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I have successfully integrated MathAudio Room EQ into my Foobar2000 players in both my main stereo and desktop systems. I'm very pleased with the result. The beauty of MA Room EQ for Foobar is that it is free and very easy to use. One-two combo that appeals to this cheap, lazy audiophile.Heretofore I was using Foobar2000's 'Graphic Equalizer' component which is a relatively simple 31 graphic EQ. However I recently a miniDSP UMIK 1 microphone with calibration files: such a mic is necessary with MA Room EQ and, happily, easy to integrate. Room EQ happens within Foobar's Preferences -> Playback: DSP Manager interface. MathAudio's Help for Room EQ is extremely accessible and succinct. The configuration widow looks like this ...
Unfortunately MA Room EQ for Foobar2000 is useless outside Foobar as one might suppose. Obviously this makes it useless if you need (Windows) system-wide EQ; nowadays this means it can't be used with streaming providers such as Tidal. But note that MA Room EQ comes in a VST versions that can be used with other players and may streamers that allow VST plugins; the VST version is not free unfortunately.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Edits: 04/03/21Follow Ups:
If you want systemwide, have a look Equalizer APO
It is a convoler too and probably able to read your correction curves.
The Well Tempered Computer
I've heard of Equalizer APO and might give it a try if I need system-wide. Presently I don't really very badly since I'm 90+% listening via Foobar and my main speakers. Very occasionally I used headphones which would need a different EQ.Meanwhile MathAudio Room EQ is very easy and convenient to use, and that is the basis of my recommendation. If I want to use the 'phones I can easily disable Room EQ in Foobar or select a different Room EQ preset.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Edits: 04/08/21
Which makes your process quite convenient. I have a Driverack RTA-M microphone, which only has the traditional XLR output, which requires an interface device before the computer. I do have a Driverack PA-2 that can use it, but my system currently does not use the PA-2.
I held off getting the UMIK-1 too long given how pleased I am with the results. With UMIK-1 miniDSP provides two calibration files which you have to download from their site: one is mic pointed a main sound source; the other is pointed 90 degrees from source.
However I had a Dayton OmniMic mic without a proper calibration that I might have used years before and got decent results. I.e. I really shouldn't have held off using Room EQ as long as I did.
By the way, I also have REW that does a lot more measurements if I were interested. But the MA Room EQ does the same thing a lot more conveniently for basic EQ.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Nothing to see here.
That's a fascinating looking result. Thanks. Looks like my next audio play project. I'll see how I get on but I may be back with more questions.
I have REW and have looked a Dirac, both are more comprehensive EQ system. However both are more complex and user unfriendly. Furthermore REW doesn't integrate with any actual EQ implementations.
MathAudio Room EQ, at least in the case of Foobar2000, is totally integrated with the player. It doesn't do the more complex things such as measuring distortion or impulse response but it does the EQ extremely well.
I'm delighted with the listening results I'm getting and I can't recommend MA Room EQ too strongly for Foobar2000 users.
Dmitri Shostakovich
REW is a powerful tool. I don't think it's a good idea to integrate it into a music player. The developer updates REW often, and integration like this makes maintenance a nightmare.
Once you've created your EQ filters in REW, you can export the filter impulse responses as WAV files, so it's pretty easy to create filter files that can be used with the various convolvers available. If you just want to knock down some bad room modes, it's pretty easy to do. I'll admit that I haven't mastered using it beyond that simple kind of EQ.
I use REW to measure my speaker's in-room response, then export the room impulse response to use with Denis Sbragion's free DRC-FIR room correction software. I get excellent results with DRC-FIR -- smooth bass response and very stable imaging -- though you need a bit of technical knowledge to use it (e.g. how to use sox for file conversion.)
It downloads as a .tar.gz file which I can expand but I haven't figured out how to install or use it.
Dmitri Shostakovich
DRC.EXE in the "samples" directory. It's a command-line program as described in the drc-fir documentation. I have not tested this extensively in windows 10 beyond confirming that it runs.
I use a bash script to automate some of the tedious tasks of splitting up the impulse file generated by REW, running drc-fir, and setting up the brutefir config files, but it's somewhat specific to brutefir.
There was also a Java GUI called DrcDesigner that was a front-end for DRC-FIR, but it's outdated. I'd stick with the command-line tool.
Create your file with REW.
Add the convolver plug-in into Foobar.
Load the file created into the convolver.REW has a bit of a learning curve, but can show how your room is interacting with the system overall. It is much more powerful the MathEQ. You can also use RePhase with REW for additional correction.
Edits: 04/11/21
That wasn't my understanding, though I'd be glad if it were so.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Yes, the foobar convolver accepts .wav files as can be seen from the file extension in my pic.
I'll have to bone up on the technical knowledge however.
Dmitri Shostakovich
The basic technical know-how required is
- How to use REW to make a measurement and export it as a WAV file in float32 format (I always export left and right as a stereo file, assuming a stereo setup). There are lots of tutorials on how to use REW for measurements. (I would ignore the scripts that come with drc-fir for measurement.)
- How to use sox to convert to the raw binaries that DRC-FIR uses. If you have a stereo float32 WAV file exported from REW called impulse.wav
sox impulse.wav -c 1 -t f32 impulse-l.pcm remix 1
sox impulse.wav -c 1 -t f32 impulse-r.pcm remix 2
Will create raw left and right impulse files. How to use these files to generate correction files is described on the drc-fir website.
- How to get the drc-fir correction files into a format appropriate for your convolution software and configure that software.
SOX doesn't sound best to me.
I suppose that's a joke, but this is the Asylum...
Sox is just used here to split a file into left and right channel parts and save as a different format. It's the same exact PCM data, though).
In fact I did look into it briefly and decided to postpone further action due to the fact I don't understand how to install and use DRC or sox. But yes, I might get around to it.
Dmitri Shostakovich
...he asked for a specific solution.As usual, you rarely ever respond with a solution, but always your knee jerk opinion. That's easy but not what was asked for.
Edits: 04/07/21
At least I don't waste resources by just posting pretty pictures.
You have your opinions, I have mine.
My posted pictures don't "waste resources" on the Asylum, they reside with my internet domain registrar and web hosting service..... not on the Asylum. I have explained this before but you can't seem to grasp the concept.
SOX2 doesn't sound best to me.
The software I was recommending was DRC-FIR, which creates digital room correction filters and has nothing to do with sox.
nt
Dmitri Shostakovich
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