[whatisit]

Can't you just use a different email address to get another trial license?  It lasts for 22 days, which should tide you over until getting it worked out with support.

 

[groovyd]

​
they got me squared away with the license finally and my calibration kit with mic arrived to calibrate my speakers.  setup was easy and their software is very simple to use but it would not succeed in calibrating my mini maggies on my desk.  they are 3' apart and the listening chair is 3' from them but it's auto-location detection found them to be 4' apart and the chair to be 12' away.  when it came time to do the wandering calibration measurements it got stuck on the first one telling me the mic wasn't in the position it wanted it at on the listening chair.  it also didn't tell me which way i would have to move to make it happy and no matter where i put the mic in the room it was satisfied.  so without it being able to correlate these positions it cannot calibrate. put in more support tickets but this could be a costly issue if it cannot calibrate my speakers.
 
i am guessing maggies are not throwing out a typical wave they are expecting or the backwave reflections are confusing the calibration.  since these are an integral part of the room sound with maggies i am not sure how to make this work without turning these into box speakers which i clearly don't want.  also a ton of room treatments just to get it to locate my speakers correctly doesn't seem like a good plan since i could spend a fortune on modifying the place with no guarantee the tool ever calibrates it. also guessing the bass panel under the desk is throwing it off, but again that is integral to the sound.  is there a way to calibrate to a system with a separate sub?
 
here you see the position estimates it provides.  fine tuning their estimates only lets me reduce the distance to 10' which is still way off.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[rudra]

may I suggest a mic stand and point the mic towards the ceiling. That is how I have calibrated speakers and subwoofer using REW and Audyssey
 

 

[groovyd]

  may I suggest a mic stand and point the mic towards the ceiling. That is how I have calibrated speakers and subwoofer using REW and Audyssey
 

tried that too, no go.  thing is they suggest just holding the mic and walking around with it. they also explicitly recommend putting the mic parallel to the ground and pointed right at the middle. but no the stand and pointing it upwards didn't help.

 

[rudra]

does sonarworks suggest holding the mic in the hand ? Interesting. may be their software works differently. Personally I wouldn't hold the mic in the hand as my body would act as a reflective surface.  even when I have done 32 point calibration with Audyessy it is always been on a stand to reduce reflection. Hopefully customer support will come up with a solution. 

 

[groovyd]

  does sonarworks suggest holding the mic in the hand ? Interesting. may be their software works differently. Personally I wouldn't hold the mic in the hand as my body would act as a reflective surface.  even when I have done 32 point calibration with Audyessy it is always been on a stand to reduce reflection. Hopefully customer support will come up with a solution. 

They only say to use a stand if you cannot adjust the mic sensitivity while holding the mic. and to carry the mic to the different measurement positions around the room.  Anyway it doesn't make a difference I found to the problem at hand.
 
I think the elephant in the room is drivers that fire backwards as well as forwards and are planar instead of cone shaped as well as the separate sub.

 

[DonPor]

Maybe the latency is the problem.

I had the same issue when I tried to calibrate my speakers (DAC was a Grace m902, and mic amp a behringer I think.) The only way I found to reduce the latency by much was to use the behringer for both operations. Not the best way... but still better then no calibration.

 

[johnjen]

I wonder if it's your screen between the 2 speakers that has effectively acoustically coupled them together.
I would imagine your sense of a 3d soundfield is terrific, but I bet it is confusing the algorythms to no end.
 
JJ

 

[Yoga]

  Finally got Hijack and Sonarworks working. Pedalboard is a worthless piece of schiit. Pops and sputters all over your sound. Can't overstate how crippled and terrible a solution it is. Stock HD800 is preferable. 

I did warn you! :¬) Waste of time.

 

[edwardsean]

Anyone care to comment on Sonarworks with Hijack vs. Sonarworks Systemwide. I was excited to get it up and running, and it sounded good in the brief listen I had. However, things came up in the 5 day period and I didn't make it back to test it properly. I currently use the SW plugin version with Hijack. I love it, but has anyone found a. difference in a usability or sound quality using the new Systemwide version? 

 

[Yoga]

That 5 day trial and discount was ridiculously short and messy, not to mention with all the bugs and whatnot. Although interested, I gave up because of it.

My support ticket went cold and I heard noting back. Not very impressed.

 

[groovyd]

got a response from sonarworks and it was that the Shure usb to xlr adapter is not low enough latency to work, infact they said any usb to xlr adapter probably won't work since they rely on absolute timing and do not account for the sound interface latency in those estimates.  they recommend only a 'sound interface' which really is what i thought the shure was since it does convert xlr to usb same as any other 'sound interface' out there.  guessing it just doesn't have the latency performance needed.  i have ordered the new Zoom thunderbolt audio interface.
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R2IPLSY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
this calibration project is getting quite spendy.  it would have been nice if it was clearer regarding exactly which 'audio interfaces' they do and do not support.  it would have been nice to see a complete list even.

 

[castleofargh]

the mic is clearly stated to be a XLR mic that needs phantom power, and the FAQ mentions to avoid USB mics. that seems pretty clear to me.
I understand that one could expect a all-in-one calibration solution, but they mainly target professionals who will have at least one ADC lying around.
there are cheaper solutions for the ADC if you're getting one only to do that one calibration. like something from behringer or focusrite.
 
ps: this topic is about the headphone calibration

.

 

[groovyd]

When I purchased it the page purchased from stated USB or XLR mic connection but I see they have changed it since... it isn't really all that clear to be honest, more of a small print footnote.  just to be clear the shure adapter 'is' an audio interface with internal ADC -AND- phantom power as they indicate is needed.  this is a latency issue which could/should be accounted for in the position algorithm estimates.  apparently having usb latency changes the distance to my speakers to make them further away.  how could that be considered professional?  a professional tool would measure round trip latency during the first step in calibration where they have you put the mic under 5 inches from the mid-range driver and subtract that off all further measurements. it could also determine the bus latency internally and query the driver buffer size settings to make adjustments around.

 

[Netherwind]

   
No need to wait.  (You'll probably be waiting a long time for this... I haven't seen anything for 6 months, and haven't seen any indication of a release on their website).
 
Sonarworks actually had a webpage that explained how to do this without it's unreleased systemwide solution.  For whatever reason, it seems to have disappeared.  But it's still cached in Google at: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Uz1JuYtYGsoJ:https://sonarworks.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207678555--Windows-I-d-like-to-use-the-plugin-on-any-audio-source-and-not-just-in-my-DAW-+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
 
I'll copy and paste the instructions here, just in case that caching disappears (I hope this isn't against the rules here..?):
 
 
 
Two notes.
 
First, you can use VSTHost from http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm instead of PedalBoard2.  VSTHost seems to have a bit more functionality, but they are very similar.
 
Second, in either VSTHost or PedalBoard2, you should select the output as whatever device you previously had as your default output device, not necessarily your soundcard.  If you have a DAC, for example, you will probably want that to be the output device.  (e.g. mine output is JDS Labs Element DAC)
 
 
You'll need to leave VSTHost or PedalBoard2 window open forever basically, because neither minimizes to the tray.  Furthermore, you'll need to open it manually (or via a script on startup) everytime you reboot the computer.  EDIT: Pedalboard2 does have a tray ability.  Under Options->Misc Settings, "Display tray icon (not OSX)"!  Turns outs VSTHost also has an option that minimizes to tray - however, unlike Pedalboard2, it has not option to start the program minimized.
 
Lastly, just to be perfectly clear - this setup will run the plugin on ANYthing going to your speakers or headphones, not just one particular application (such as foobar2000, Audacity, Fidelify, etc.).  It also applies to music playing through your web browser, for example.

Thanks, finally decided to give it a go and we're all squared away Got my 650's targeting B&K which makes for an..interesting experience.
 
I have no idea if I like it or want to pay for it, but it's definitely unique.