'automated' room EQ on new receivers

[Steven Sullivan]

Automated speaker level adjustment has grown more common
in the last few years on A/V receivers...generally,
it involves pink noise generated by the receiver and a mic
in the remote control. Now automated speaker *equalization*
is also coming online in mass-market receivers (and in some
pwoered speakers, like those wacky-looking new Bang & Olafsen
units)

I'm curious to know, what sorts of room/system anomalies can
individual speaker EQ be expected to ameliorate? Is there
a sound theoretical/engineering/acoustic basis for it?
Can it be expected to work 'better' to correct anomalies
in some frequency ranges than others?

--
-S.

[Penury]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 18:11:53 GMT, Steven Sullivan >
wrote:

>Automated speaker level adjustment has grown more common
>in the last few years on A/V receivers...generally,
>it involves pink noise generated by the receiver and a mic
>in the remote control. Now automated speaker *equalization*
>is also coming online in mass-market receivers (and in some
>pwoered speakers, like those wacky-looking new Bang & Olafsen
>units)
>
>I'm curious to know, what sorts of room/system anomalies can
>individual speaker EQ be expected to ameliorate? Is there
>a sound theoretical/engineering/acoustic basis for it?
>Can it be expected to work 'better' to correct anomalies
>in some frequency ranges than others?

Ken Kantor (former CEO and co-founder of NHT) is now associated
with another company, check URL:
http://www.intelligentaudiosystems.com/home.html
He reported that his company is working on an automatic EQ system
for use above the subwoofer range.
They already make such a device for their subwoofer, see excerpt below
taken from the above URL.

Combining Bass-Brains with Bass-Brawn, Intelligent Audio introduces
its revolutionary IA-643 subwoofer at January's 2003 CES. As the
world's first self-installing and self-adjusting loudspeaker, the
IA-643 applies Intelligent Audio's advanced technology to become the
smartest and most accurate subwoofer on the planet. One of the biggest
remaining obstacles to ideal loudspeaker performance is the way in
which speakers interact with their individual listening rooms.
Intelligent Audio Systems breaks that barrier with our first
RADS™-based product, incorporating special "artificial intelligence"
audio technology that enables a computer to hear the way the human ear
does.

Just place it in your listening room and the on-board computer designs
the response, crossover, level, boundary equalization at the touch of
a button.... with the skill of a human expert. Your job is to relax,
and listen to your system as you have perhaps never heard it before.


-=Bill Eckle=-

Vanity Web pages at:
http://www.wmeckle.com