[reter]

I’ve started experimenting with room measurements using the UMIK-1. I’ve found that the sensitivity is quite low for my normal listening volume. I am getting headroom readings in the 30db range. Are the results more useable if the digital gain in windows is turned up or is it ok to use the recordings as is? I have it set for 0db.

this is something i'm wondering since i bought the umik, i have to set the virtual gain up to maximum to get low headroom but in that case i can hear a lot of background noise, i don't really think it's very helpful without a proper amp

 

[Joe Bloggs]

this is something i'm wondering since i bought the umik, i have to set the virtual gain up to maximum to get low headroom but in that case i can hear a lot of background noise, i don't really think it's very helpful without a proper amp

How loud have you guys got the speakers playing the test sweeps?

 

[simplefi]

How loud have you guys got the speakers playing the test sweeps?

I have it set to the loudest I would listen to actual music. I went ahead and just did the measurements at 0db gain and it still worked out. The windows gain is digital anyway so there is nothing to gain (no pun intended) from using it.

 

[jaakkopasanen]

No need to worry about the headroom so much. The primary function of it is to tell you if you have clipping in your recording and that the signal is not crazy quiet.

 

[morgin]

Hi everyone it’s been a while. I once again want to thank @jaakkopasanen for impulcifer it’s soo good and I cannot watch movies or game without it. You saved me a lot of money on a high end surround system and I can use it at night without disturbing anyone. I am truly very grateful.

I posted a while ago that I’m using headphone compensation in impulcifer as in the tutorial. Then I experimented by extracting the headphone compensation from impulcifer and generated a .txt file to also use in hesuvi virtualisation (instead of using oratory’s). It works wonders giving twice as much clarity in virtual speakers and effect of having speakers. I wanted to try and somehow add it a third time if anyone knows a way of doing that. Maybe add it in eqapo (though hesuvi is just and interface for eqapo) any help would be appreciated.

 

[musicreo]

I wanted to try and somehow add it a third time if anyone knows a way of doing that. Maybe add it in eqapo (though hesuvi is just and interface for eqapo) any help would be appreciated.

You could repeat the EQ settings in the EQ-APO configuration editor as many times you want. But I think it is same as increasing the amplification factors by the factor two or three. For me it is not reasonable to just repeat the filter settings several times.

 

[morgin]

Thanks for the reply.

Another question that I’m stuck on and been searching but can’t find a concrete answer. For watching surround sound movies with mpc hc and madvr do I choose bitstream or pcm?

 

[musicreo]

Bitstream should not work with EQ-APO.

 

[morgin]

Bitstream should not work with EQ-APO.

Is there anyway to use bitstream with impulcifer. I’m reading it’s better for surround sound

 

[castleofargh]

That’s relevant when you output a specific multichannel format to a multichannel system that can decode that particular format. The idea is that you keep the signal as is without trying to "understand" it because some specific device further down the chain is compatible with it(be it Dolby something or DTS something else) so you want that device to do the decoding and not your DVD player or your video app on the computer. Not because bitstream is better but because we assume that the device further down the chain will do the decoding better.
Bitstream is a fancy word for "don't touch that". It's nothing miraculous and it doesn't improve anything.
But here with impulcifer you’re sending the audio to be convolved and mixed down to stereo(the speaker simulation part) before it even gets out of the computer, you do want to touch that! Your video player must decode the audio of special multichannel formats beforehand or the convolution app won't know what to do with it.

 

[morgin]

That’s relevant when you output a specific multichannel format to a multichannel system that can decode that particular format. The idea is that you keep the signal as is without trying to "understand" it because some specific device further down the chain is compatible with it(be it Dolby something or DTS something else) so you want that device to do the decoding and not your DVD player or your video app on the computer. Not because bitstream is better but because we assume that the device further down the chain will do the decoding better.
Bitstream is a fancy word for "don't touch that". It's nothing miraculous and it doesn't improve anything.
But here with impulcifer you’re sending the audio to be convolved and mixed down to stereo(the speaker simulation part) before it even gets out of the computer, you do want to touch that! Your video player must decode the audio of special multichannel formats beforehand or the convolution app won't know what to do with it.

Beautifully put because I understood what you wrote. Thankyou

 

[Xam198]

Moreover, mpc-hc allows to have 2 audio outputs. I have an EMU 1820 card, I use it for Hesuvi, and I use the sound card built into the motherboard to send the 5.1 bass channel to an amp connected to a Clark synthesis TS209. A very big thank you to jaakkopasanen, he saved my passion for homecinema - and my good relations with my neighbors.

 

[reter]

No need to worry about the headroom so much. The primary function of it is to tell you if you have clipping in your recording and that the signal is not crazy quiet.

yeah, actually i found out that i get better results if i lower my Master Series mics to like 50% of the overall gain in windows, in that case i'm getting high headroom but also better results... or maybe results that fits better for my hearing taste?

everytime i'm in the recording phase i'm asking myself how to get the best spacial effect but also the best clarity and neutral sounding (something like a studio recording)? and so i lower the gain to get that feeling, i tried the umik but i found that when i try to correct the reverb the sounding gets less "clear" and more muffled, so actually my only way to go for me is lowering the mics sensitivity in windows

 

[Sekka]

yeah, actually i found out that i get better results if i lower my Master Series mics to like 50% of the overall gain in windows, in that case i'm getting high headroom but also better results... or maybe results that fits better for my hearing taste?

everytime i'm in the recording phase i'm asking myself how to get the best spacial effect but also the best clarity and neutral sounding (something like a studio recording)? and so i lower the gain to get that feeling, i tried the umik but i found that when i try to correct the reverb the sounding gets less "clear" and more muffled, so actually my only way to go for me is lowering the mics sensitivity in windows

My best tip is to listen to your best raw FL/FR/BL/BR (etc).wav recordings with virtualization disabled. Any clicks, pops, squeaks, shaking furniture, or just general distortion you hear in the recordings will likely show up to some degree in the resulting hrir. I found that I had the best results from having both my speakers and mics at a low gain (lower than listening volume for speakers), then using Audacity noise reduction to completely remove the noise from each recording. My headroom was always 20-25 dB in the best recordings.

Also, unless you have very symmetrical ears, a matching ITD measurement in readme.md is a much better indication of a balanced recording than the speaker plot. You can compensate for a mismatched ITD with channel balance, but personally any sort of channel balance completely ruined the realism of my recordings. Also helped me to adjust decay to the lowest value present in the readme, significantly differing decay between speakers can also lead to an unbalanced sound since you would perceive one speaker as being further away. For me that was 315 ms RT60 so I set my --decay paramater to 315.

I never did get a frequency response perfectly matching that of my speakers even after 1000+ recordings and I'm not even sure it's possible, but I was only trying to match the spatial characteristics so it doesn't really matter. Room correction should take care of the response, but I just used autoeq and webplot digitizer since I don't own a measurement mic.

 

[morgin]

I was wondering if it’s possible to have a section on this forum that is easily accessible for new comers to read the kind of results we end up achieving rather than them having to read through the whole forum which is huge at this point.

It’s a big ask to get someone to invest in mics, speaker(s), time and effort. Also people look for different things and from what I read on here we are all getting quality results (after some effort) be that in stereo music, surround music, gaming watching movies.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’m asking people to try it out but there are many people countering by saying it won’t be good as the real thing or that just getting expensive audio gear is better and many people are put off.

If we start the forum with a sticky or something similar that newbies can have first access to after an introduction to impulcifer. It should hopefully drive them to try and achieve what we are trying to convey and express.