Hello all. I'm new to this forum and somewhat new to home theater. I have had a good entry level setup for a couple of years now, but here in the past few weeks i've gotten the upgrade bug and i've also decided to start improving response by room calibration, etc. I'll post as I acquire new 'toys' which will be coming over the next couple of weeks (with the exception of full range new speakers). So for now, here is what I'm working with.
Environment: 21'x23.5'x8'-14' vaulted ceiling, which is also open to a 10'x20'x8' kitchen (12' wide opening)
Full Range: F/L: BIC Acoustech HT-88
..................C: BIC Acoustech HT-85
.................RR: BIC Acoustech HT-65
Subwoofer: Current: BIC H100 (poor little fella)
..............On-Order: Two Epik Sentinels
Test Equipment: SPL Meter: RadioShack 33-4050
.......................Laptop w/Internal Soundcard: MacBook MB466LL/A
.......................REW Software Downloaded from here. (THANKS!)
So on to my very first in room Response. I didnt get into moving things around too much since I'll be getting the new receiver today and the new subs probably next week. I mainly wanted a baseline. I would also like Opinions from those that have done this before on the kind of in room listening position response I'm getting.
So first, Here is the response that my sound card provides:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2615/4058422618_1b208755f3_o.jpg
I was SHOCKED at how well it performs... so much so, that I restarted the computer, cleared any calibration files and ran it again... got the same plot. Time to take measurements.
SUB Only. I moved the sub to a couple of locations, but the best response I got was in the same corner that I had it originally in, only rotated 90Deg to fire down the front wall instead of the side wall. I also used the soundcard calibration file and I loaded in the calibration file for the RS Meter that was also downloaded from here. Hopefully I was correct in using both of these Cal files. Here is the response:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2640/4057683031_b99febd0ae_o.jpg
I'm no expert, but this didnt really seem all that bad especially considering the caliber of subwoofer (~$250 range) and the large room it had to fill. I'm up about 10dB at around 55-65Hz and a few other smaller peaks and nulls. On another little side test, I played several bass heavy tracks to try and get a max SPL reading and on average I would get around 106dB max at around 12ft away from the sub. I didnt measure this distance, just a guess but I can measure it. I will also load up some pics of the room later.
After the sub measurement, I reconnected the towers. I took a few measurements, adjusting the Bass and Treble tones in between to try and level out the response as much as possible. Here is the end result:
No Smoothing (YIKES!):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/4058422554_ddc15a76f8_o.jpg
1/24 Smoothing:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2439/4058422478_5de2030bae_o.jpg
Again, I'm no expert, but this one was pretty disappointing to me. I've got what appears to be +/- 15dB from 50Hz up to like 15kHz, then it just drops off. This is where I think the new receiver might help tremendously with bult-in MultEQ, time delay/phase correction, etc.
EDIT: I'm not sure why the pics arn't showing up. I copied the links to them so you can at least click to see. I used the IMG tags, maybe they'll start showing up later. Or if a moderator could fix it and let me know what I did wrong?
Environment: 21'x23.5'x8'-14' vaulted ceiling, which is also open to a 10'x20'x8' kitchen (12' wide opening)
Full Range: F/L: BIC Acoustech HT-88
..................C: BIC Acoustech HT-85
.................RR: BIC Acoustech HT-65
Subwoofer: Current: BIC H100 (poor little fella)
..............On-Order: Two Epik Sentinels
Test Equipment: SPL Meter: RadioShack 33-4050
.......................Laptop w/Internal Soundcard: MacBook MB466LL/A
.......................REW Software Downloaded from here. (THANKS!)
So on to my very first in room Response. I didnt get into moving things around too much since I'll be getting the new receiver today and the new subs probably next week. I mainly wanted a baseline. I would also like Opinions from those that have done this before on the kind of in room listening position response I'm getting.
So first, Here is the response that my sound card provides:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2615/4058422618_1b208755f3_o.jpg
I was SHOCKED at how well it performs... so much so, that I restarted the computer, cleared any calibration files and ran it again... got the same plot. Time to take measurements.
SUB Only. I moved the sub to a couple of locations, but the best response I got was in the same corner that I had it originally in, only rotated 90Deg to fire down the front wall instead of the side wall. I also used the soundcard calibration file and I loaded in the calibration file for the RS Meter that was also downloaded from here. Hopefully I was correct in using both of these Cal files. Here is the response:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2640/4057683031_b99febd0ae_o.jpg
I'm no expert, but this didnt really seem all that bad especially considering the caliber of subwoofer (~$250 range) and the large room it had to fill. I'm up about 10dB at around 55-65Hz and a few other smaller peaks and nulls. On another little side test, I played several bass heavy tracks to try and get a max SPL reading and on average I would get around 106dB max at around 12ft away from the sub. I didnt measure this distance, just a guess but I can measure it. I will also load up some pics of the room later.
After the sub measurement, I reconnected the towers. I took a few measurements, adjusting the Bass and Treble tones in between to try and level out the response as much as possible. Here is the end result:
No Smoothing (YIKES!):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/4058422554_ddc15a76f8_o.jpg
1/24 Smoothing:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2439/4058422478_5de2030bae_o.jpg
Again, I'm no expert, but this one was pretty disappointing to me. I've got what appears to be +/- 15dB from 50Hz up to like 15kHz, then it just drops off. This is where I think the new receiver might help tremendously with bult-in MultEQ, time delay/phase correction, etc.
EDIT: I'm not sure why the pics arn't showing up. I copied the links to them so you can at least click to see. I used the IMG tags, maybe they'll start showing up later. Or if a moderator could fix it and let me know what I did wrong?