Bought a Umik-1, now what.

T

TankTop5

Audioholic General
But the microphone, downloaded the software, took a couple measurements and then my brain melted and drizzled out of my ear... I gave it a few days and went back anddid it again, same result.

One of my thoughts is to go by the DDRC-24 and run Dirac and call it a day. Figuring out how to plug my laptop into my mess I think will only convolute and confuse me more.

Any suggestions would be good, like don’t quit your day job and keep selling cars and leave this to the professionals, lol... no really, I want to learn but I am completely lost.
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
Really getting the most from REW takes a little bit. There is a learning curve, and I'm still at the beginning, myself. I'm stuck, possibly because of the age of my computer. I need to reach out to John for some support to see if its that, or something stupid I am doing.
The better you get at isolating your tests and experimenting to see how, for example, moving a sub or speaker changes the resulting measurement, then the better you can address potential issues. As you zero in on placement, then you can focus on correction, and then maybe with that, you look at treatments.
That said, as interested as I am in Dirac and the DDRC88A/BM, if you don't have a good understanding of the underlying fundamentals, you can't take full advantage of the technology. IMO, this is why Audyssey and the others are so simple: they take the need to understand out of the equation. ;)
Like myself, as I have time, I will ask questions, and learn how to use it to best effect. :) Be patient, and I think you will find the results rewarding!
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
Get ready to do some reading...

I started here and here (you'll have to register then you can do the download the file for the 2nd link), then trialed and errored my way into some pretty nice looking charts. When it cools off I'm gonna get my stuff out and start measuring and fidgeting again. I wanna give that Audyssey editor app another chance too.

I think you discovered from your first experience I wasn't kidding when I said to budget a solid day to play around with it. I'm a little rusty and I know I'm gonna have to re-learn a couple of things. Once you get all the kinks worked out and know what you're doing its a great tool. Helped me achieve this.

10-07 spl 1-12th smooth.jpg
10-07 waterfall.jpg
10-07 spectrogram.jpg


That's where I'm at right now unless something changed in the last year or so. There's some heavy dsp going on there if I'm to be honest tho. I have some ideas for repositioning things to see if I can get a smoother response with no peq, then start from scratch again. I want to get as good as I can with as little filtering as possible. I might even look into moving a sub out to the kitchen behind us. I'm hoping creating a little more space for my towers to breathe will improve their bass response. I'd like to lower my crossover point, but then I lose some of my mid bass.
 
T

TankTop5

Audioholic General
Thanks for those replies, my biggest issue is my Xbox is my main source. From there I’m going Toslink to a cheap DAC and then RCA’s to an analog integrated amplifier. Any suggestions for a reasonably price DAC that takes a USB input and hopefully Toslink as well. That was part of my thinking to just jump to the DDRC-24
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
Thanks for those replies, my biggest issue is my Xbox is my main source. From there I’m going Toslink to a cheap DAC and then RCA’s to an analog integrated amplifier. Any suggestions for a reasonably price DAC that takes a USB input and hopefully Toslink as well. That was part of my thinking to just jump to the DDRC-24
Got a retired laptop? That's what I'm using. Blew the dust off of it and stuck it in my stand with the rest of my gear.
 
T

TankTop5

Audioholic General
Got a retired laptop? That's what I'm using. Blew the dust off of it and stuck it in my stand with the rest of my gear.
Actually I have a retired PC gathering dust. I’ll look at that and see if it has analog outputs. My laptop has a headphone jack and I guess I could use that as well.
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
Thanks for those replies, my biggest issue is my Xbox is my main source. From there I’m going Toslink to a cheap DAC and then RCA’s to an analog integrated amplifier. Any suggestions for a reasonably price DAC that takes a USB input and hopefully Toslink as well. That was part of my thinking to just jump to the DDRC-24
Go umik to laptop then hdmi to AVR.
 
T

TankTop5

Audioholic General
Careful! :eek::oops::p
If you don’t have HDMI, you'll need another option.
Headphone out to RCA? I’m guessing the test tone doesn’t have to be audiophile quality, just the correct frequency for the speakers to create a frequency range for the microphone to pick up and then the software wizardry begins.
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Headphone out to RCA? I’m guessing the test tone doesn’t have to be audiophile quality, just the correct frequency for the speakers to create a frequency range for the microphone to pick up and then the software wizardry begins.
I have used both HDMI and Jack to RCA, both worked well, no difference in the results whatsoever.
 
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