Valve amps, great with Jazz, shit with everything else.

[Ali Tait]

Actually I was not coming at it purely from an accuracy perspective, more from a reasonably good indicator point of view. You can buy a pretty good and accurate usb microphone for just this purpose for about £50, which will be more than adequate. As for rubbishing PC, Laptops etc being incapable of doing a good job, where on earth do you get this view, one modern computer has enough power to run several Apollo mission simultaneously, in fact programmed correctly you could do it on a mobile phone.

I think if you go into most modern recording studios you will find Laptops/desktops used with recording software to record all types of music and edit it.

I actually used to work at the Wolfson Sound and Vibration laboratory in Southampton university and have setup sound and vibration measurement tests using Bruel and Kjaer equipment, all very expensive and highly accurate, but not absolutely necessary to achieve simple frequency sweeps in a home situation.

I think if you look into it properly a laptop with a reasonable microphone running REW will be at least within 0.5dB of the aforementioned across 20hz- 20khz.


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Agreed. Something like this will work just fine-

https://www.minidsp.com/products/aco...urement/umik-1

Maybe not 100% accurate but it won't be far off.

[anthonyTD]

One of these works very well too, and can be picked up quite reasonably on the secondhand market

[AJSki2fly]

One of these works very well too, and can be picked up quite reasonably on the secondhand market

Like this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Behringer...UAAOSw~CRe~HZ7 looks like a good price

[anthonyTD]

Exactly!
Although i am not sure that model has the room correction facility and of course you need the calibrated mic to go with it too!

Like this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Behringer...UAAOSw~CRe~HZ7 looks like a good price

[KnuckleDragger]

As for rubbishing PC, Laptops etc being incapable of doing a good job, where on earth do you get this view,

I do not rubbish PC's or laptops. To accurately measure the input they are receiving a £50 usb mic and a basic laptop will only give a very rough and inaccurate measurement. Not to be trusted. You require extremely accurate and expensive equipment and listening environment to trust the results. You do not find these in a basic PC or laptop. What I point out is that the equipment required will be out of the price range of the average user that is wanting to quiz their few thousand pound system as a one off.

I think if you go into most modern recording studios you will find Laptops/desktops used with recording software to record all types of music and edit it.

Yes, but that is not what we are talking about. We are discussing analyzing a systems response. Not recording material.

I actually used to work at the Wolfson Sound and Vibration laboratory in Southampton university and have setup sound and vibration measurement tests using Bruel and Kjaer equipment, all very expensive and highly accurate, but not absolutely necessary to achieve simple frequency sweeps in a home situation.

I am very pleased for you. However, we are not talking about basic frequency sweeps like you would do for a home theater system.

I think if you look into it properly

Believe me or not as the case may be. I have over the last few decades looked into it properly.

a laptop with a reasonable microphone running REW will be at least within 0.5dB of the aforementioned across 20hz- 20khz.

Again. We are not talking basic frequency sweeps. You will not be able to trust a cheap mic and a basic laptop in a lounge.
What is the problem?
Is it the mic? yes
is it the hardware in the laptop? Yes.
Is it the room. Yes.
And on top of all that they are trying to find the issue with their audio equipment. As I mentioned earlier. It is not that simple as getting some cheap hardware and software to sort out the issue. Good enough for a home theater when realism is not the goal, but immersion is. Not good enough for Hifi though.

[fatmarley]

Does anyone ever read a post and wonder if it's written by a troll?

[AJSki2fly]

Does anyone ever read a post and wonder if it's written by a troll?

The reason I have not bothered responding, all I am interested in is helping Mike in a pragmatic and sensible manner, it seems some others are not.

[Macca]

This is a bit unfair as Stephen does make a valid point. All you are going to determine with a mic and a laptop is if there are gross frequency errors in the bass. Useful if you do have problems with bass response, not so much if you don't.

Recording with a microphone is not at all the same as a human listening for a variety of reasons.

[AJSki2fly]

This is a bit unfair as Stephen does make a valid point. All you are going to determine with a mic and a laptop is if there are gross frequency errors in the bass. Useful if you do have problems with bass response, not so much if you don't.

Recording with a microphone is not at all the same as a human listening for a variety of reasons.

Why just the bass(low frequencies)?

I think some people have missed the point all I was suggesting was method of making a frequency sweep from 20Hz-20Khz in Mike's room using his system and looking to see if there was any obvious drop outs, or peaks across the range. REW is more than able to do this. If there were glaring anomalies then Mike could try a variety of things to see if he could improve matters or not, whether this was speaker positioning, seating position, or using some acoustic deadening if necessary. He could even swap speakers and do some direct comparisons to see if that made much difference or not. Having done this myself, in a methodical and logical manner I know it works and can help to identify issues, that is as much as I will say on the subject.

[fatmarley]

Any errors within the results of a cheap, calibrated mic and laptop will be down to the user and not the equipment.