I tried the Schiit in the hope at might be useful for the occasionally over bright recording. It had absolutely no ameliorative effect! And in my system, I believe it took a hit on transparency.Buy the Schiit one for $1500 and find out. If you love it, spend $8000 on one with a name that doesn't sound better.
I optimized my system and room to the best of my abilities and decided, this past weekend, to bring in an acoustics consultant to wring out the last 5-10%. Lots of great testimonials from happy customers. But there was an interesting twist. He is a digital guy who works mostly with other digital guys who have DSP in their systems. I haven’t completely decided if he was able to improve my sound, but it was quite interesting to see changes via his real time analyzer when we added, moved and removed treatments. Very little changed! However, we did have DSP for the subs (his main mission was sub integration) and that had a significant impact on frequency response.
It was a real eye opener that leads me to believe that the characteristics of the room override most of the benefits of the treatments. If you MEASURE your room, you may find that treatments are doing less than you think.
I still won’t use DSP except for the subs, but I could see why people would, even with a SOTA system. What’s WAY more important is to have a SOTA room, which most people don’t have, hence the need for DSP.
Room treatment may not change that much in terms of frequency response in mids and highs, but it does remove lots of distortions and hardness from short-distance reflections. This may not show up that much in measurements, but it very much does show up at your ears. Especially when you usually play music at loud SPL as I do (100 dBC peaks and above on orchestral music). Room treatment also affects reverberation time (which also affects imaging) and "air" in the sound.
My ASC TubeTraps, with the IsoThermal TubeTraps being the most efficient, very much influence the bass. In my room they are essential to get good bass; the sound is catastrophic without them.
I don't use DSP and I don't have a SOTA room. Yet I have tamed the sound well over the years with appropriate room treatments. It is very good, but nothing beats a better room. Especially a large room. Many people, including myself, don't have it, but for the best sound you do need a large room. And you can't DSP your way out of that problem, either.
I agree that important subtle improvements that can’t easily be seen in measurements can be wrought by room treatments. My treatments aren’t going anywhere. However, to my surprise, when we removed four large 4” thick absorption panels from the first reflections, the decay time (i.e. reverb) didn’t change. That surprised me.Room treatment may not change that much in terms of frequency response in mids and highs, but it does remove lots of distortions and hardness from short-distance reflections. This may not show up that much in measurements, but it very much does show up at your ears. Especially when you usually play music at loud SPL as I do (100 dBC peaks and above on orchestral music). Room treatment also affects reverberation time (which also affects imaging) and "air" in the sound.
My ASC TubeTraps, with the IsoThermal TubeTraps being the most efficient, very much influence the bass. In my room they are essential to get good bass; the sound is catastrophic without them.
I don't use DSP and I don't have a SOTA room. Yet I have tamed the sound well over the years with appropriate room treatments. It is very good, but nothing beats a better room. Especially a large room. Many people, including myself, don't have it, but for the best sound you do need a large room. And you can't DSP your way out of that problem, either.
If it needs EQ, it is noy SOTA.
Very good Bruce.Really? Then tape and vinyl are not SOTA because you have to use additive/subtractive EQ for playback
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