Got the basics, now need to get to grips with the technical stuff!

[Moonfly]

As per title really, Ive got the 2D graphs clocked and can make adjustments for that. I'd like to fully understand the rest of the program now but I'm going to need help I think. I dont get what the waterfalls are all about, I know its time domain stuff but thats about as far as my understanding goes.

Basically I want to be able to understand waterfalls and spectral graphs and all that, and be able to make adjustments that will improve these results to ensure I'm getting the very best out of what I have.

FYI I have a single band PEQ on the sub, as well as variable phase and a couple other things I can do. I'm looking at stand alone EQ devices but would like to make sure I really need one before I consider actually adding one to my kit list.

Cheers for any advice.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Waterfalls show low frequency "ringing," which is the time it takes for the signal to decay (i.e. fade away). They will identify room modes (if you have any) and show what effect treatments like bass traps have on the decay time.

Regards,
Wayne

[Moonfly]

But how do I interpret what the graph is showing me, and same for the spectral decay chart.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

It's a little tough to give a succinct explanation on waterfalls. If your graph has roughly a 75 dB level and pretty much fades away by 300 ms, that's pretty good. If it's droning out to 600 ms, that's not so great.

A room mode is identified by the horizontal lines being spaced much tighter than the rest of the graph. Typically a mode will be a sharp peak in response, but not every peak is a mode - e.g., the line spacing will be about the same as everything else for peaks that aren't modes.

If you see something at a low level that appears to "break out" of the waterfall and never fades out, that's usually background noise of some kind, like noise from an electric motor (refrigerator, washing machine, etc.). Often you seen things like this at 60 Hz and harmonics of 60 Hz (i.e., one octave up or down).

You might also search "waterfall" and sift through the threads to see some examples and what has been discussed about them.

Can't tell you anything about spectral decays - maybe someone else can.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Wayne