jk6661
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2011
- Posts
- 121
- Likes
- 53
I thought about that but wasn’t sure why it would make a difference.
Smyth Research Realiser A16
Have you previously used your Sony player to bitstream AV signals to a Dolby Atmos capable decoder (AV receiver or soundbar)?
audiohobbit
500+ Head-Fier
I used my Audeze LCD2 with the A8 as well as with the A16 and made auto HPEQs for both of them and never had any problems. So I think the magnetic field of the LCD2 at least is not a problem for the in ear mics.
So "manLOUD without HPEQ" is a bit of a contradiction.
I think you mean you did manLOUD based on a flat curve, not the auto HPEQ curve.
If you do manLOUD for a PRIR that is not made with your own ears (which could be calles BRIR; and I think you were talking about that) then I always recommend using a flat curve as a basis, because the auto EQ curve doesn't make much sense here imo.
If you have a PRIR made with your own ears you use auto HPEQ to flatten the response of the HP, so to not alter the signal that is delivered to your ears (that was measured by in ear mics in the PRIR process) by the HP characteristics.
However, since the in ear mics block the ear canal and prohibit the ear canal resonance that normally occurs when a signal enters your inner ear, you could use manLOUD to improve the PRIR/autoHPEQ combination, then you would use the autoHPEQ curve as a basis for the manLOUD process.
Third application for manLOUD is when you can't use in ear mics, that is with in ear headphones for example. I use in ear headphones because they give me the ultimate feeling of having no headphone at all on my head plus in ears don't have any problems with heavy bass signals from movies, which I had with all other over-ear type headphones, even with the LCD2, even they start to distort heavily when playing louder cinema like bass from movies.
with the manLOUD for In-Ears I also use the flat curve as a basis.
I use pink noise from a Tes CD and a spectrum analyzer (FFT) software to measure the freq response at the HP output.
I always wanted to do a reals impulse response measurement (with REW) but didn't have time for it yet.
Just to clarify: HPEQ means Headphone Equalizing. There are three methods of HPEQ in the A16: auto, man(ual)Loud(ness) and man(ual)Sp(ea)kr.
So "manLOUD without HPEQ" is a bit of a contradiction.
I think you mean you did manLOUD based on a flat curve, not the auto HPEQ curve.
If you do manLOUD for a PRIR that is not made with your own ears (which could be calles BRIR; and I think you were talking about that) then I always recommend using a flat curve as a basis, because the auto EQ curve doesn't make much sense here imo.
If you have a PRIR made with your own ears you use auto HPEQ to flatten the response of the HP, so to not alter the signal that is delivered to your ears (that was measured by in ear mics in the PRIR process) by the HP characteristics.
However, since the in ear mics block the ear canal and prohibit the ear canal resonance that normally occurs when a signal enters your inner ear, you could use manLOUD to improve the PRIR/autoHPEQ combination, then you would use the autoHPEQ curve as a basis for the manLOUD process.
Third application for manLOUD is when you can't use in ear mics, that is with in ear headphones for example. I use in ear headphones because they give me the ultimate feeling of having no headphone at all on my head plus in ears don't have any problems with heavy bass signals from movies, which I had with all other over-ear type headphones, even with the LCD2, even they start to distort heavily when playing louder cinema like bass from movies.
with the manLOUD for In-Ears I also use the flat curve as a basis.
Can you elaborate a little bit what and how measured the PRIR?
I use pink noise from a Tes CD and a spectrum analyzer (FFT) software to measure the freq response at the HP output.
I always wanted to do a reals impulse response measurement (with REW) but didn't have time for it yet.
You are right, being new to A16, I did not have my terminology nailed down, sorry. I did not use auto, I set it to flat, then loaded the BRIR and then did manLoud.
If my auto HPEQ had worked, I would have tried to do man Loud starting with the autoEQ, even though the PRIR is not my own. I do not see why this would not work. The reason for having auto EQ will be to EQ the headphone to flat thus preventing the headphone from coloring the PRIR/BRIR as PRIR/BRIR is the true response of speakers in a room. Then man Loud is helping EQ the difference between a PRIR and BRIR and takes the HP out of the equation, and helps personalizing BRIR to a PRIR . At least that is what should happen in theory. But given the good results I got just using man Loud, I do not question your observation.
Since both the Headphone and PRIR measurements are done with a blocked ear-canal, the effect of ear canal is for most parts not present in either of those (but likely not completely eliminated) and because we do not use the ear foam to block the ear canal during playback, the effect of ear canal is naturally added. But man Loud will likely help with any differences in perception due to adding the effect of ear canal back (if any) but primarily gets BRIR closer to a PRIR. I have measurments that show that we do get close tonally.
I will post some measurements later and I found this totally by accident. Initially I used REW and my Lynx Hilo to measure, my main intent was to validate the quality of BRIRs and also quality of HPEQ. In REW if the driver is set to Java, then the input and output devices can be changed independently, so I played through A16 USB and then I connected the coax out of A16 into the digital input of Lynx Hilo to measure. However, the downside to this is only L and R channel can be accessed. REW does not support multi channel if ASIO drivers are not used. But with ASIO drivers, both input and output devices must be same (there is a work around using ASIO4All but it can be finicky).
Just for kicks, I switched to ASIO drivers for A16 (I had installed the Windows ASIO driver for A16), and was surprised that A16 also has input (two channels) via USB in ASIO. So it is very easy to measure up to 16 channels via USB using ASIO drivers. To enable USB, A16 needs to have SVS 24Ch turned off. Also A16 does not keep the USB connection alive if I mess around with A16, so I always turn off 24ch, set USB input and restart A16 then do the measurement. If I loose USB, I restart again.
Having access via USB is also useful for other reasons. I am quite used to EQing using REW and sine sweeps and I also validate my EQ using Equalizer APO or Jriver plugin so you can play sine sweeps or band limited pink noise bursts to validate if EQ is OK. I prefer sine sweeps but sine sweeps are tricky with HRTF. Due to crossfeed that is required for HRTF convolution, doing a sine sweep will result in places where the signal gets cancelled and places where they reinforce leading to a comb filter like effect where the fequencies move up and down. Non correlated pink noise works better for this reason when using L+R, alternately using just L or R channels. Center channel instead of L+R can also work because the channel is equidistant from both ears.
Last edited:
Hello,
I'm interested in the Smyth Realiser A16 but a haven't quite understand how to calibrate it and Im not sure if I could manage it when I buy the Smyth Realiser, so I hesitate to buy it. As I understand it, the Smyth Realiser only works satisfactory, if it is calibrated to my ears. But how to do this ? Do I need a surround system with real loudspeakers to calibrate the Smyth Realiser ? I Want to buy the Smyth Realiser to avoid to buy a surround system. (A surround system is to loud for the neighbours, by the way).
So how does the calibration works. Can I put the microphones in my ears and put my Sennheiser HD800 headphones over it and calibrate, or need I real loudspeakers to do so ? Where in the menu of the Smyth Realiser can I start this calibration? Is it called HRTF ?
I'm interested in the Smyth Realiser A16 but a haven't quite understand how to calibrate it and Im not sure if I could manage it when I buy the Smyth Realiser, so I hesitate to buy it. As I understand it, the Smyth Realiser only works satisfactory, if it is calibrated to my ears. But how to do this ? Do I need a surround system with real loudspeakers to calibrate the Smyth Realiser ? I Want to buy the Smyth Realiser to avoid to buy a surround system. (A surround system is to loud for the neighbours, by the way).
So how does the calibration works. Can I put the microphones in my ears and put my Sennheiser HD800 headphones over it and calibrate, or need I real loudspeakers to do so ? Where in the menu of the Smyth Realiser can I start this calibration? Is it called HRTF ?
audiohobbit
500+ Head-Fier
@KMann
Silly question maybe: What does "Sponsor: Audeze" mean exactly? You work for them or are a dealer or?
(I wanted to use the Audeze In-Ears (forgot the model) but unfortunately they were too big for my ear canals! Even with the smallest foam pad they still hurt so much that I couldn't use them.)
Lot of infos, thank you, unfortunately I don't and won't have time to do any experiments with the A16 (and my other eqipment) for the next few months or so.
One intention for measurements was to compare PRIR/HPEQ combinations. I made multiple measurements with respect to repeatability: I put the head to small head rest so that it always be more or less in the same position so that different head positions won't affect the PRIR much. I put the mics in my ears (with my mirror-method using two mirrors, one on the wall and one hand held) and made a PRIR and HPEQ measurement, then I removed the mics and inserted them again and so on, multiple times. I also changed the position of the small hole: It is facing downwards now with the A16 mics and was facing outwards with the A8 mics.
There are opinions on this thread that if you rotate the A16 mics in your ear so that the small hole faces forwards or backwards will improve the sound.
Finally I used the mics from a friend of mine who also has an A16.
I compared the results with the A/B comparison functionality of the A16 and could not hear any major differences, only facing the mics in another direction (forgot which one) made a small difference.
I wanted to take measurements of all those PRIR/HPEQ combinations to see if there are differences but didn't have time yet.
Silly question maybe: What does "Sponsor: Audeze" mean exactly? You work for them or are a dealer or?
(I wanted to use the Audeze In-Ears (forgot the model) but unfortunately they were too big for my ear canals! Even with the smallest foam pad they still hurt so much that I couldn't use them.)
Lot of infos, thank you, unfortunately I don't and won't have time to do any experiments with the A16 (and my other eqipment) for the next few months or so.
One intention for measurements was to compare PRIR/HPEQ combinations. I made multiple measurements with respect to repeatability: I put the head to small head rest so that it always be more or less in the same position so that different head positions won't affect the PRIR much. I put the mics in my ears (with my mirror-method using two mirrors, one on the wall and one hand held) and made a PRIR and HPEQ measurement, then I removed the mics and inserted them again and so on, multiple times. I also changed the position of the small hole: It is facing downwards now with the A16 mics and was facing outwards with the A8 mics.
There are opinions on this thread that if you rotate the A16 mics in your ear so that the small hole faces forwards or backwards will improve the sound.
Finally I used the mics from a friend of mine who also has an A16.
I compared the results with the A/B comparison functionality of the A16 and could not hear any major differences, only facing the mics in another direction (forgot which one) made a small difference.
I wanted to take measurements of all those PRIR/HPEQ combinations to see if there are differences but didn't have time yet.
I see what you mean but I'm not sure if it's totally "true". I got the info directly from Stephen Smyth that the blocked ear canal often is a reason that people say the PRIR sounds too bright.
Richter Di
1000+ Head-Fier
We did first the HD800 and then the Ananda. We also did the HD800 measurement also at least twice as the soundstage with first one was left sided.
Richter Di
1000+ Head-Fier
He is Audeze's Research Director.
Last edited:
Watch their YouTube videos. They have a 5-part (iirc) tutorial. Do not skip, do not fast forward, just concentrate and watch them.
The user manual is not quite easy to read. At first reading you will be overwhelmed by the multitude of new information.
You may also take into consideration @esimms86 post #8,241 and @Dixter post #9,392 that deal with a) preparation before receipt of your A16 and b) getting started after having your A16 in hand. Those two posts offer a practical beginners’ guide for managing a quite sophisticated Realiser A16.
Moreover, if you want to carry out your own PRIR measurements, there’s @audiohobbit post #7,567 with pictures how one can create 12 virtual speakers.
Smyth Research youtube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yePwI_x1q8oACTVHpYxkw
Last edited:
Good to know, and hard to argue, of course the Smyths know their system best. What it tells me is the blocked ear does not fully eliminate the effect of the ear canal and the residual effect is not fully compensated by auto EQ. If I had good HPEQ measurements, I could likely validate this too. I will check with the HD800 HPEQ that comes with A16.
Last edited:
I need to find out if the issue is my Mic or I just need to do it a few times. Is there a easy way to determine if the Mics are OK?
I initially followed this advice and the results were unsatisfactory, with very weak bass. AutoEQ equalizes the headphone for all frequencies, manLOUD starts at 563Hz and manually equalizes from there on up. This omits the bottom 4 octaves from being equalized. This advice could work if flatEQ happens to be correct for the headphones you're using. (Thanks to John for the emergency phone call pointing this out)
Last edited:
Richter Di
1000+ Head-Fier
In addition to what @GeorgeA wrote
let me advise you to become a member of the Club Realiser at https://www.smyth-realiser.fr/ Although you might not speak French with the help of DEEPL.COM you can easily translate it. Besides you get a very easy 25 page manual for the A16 and the Club also includes the files you need for the so called asynchronous capture mode.
+1 to this, and I wish the man Loud will go below 563Hz, part of the reasoning may be because it is really hard to judge loudness levels below 500Hzand also because bass is not affected much during PRIR measurements. but just having the ability to do this would help us add say a bass shelf or even out some wiggles in the room response.
Users who are viewing this thread
