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Calibrate it All!

Is it worth doing a specialty audio calibration in areas of a residence outside the dedicated theater? Absolutely! 

Getting the spectral balance, bass management, and time synchronization of audio systems tuned for each and every environment is a pretty simple and cost effective way to upgrade the sonic experience. You can get good dialog clarity, smooth bass, and a reasonably good spatial rendition with an hour or two spent in every space. You do need to have some digital EQ functionality in the system, and that is getting pretty easy these days. I am not talking about auto-EQ, which I contend still doesn’t work right (unfortunately). I mean some number of bands of EQ for each channel that you can adjust while monitoring an analyzer application running on a laptop. That function is available in a number of multichannel amps (Sonance, Ashly, Powersoft, to name a few), in a number of receivers and decoders, and of course, as stand-along EQ devices placed between the switcher/preamp, and the amplification stage. Even in environments that acoustically very live, the end result is well worth the time invested.

Here’s a grab bag of pictures of projects I tuned in the past month using EQ, time, and care. You’ll see a specialty “fun room” with Atmos immersive audio and 4K video, but also a kitchen with ceiling speakers, a large backyard with bollards, a few simple media rooms and a bedroom. In all cases, the clients clearly heard a vast improvement, stating that the dialog was clearer, the sound more dynamic, warmer, more engaging, and a number of other plain English adjectives. Bottom line is that all were happy with the results and with the invested dollars.

A very nice "Fun Room" with 4K UHD Video and Atmos Immersive sound!





A simple 5.1 channel TV room. Dialog and effects sound a lot better after calibration!





The kitchen: center of all home life. Music and broadcasts come alive after tuning the ceiling speakers!



The backyard sound system went from edgy to smooth in less than an hour!






Voice clarity and sonic envelopment are much better thanks to EQ and proper delay settings!







These small media rooms went from mid-fi to hi-fi thanks to calibration work!







All above pictures are from installations by Audio Images
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