not correct, my ears are about 44 cm from the wall
Perhaps a combination of distance from speakers to wall and listening position. Or perhaps floor to ceiling?
I just came across this bit of info… Speaker Placement 101: How to Fight Boundary Interference
Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that the walls are not parallel as you can see in the floorplan.
That possibly means that the current listening position is the only spot that has that dip. Moving speakers slightly would prob solve that issue completely
I can try to do that tomorrow and take a few more measurements to see if it solves anything.
Your advice is super helpful. Thank you so much already for supporting on this since REW and measuring the room is completely new to me