Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - IK Multimedia ARC System vs Acoustic Treatment???

mrhudson · 11th February 2010

I'll confess that I am still a little puzzled as well, having spent some time over recent weeks reading up on these kinds of devices. Here's where I'm still unable to align all the perspectives, data, and viewpoints (I'm assuming a logic shortcoming on my part):

First, I think that folks have suggested that the ARC system is decent enough for measurement, while perhaps not providing the most cost effective or highest resolution for that job certainly. Yes, you need to use the "special" mic and software that knows the mic's kinks. But, I haven't heard folks suggest that the measurements from ARC are blatantly incorrect. I read somewhere that folks have found similiar frequency curves using ARC vs some other FM, REW, etc. So, the measurements may be fine enough for what they are (freq plots only).

I have also read that, above all else, we need to trust the measurements that we are getting from a room to gain truth. Without room measurement software, monitor placements, trapping improvements, ETCs, ISDs - need to test out with your software to optimize.

Then it is said, and I follow, that you can't fill in nulls with EQ - maybe you can trim a few peaks without disasters, but nulls, not happening.

Yet then we have posted measurements/graphs from ARC pre/post - and, again, if we grant that the measurements are decent enough - where nulls have seemingly been filled. I've seen a bunch of posts/pics in a fairly exhaustive review of the message board info and user sharings that will show this - smoothing out of bass nulls and peaks in a freq plot. And, perhaps tipping a hat to dissenters, the low end nulls are never completely rectified, but "flatter".

So something doesn't add up for me. If the measurements are considered okay, and pre/post graphs show nulls (maybe not all lowpoints are nulls) and peaks being homogenized, and we are to be empiricists and follow the data, yet we hear that the tool is snakeoil and can't work, what is going on exactly in the pre/post graphs? Are those pre/post graphs incorrect?

Take the graph above - the measurements probably aren't total bunk, so what is going on there?

11th February 2010	#118
mrhudson Gear addict Joined: Sep 2008 Location: Middletown, CT, USA Posts: 339	I'll confess that I am still a little puzzled as well, having spent some time over recent weeks reading up on these kinds of devices. Here's where I'm still unable to align all the perspectives, data, and viewpoints (I'm assuming a logic shortcoming on my part): First, I think that folks have suggested that the ARC system is decent enough for measurement, while perhaps not providing the most cost effective or highest resolution for that job certainly. Yes, you need to use the "special" mic and software that knows the mic's kinks. But, I haven't heard folks suggest that the measurements from ARC are blatantly incorrect. I read somewhere that folks have found similiar frequency curves using ARC vs some other FM, REW, etc. So, the measurements may be fine enough for what they are (freq plots only). I have also read that, above all else, we need to trust the measurements that we are getting from a room to gain truth. Without room measurement software, monitor placements, trapping improvements, ETCs, ISDs - need to test out with your software to optimize. Then it is said, and I follow, that you can't fill in nulls with EQ - maybe you can trim a few peaks without disasters, but nulls, not happening. Yet then we have posted measurements/graphs from ARC pre/post - and, again, if we grant that the measurements are decent enough - where nulls have seemingly been filled. I've seen a bunch of posts/pics in a fairly exhaustive review of the message board info and user sharings that will show this - smoothing out of bass nulls and peaks in a freq plot. And, perhaps tipping a hat to dissenters, the low end nulls are never completely rectified, but "flatter". So something doesn't add up for me. If the measurements are considered okay, and pre/post graphs show nulls (maybe not all lowpoints are nulls) and peaks being homogenized, and we are to be empiricists and follow the data, yet we hear that the tool is snakeoil and can't work, what is going on exactly in the pre/post graphs? Are those pre/post graphs incorrect? Take the graph above - the measurements probably aren't total bunk, so what is going on there?