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Would a used Anthem AVM50 with ARC be satisfactory for evaluating the efficacy of acoustic room correction?
I take analog stereo from an Oppo 105, Sony XA5400ES, sand Parasound JC-3 phono stage to a Parasound JC-2, an analog stereo preamp. The surround channels from the 105 go directly to the amps, SW to a Velodyne SMS-1 bass manager that controls a pair of HGS-15s. I discovered that by switching between the XLR and SE inputs of my Proceed HPA 2 amp I could compare Oppo direct with Oppo through the JC-2. I could do the same with a processor. I've never tried ARC beyond that applied by the SMS-1 to the subs, because the implementation in the Cary 11a was faulty.
I'm very pleased with the sound of the setup now, just want to know if I'm missing something.
db
Follow Ups:
My answer is different from what I expected it to be. I took the title to refer to ARC as "Anthem Room Correction" and my answer to that question would be "Certainly."
However, it seems that you meant ARC to mean "Acoustic Room Correction," a generic and uncommon meaning. ARC more stands often for "Automatic Room Correction" as implemented by electronic means.
So, my answer, now, is a less vigorous "Yes. It will be sufficient to evaluate the efficacy of room correction as implemented by Anthem in the AVM50."
Kal
P.S.: ARC is also used as an acronym for "Audio Return Channel" and for "Audio Rate Control."
Kal,
In the first sentence of my previous post I used the term acoustic room correction. I assume that was the somewhat presumptuous allusion of Anthem in naming their implementation of the technology ARC. My curiosity was raised by a series of posts on Audiogon in which several posters claimed that ARC, and by that I mean using a microphone to capture speaker output so electronic signal processing can be used to shape that output, was so potent it dwarfed other aspects of reproducing sound. That is, the sound of a mediocre processor with ARC would be markedly superior to that of a higher quality preamp without ARC.
I'm skeptical, and a review of the Anthem AVM50 with ARC was not encouraging.
db
It depends on the specifics. Every room correction scheme works differently and what constitutes a "mediocre" processor, as opposed to "higher quality preamp" (and in what ways they differ) is undefined.
I will say that, in my experience, the use (or not) of room correction does swamp other audible difference among similar products. How more general one can make that statement will depend on the specifics.
I know this is somewhat nebulous but generalizations are dangerous.
A friend who's heard my main audio system and who's familiar with the Anthem line told me I'd need to step up to a DV2 to give the efficacy of ARC a fair evaluation without too much contamination from sound quality differences.
I have a Mac Mini dedicated to computer music that's still unused. It's connected to an Oppo 105 via asynchronous USB, but it also has HDMI output. I think I should download files from the likes of HD Tracks, and use acoustic room correction that runs on a computer, the Mini or my iMac. I suspect this is the way of the future, so I'll forget about buying a processor just to evaluate ARC.
I've just begun reading Kal's article about the Dirac implementation of acoustic room correction in the current issue of Stereophile, and Dirac seems promising, but I haven't gotten to the part about what environments Dirac can run in. If it can run on a Mac or a Mac emulation of Windows, it may serve as my evaluation of the efficacy of acoustic room correction. Yes, generic ARC. Kal.
db
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