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Devices => Sound Cards, DAC's, Receivers, Speakers, and Headphones => Topic started by: bluescale on May 18, 2014, 01:18:19 am

Title: Question regarding mixing and x-over settings...
Post by: bluescale on May 18, 2014, 01:18:19 am
I've read the excellent wiki article regarding mixing (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Mixing (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Mixing)) based on a forum post by mojave.  For a video only setup, is there a general consensus on which option produces the best results?  Currently I'm using option 3 in the linked article - use JRSS for mixing, but let bass management, x-over, etc be handled by the processor (Emotiva UMC-1).

Is there any benefit to setting all my speakers to full size, and letting JRiver handle the speaker configuration and bass management?
Title: Re: Question regarding mixing and x-over settings...
Post by: mwillems on May 18, 2014, 08:46:18 am
I've read the excellent wiki article regarding mixing (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Mixing (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Mixing)) based on a forum post by mojave.  For a video only setup, is there a general consensus on which option produces the best results?  Currently I'm using option 3 in the linked article - use JRSS for mixing, but let bass management, x-over, etc be handled by the processor (Emotiva UMC-1).

Is there any benefit to setting all my speakers to full size, and letting JRiver handle the speaker configuration and bass management?

The main advantage (from my perspective) is that JRiver's bass management and crossover are significantly more flexible than any processor I've worked with.  Depending on your setup and your mixing needs, that may not be worth the added trouble of reconfiguring your setup, but you can do a lot more with JRiver's DSP and mixing capabilities.

The only other theoretical advantage is that JRiver's implementation of bass management and crossovers is very good in a technical sense (the filters all work the way they're supposed to); not every processor does things "right."  Obviously depending on your processor, that may or may not be an advantage of JRiver.

I don't know anything about the Emotiva UMC-1, but since you're doing measurements, you should be in a position (soon) to determine if it's doing what it's supposed to  ;D
Title: Re: Question regarding mixing and x-over settings...
Post by: bluescale on May 18, 2014, 12:18:26 pm
The main advantage (from my perspective) is that JRiver's bass management and crossover are significantly more flexible than any processor I've worked with.  Depending on your setup and your mixing needs, that may not be worth the added trouble of reconfiguring your setup, but you can do a lot more with JRiver's DSP and mixing capabilities.

The only other theoretical advantage is that JRiver's implementation of bass management and crossovers is very good in a technical sense (the filters all work the way they're supposed to); not every processor does things "right."  Obviously depending on your processor, that may or may not be an advantage of JRiver.

I don't know anything about the Emotiva UMC-1, but since you're doing measurements, you should be in a position (soon) to determine if it's doing what it's supposed to  ;D

I'll need to spend some time figuring out what I'm seeing means.  I think I have some problems around where the sub and the mains cross which I might be able to better address using REW.  It's also possible that the issue has more to do with room modes.

My processor *does not* do everything correctly.  In fact, it got crucified on AVS for the bass management.  However, I think much of that is tied to the auto-eq.  The more I think about it, however, the less it makes sense to split up the processing, especially since I'm not bitstreaming from JRiver to the processor.
Title: Re: Question regarding mixing and x-over settings...
Post by: mwillems on May 18, 2014, 01:14:49 pm
I'll need to spend some time figuring out what I'm seeing means.  I think I have some problems around where the sub and the mains cross which I might be able to better address using REW.  It's also possible that the issue has more to do with room modes.

My processor *does not* do everything correctly.  In fact, it got crucified on AVS for the bass management.  However, I think much of that is tied to the auto-eq.  The more I think about it, however, the less it makes sense to split up the processing, especially since I'm not bitstreaming from JRiver to the processor.

I may be a little biased, but I try to do as much processing as I can manage in JRiver.  But that's because I ultimately moved away from having a processor at all (I have a multichannel DAC and power amps, so I have to do it in JRiver or not at all). 

If you'd like a second opinion, feel free to post some graphs of what you're seeing in the measurements at the crossover.  Just make sure that the measurements you post include both the phase and the frequency response (it's much easier to see what's going on if the phase is there).  If possible, it would be good to see three things:

1) The sub by itself
2) One of the mains by itself (left only, let's say)
3) And a composite measurement of a sweep that runs through both the sub and the main channel.