Room finally fixed for now

erniejade · August 2016

For those that have not followed my journey, here is some background. I had a nice wide open space AKA the basement 32x28, Polk sda 1.2, carver amazing for jazz and classical and all was good. I got married to a woman who has 2 kids and my townhouse only had 2 bedrooms and turned the basement into a bedroom plus den and moved my stuff upstairs into a small 10x11 den with horrible acoustics due to a 2foot deep 6 foot long bookcase/stereo tv stand built in plus the opening to the hallway does not have a door and the other opens up to the garage. I have not gotten anything to sound right in this room. I have been through a lifetime of equipment and speakers and have not gotten it right.

The folks at underwood hifi pointed me in the direction of a DSpeaker Antimode2.0. Before I even bought it he talked me through the full setup and how to use it without me even asking. They took the extra steps to make sure I fully understood everything before he would take payment!

The room correction for tone only goes on auto to 500hz. The rest you can do manually or use the built in tilts. I asked why 500, it seemed odd to me. He explained under 500 Is where a lot of rooms issues are and doesn't effect the signature sound of a speaker. People buy a speaker for a certain sound they like. If you change above that point, your now fully listening to the dsp and not the speaker. After I thought about it, it made total sense.

I ran the setup as he instructed and didn't listen to the manufacturer and he was right on! Most of my room issues were from 110-480. Between correcting that range and the time alignment of distance, it's a huge difference. Even my wife noticed it. The top end is also cleaner as well as vocals since that bottom was being horrible.

I need to run and will put more on all of this in a bit.

erniejade · August 2016

Skip, until he said it, I never thought of it! I think most people's impressions of DSP or digital room correction in general is top to bottom. I heard the 705 at Pauls house in a nice wide open room and I thought they sounded good there but after the antimode 2.0 and my components, they now sound better here. Even without using the tilts bass compensation the difference is like removing a blanket from my speakers including the vocals! Amazing how much splatter in the under 500 range can kill the rest of the sound. Again I'm in shock but relieved at the same time.

I know it's also not audio purist but unless you have a good room, something like this really makes a difference and still lets you enjoy the signature sound of the speaker. Now I wish I would have gotten one years ago before I let my legacy focus go! Although the 705 fit in the room much easier lol.