Why not a speaker calibrator via mic?

[yhelothar]

There are color calibrators for monitors, why not a speaker calibrator that works under the same concept?

 

[Slick5150]

There are. A number of mid-range and up receivers come with a setup microphone that runs a series of tests to calibrate the speakers.

 

[MrChad]

http://www.audyssey.com/solutions/hometheater/receivers.html

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Pretty much ever receiver over $400 comes with a mic now to calibrate.

Using the OSD and a well placed microphone - you'll be set up in about 15-minutes.

 

[s44]

Don't forget to turn off nearby appliances while you're running it.

 

[Rifter]

this has been happening for years......

 

[0roo0roo]

guess no one is bothering for pc's, the market that cares is too small.

 

[mizzou]

my cheapo sony 5.1 receiver uses just what you are talking about! The mic comes with an extremely long cord and it basicaly goes where your head goes

the calibration of the speakrs is pretty nerd out awesome, although I did have to go in and tweak it a bit anyway

 

[herm0016]

these systems tune the speakers to the room. I really do not think that "calabration" is the correct word.
When a tv is "calibrated it is being set compared to a set of standards laid out by NIST or someone.

when calibrating things I am always using a known standard that does not change.

 

[vi edit]

these systems tune the speakers to the room. I really do not think that "calabration" is the correct word. When a tv is "calibrated it is being set compared to a set of standards laid out by NIST or someone.

Calibrating is just another term for tuning/tweaking/zeroing in/whatever you want to call it. You calibrate a scale, gun scope, table saw or musical instruments. Same thing with a TV or a speaker. It's just simply a method of measuring and adjusting to find an ideal setting for the situation.

No need to make semantics out of it.

 

[yhelothar]

Cool stuff, I didn't find anything when I initially googled... not sure why since I'm turning up lots of links now.

I would love to see a calibration system that has a kinect like sensor that tracks where the listener is and her orientation. Then it can virtualize speaker placement to the sweet spot no matter where you are. I notice when I sit at the right position, the stereo imaging becomes so lucid and realistic, and the soundstage just opens up.

 

[MrChad]

Cool stuff, I didn't find anything when I initially googled... not sure why since I'm turning up lots of links now.

I would love to see a calibration system that has a kinect like sensor that tracks where the listener is and her orientation. Then it can virtualize speaker placement to the sweet spot no matter where you are. I notice when I sit at the right position, the stereo imaging becomes so lucid and realistic, and the soundstage just opens up.

The Audyssey calibration on my Denon receiver asks you to change seating positions, starting with the most common seating position and then moving to other seats in the room. It supposedly adjusts the sound accordingly to provide the best listening experience to everyone in the room.

 

[vi edit]

Cool stuff, I didn't find anything when I initially googled... not sure why since I'm turning up lots of links now.

I would love to see a calibration system that has a kinect like sensor that tracks where the listener is and her orientation. Then it can virtualize speaker placement to the sweet spot no matter where you are. I notice when I sit at the right position, the stereo imaging becomes so lucid and realistic, and the soundstage just opens up.

You can't defeat physics and room placement. EQ can tame some of it and try to even things out, but it can't work miracles. Speakers have to be physically moved and rooms need to be treated to have the "sweet spot" follow you.

 

[yhelothar]

You can't defeat physics and room placement. EQ can tame some of it and try to even things out, but it can't work miracles. Speakers have to be physically moved and rooms need to be treated to have the "sweet spot" follow you.

I'm sure it can't make TV speakers have perfect stereo separation, but perhaps it could make that sweet spot quite a bit bigger for a nice set of speakers with decent placement to start?

I'm just imagining that the sweet spot would be dependent on the recording, basically where the mics are placed relative to the sound source.

I would imagine that if the speakers are placed relative to the listener identical to how the mics are placed relative to the sound source, then there would be sublime stereo imaging.

 

[vi edit]

I really can't explain it in a technical sense, there are others here that can much better than me...

But suffice it to say that sound reproduction is an incredibly complex beast. Speaker placement and room response in a listening position are really some of the biggest things you can do for improving sound. Different frequencies do different things in a room. And the type of speaker plays a huge role in how things affect the sound.

A microphone & auto EQ'ing system can't physically move speakers or defeat the physics of the room. All they can do is measure the sound output from each channel and try to boost/lower the volume to flatten the response curve. They'll try to compromise across the listening position but there are still things they can't do.

Bass response is probably the hardest to manage. In my room for example if you picture it as a rectange facing north and south...I have chairs across the bottom of the rectangle and my front stage is across the top. The chairs in the bottom left of the room can't really hear much subwoofer output if it's in the top left corner.

Chairs in the bottom right can't hear much subwoofer output in the top right corner. So to account for that I had to put in two subs to even out the room response. No amount of EQ'ing on the amp was going to fix that. What it could do is try and correct any boosted peaks and flatten them so the output was fairly linear across the frequency range.

It's much the same with speakers in a way...tweeters are very directional and it's up to the tweater & speaker designer for how well they perform off axis. You can't fix that with software. It's a physical problem. The best that EQ can do is try and balance the output between speakers based on your seating position so that one speaker isn't sounding louder than the other. But it still can't really fix the off axis problem entirely.

And I haven't even gotten into the issue of room treatments and taming down reflections to specific listening areas.

 

[vi edit]

And one other comment about "calibrating" a monitor or a TV...doing so on a TV doesn't have to really take anything into account in the room other than possibly lighting. It doesn't take seating distance or off axis seating into account. If you have a RPTV, DLP or a LCD TV no amount of "Calibrating" will ever improve the display if you are in a less than idea seating position. It's really the same for speakers. You have to work within the capabilities of the speaker and the room in relation to the seating position.

 

[thomsbrain]

I <3 speaker calibration for my mis-matched surround speaker setup. Flattens the response of every pair and makes things mesh so much better.

 

[Gooberlx2]

guess no one is bothering for pc's, the market that cares is too small.

I'm pretty sure that positional calibration is built-in in Windows Vista/7, also using a mic. Depends on supported hardware/drivers though I think.