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Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
This thread was originally on DIYMA and I am moving my support to here.
Note: See the link in my signature to download the latest version of this tool.
This spreadsheet has been a lot of fun to make! My goal is to take as much guesswork out of the tuning and installation process as possible. With this tool, you can calculate a safe high-pass crossover point for your midbass and midrange speakers, then plug those numbers into the next sheet where you choose what frequency response curve you want your overall system to have, and the tool will generate a set of custom house curve files tailored for each of your speakers. Import those directly into Room EQ Wizard and use the EQ module to find the filters for your DSP.
If you use the next sheet to calculate time delay settings for all of your speakers, and you get them to match the house curves exported from earlier, then your tuning is mostly done! I recommend spending some more time with 31-band pink noise tracks to get the center image perfectly centered, and you can download some ones I made from my dropbox at this link:
-----> 31-band pink noise tracks <-----
A bonus feature I included is an interactive chart to help you choose which size power wire and fuse for your amplifiers. The sheet will take into account the efficiency of your amplifier (effecting how much power it will need to be supplied with) as well as the condition of your car (engine on or off) and you can choose how much of a voltage drop is acceptable to you. Lastly, measure about how long the power wire needs to be and then you will see which size wire and fuse you will need. A ton of research went into this particular sheet, and I'm looking forward to everyone's feedback.
There is an included read-me with instructions for each section with some hints and cautions.
Like I mention in the included read-me, please let me know if this is useful for you and if you would like me to build more features into this spreadsheet.
Here are some screenshots:
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-.../i-c9WwkmN.gif
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-.../i-S8c6zbX.jpg
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-.../i-z4T6FMv.gif
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Version 5.7 is now available.
---> download version 5.7 from my dropbox right here <---
Updates:
-Addressed the error where more variables were not defined in the Crossover Frequency worksheet.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Thanks for bringing this over Justin. I got confounded trying to setup the curves and x-overs in REW, it was much easier to import and tune to the curves I made in your spreadsheet.
Where I really struggled was with which curve to use, I found i needed to carry my "bass" rolloff all the way to 1k, ie the Audiofrog curve sounded horrible to me, but some of the whitledge curves were a bit much. With more time and effort I'd like to individually tune to multiple cuves and then a/b test them, but even dialing in one tune is kind of exhausting, and so many times I A/B test and think "yeah that sounds good, and the other one sounds good, but does one really sound better than the other ?"
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Yeah that's a tough thing. The best situation is when you have some global filters to play with then you can tune the system dead flat which takes a while, then use the global filters to more quickly dial in your overall house curve. I know that's not always an option for some processors though.
My radio has a pretty good equalizer on it so I've been using it as a global filter to fiddle with my overall response. It is very convenient too since I can adjust it anytime without a laptop or a phone app or whatever. Once in a while I'll take the small edits I've done on the radio and fold them into the dsp and reset the filters on the radio so I can continue experimenting.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Jazzi - I have been working with your Tuning companion and the Whitledge curves for a number of months with some difficulty.
I finally realized by using REW to measure the imported house curves that the slopes and crossover points created by your tuning guide don't actually reflect the crossover type selected in the guide. I'm wondering if it's just the nature of the house curve itself sloping downwards that changes the actual crossover slopes, or if it's something else I missed.
When I imported one of the curves into REW as a regular measurement, then went into the EQ window (with no house curve loaded in preferences), I could manipulate the default flat REW house curve target to match the imported Whitledge curve, and the results were usually something like a Bessel 36db/oct or a LWR 12db/oct, or something else entirely. The midrange curve was the one most frequently mixed, with the high pass usually being a 24db/oct LWR, and the low pass being something closer to a 12db/oct. The tweeter curve always matched up to 24db/oct. the Midbass curve high pass is always much steeper than 24db/oct. Is this something you already realized when creating this?
Anyway, this realization helped me reach the target successfully. It's a great tool! I thank you for creating it!
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Yep, that sounds right, working as intended. The flavor curve (whitledge, Andy, jazzi, etc) will change how it looks just like you describe. Nice job learning how it works!
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Separately, I would enjoy some feedback on wire gauge and fuse worksheet. I'm curious if it is useful or if it is easy to use or if it's just a messy confusion or what.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
I feel like this should be stickied to the top....I was trying to find it the other day and couldn’t.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Gosh I love this forum...mention that something should be sticky and within an hour it is....
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Enough sucking up...get back to work!
:heh:
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Shoot. Teaching online and a data collection and graphing day...not a whole lot for me to do but stare at initials on a screen wondering if the students are actually there or not...(I do at least get to see their work being done in real time, but the ones that aren’t doing anything make me wonder).
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
I think the wire gauge worksheet is useful. I've always found that graph to be useful (you can find a similar one through Crutchfield or a variety of websites).
One problem I can see is that different Class D amplifiers have different efficiency ratings. Usually they are close (75% vs 83%). But added confusion can happen with the class AD amplifiers. It might help to have an added option to input the advertised efficiency rating ... but then again ... would it be better to just round down for safety sake to the lower number?
For the voltage drop ... I think that some people will measure this and will know ~ what their voltage drop is, but it might be helpful to have a "recommended" or average voltage drop list. It may be best to have some sort of a default, that errors on the side of caution. Sometimes its good to have a short sentence or paragraph that explains the default so that the average joe doesn't change the default.
I personally have found myself on the borderline of 4 vs 8 gauge wiring. Sometimes I think that a little disclaimer is necessary that can explain the grey area. Its easy to engage in selective listening and read the chart and then look in your toolbox and draw a conclusion that is more in line with what you have in stock. When in a gray area, personally I like having a push towards black or white.
I have found that amplifier wiring calculators are somewhat common. RF has one, Kicker has one, Crutchfield has one, Sonic has one, etc. I think that this is an important tool for you to hone, but also I feel that a similar and less available tool is speaker wire gauge selection. There is a website (http://www.bcae1.com/wire.htm) that has a sometimes-great speaker wire calculator. One issue is that it only works on certain browsers (for me, Mozilla but not chrome). The second issue, is that after trying to find the sweet spot for what the extremes are for 10 gauge vs 12 gauge @ 1 ohm ... the calculator is broken. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. To me, this is a tool that can be improved upon. The calculators algorithms aren't perfect, nor are they consistent. I've tried to find the "breaking point" of how-many-watts@how-many-ohms, and depending on how I input it, I get different results.
I think sometimes its clear and easy to find a calculator to see what gauge wire our amplifier should need, but it isn't so clear that the same speaker wire that is ok for 100 watts, isn't OK for 300 watts (This was my realization when finding out what gauge wire was acceptable for my Stevens Audio MB-6 Mid-bass that can take oooooooodles of watts ... I'd rather only feed my speaker wire through my door boots once). But also, its handy to know what gauge wire is appropriate for most subwoofers, but at what point that wire isn't up to snuff. This can be useful because I was recommended 16 gauge wire for car speakers ... but had I picked up a 100' roll of 14 gauge I would have been able to wire my mid-bass speakers (with as many watts as they would ever want, regardless of ohms or future amplifiers), as well as my subwoofers.
5 paragraphs later ... One worksheet for speaker wire and amplifier wire seems like it would become a default search. A one stop shop.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Thanks for all the hard work on this Justin.
I'm trying to understand the Crossover tab better but am somewhat confused...
I'm building a 2 way front with a midbass (GS690) and a wideband (GS25). When I enter the driver data in the Crossover tab, it recommends 100Hz HP for the midbass (GS690) and 200Hz HP for the wideband (GS25) The excursion plot is well below xmax for both.
This seems kind of weird so I'm thinking I am missing something. Are these intended to be the MIN HP or absolute HP that I should enter into the 2-way curve fields?
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
You may want to edit the read me.txt to point to this thread rather than DIYMA. It would be unfortunate if someone went looking for help and accidentally fell into that dumpster fire.
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1 Attachment(s)
Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
That's a helluva first post lol! Welcome here!
I'll add it to the fantastic list of feedback from dirtybumoak up above. Thank you for pointing that out.
Attachment 14104
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
swrocket
Thanks for all the hard work on this Justin.
I'm trying to understand the Crossover tab better but am somewhat confused...
I'm building a 2 way front with a midbass (GS690) and a wideband (GS25). When I enter the driver data in the Crossover tab, it recommends 100Hz HP for the midbass (GS690) and 200Hz HP for the wideband (GS25) The excursion plot is well below xmax for both.
This seems kind of weird so I'm thinking I am missing something. Are these intended to be the MIN HP or absolute HP that I should enter into the 2-way curve fields?
Sorry I didn't see your question earlier!
These are supposed to be good frequencies to try if you have no other guidance to work with. I would consider them the minimum high-pass frequency for what you want to do, based on the numbers you type into the boxes. Yes the excursion should be be lower than the red Xmax line but that is the point, trying to keep you within the limits that you define. You can experiment by raising the Xmax value to something big like 100 and then play with the other numbers, hit the calculate button a few times, and see how it all changes.
Also remember this tool is a rough estimate based on some textbook "ideal" math. It doesn't work out like this in real life and the excursion is usually lower than my tool predicts so it might be considered a conservative tool for what it does (which is better than underestimating and giving you false sense of security).
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Justin Zazzi
That's a helluva first post lol! Welcome here!
I'll add it to the fantastic list of feedback from dirtybumoak up above. Thank you for pointing that out.
Attachment 14104
Well, I wandered here from the aforementioned dumpster fire a while ago, just haven't had much to say yet.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Thanks Justin. I'll play around a bit.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Good to see you here Justin. Seems lot of people have moved away from DIYMA now. Hope the community grows in a healthy manner
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Justin Zazzi
Thanks
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Hah, you're welcome. Glad you could find it afterall.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
thanks for this brother. i have a 3 way system in my car with 8's in the doors (no subs sadly) where i could use a good tuning.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
First up, Great job on building this tool
Just a quick question
Am trying to tune my car audio system using REW
Am a bit stumped here with which house curve I should be matching for a LR4 crossover for my 3" mid with a 300 to 4000 hz bandpass
I have been using, Jazzis tuning companion for REW to generate a set of Half Whit housecurves with LR4 slopes (pic 1)
If I then import the generated house curve for the mid range driver into the REW EQ panel, I get the target graph below (pic 2)
It is should be a 24db 4th order slope, but it looks like its dropping at 17 db per octave??
If I turn off the housecurve and use the REW target line for a speaker driver 300-4000 hz with LR4 slope, I get the target graph below (pic 3)
It should be a 24db 4th order slope, but looks like its dropping 35db per octave
What am I doing wrong here?
Which target curve should I be using for a LR4 slope?
Attachment 15093Attachment 15095Attachment 15094
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
If you use the individual driver curve from the spreadsheet you have to set the speaker type to none in REW.
Just compare this to the curve you get from the overall curve set to speaker driver with 24db and same corner frequencies. It should match then.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cathul
If you use the individual driver curve from the spreadsheet you have to set the speaker type to none in REW.
Just compare this to the curve you get from the overall curve set to speaker driver with 24db and same corner frequencies. It should match then.
Is it "none" or "full range". If you don't select full range it's doubling up the filters. Try it full range and the curve should match.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Thank you! I'm glad you like the tool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Socket
It is should be a 24db 4th order slope, but it looks like its dropping at 17 db per octave??
Remember the curves my tool creates are the combination of the crossover and also the house curve. The curve you're expecting to see (24dB/octave) is not what you will end up with because it is being modified by the gentle downward slant of the "half of Whitledge" curve.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Socket
If I turn off the housecurve and use the REW target line for a speaker driver 300-4000 hz with LR4 slope, I get the target graph below (pic 3)
It should be a 24db 4th order slope, but looks like its dropping 35db per octave
Yeah that doesn't look right. Maybe the house curve is not disabled like you think it is? It looks like the combination of my tool's target curve on top of the LR4 that REW is adding to it like Cathul and DaveG mention.
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2 Attachment(s)
Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DaveG
Is it "none" or "full range". If you don't select full range it's doubling up the filters. Try it full range and the curve should match.
It's none...
See the screenshots. First shot is with the overall curve and speaker settings.
Second shot is with the individual curve and speaker set to "none".
Both match, first one when set to the individual settings (70hp and 2300 lp LR24db) and 2nd one when set to none. I have raised the by 5db to make it more visible. If you lower the target level by that 5db the current and predicted curve perfectly match in each screenshot.
Attachment 15108
Attachment 15109
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Thanks guys, I appreciate the quick response. Speaker type is set to none in REW (see pic 2 above). But as you point out, if a house curve is loaded in REW and a speaker type is also selected in REW, the target is a combination of both (as Justin points out above). I removed the housecurve in REW and the target curve was perfect.... such a simple mistake... Really appreciate your help guys... was driving me nuts ;)
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Man this is such a great tool and when i finally understood the concept that "...shape is king..." - Justin Zazzi, it really made understanding that the electrical Xover type and slope is only the tools to get us to the needed actual Acoustical Xover shape. the Zazzi curve has been the hardest for me to come close too achieving, but it also sounds better to me than the "JBL/Andy" or ATF's house curve, I think the Zazzi curve is way under rated...
Okay enough nut hugging :) lol
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
So when tuning in an open air environment Convertible, jeep, motorcycle etc are the LR4 alignment still ideal? Without all the reflections I ponder this.... Are there any other considerations I should be thinking about ?
And is it possible setting TA of the rear speakers in this instance to get a more complete sound at your ear? Obviously this isn't SQ related question per say.... But my overall listening enjoyment in a sort of SQL system where the rear speakers actually make a difference.
My Jeep had a passive 3 way setup with sub.... My motorcycle will have an active 3way plus center channel wideband..... Possibly a sub or PA midbass style
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Yes, they are still ideal for phase purposes.
The beautiful thing about lack of reflections (there are still A lot) is that you get less comb filtering.
Also, you should get the harley rockford setup...I heard that was tuned by someone really good and really into car audio....maybe even enough to make a helpful spreadsheet or sitting on a harley in their profile picture on this site ;)
Open air will also have issues with cancellation when driving due to environment, so road noise will impact stuff more and drown things out. Ideal if you can compensate for this some way...like the rockford harley stuff does.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jdunk54nl
Yes, they are still ideal for phase purposes.
The beautiful thing about lack of reflections (there are still A lot) is that you get less comb filtering.
Also, you should get the harley rockford setup...I heard that was tuned by someone really good and really into car audio....maybe even enough to make a helpful spreadsheet or sitting on a harley in their profile picture on this site ;)
Open air will also have issues with cancellation when driving due to environment, so road noise will impact stuff more and drown things out. Ideal if you can compensate for this some way...like the rockford harley stuff does.
Well its a F6B Goldwing I have the JBL DSP4086 for tuning and JBL BR-A 400.4(Brazilian) and Banda Black 400.4 I was running and old class AB JBL 504ez I had laying about and it sounded amazing without any tuning but I don't think it will stay cool enough in the saddlebag....
Using old Kappa 50.9 and 60.9 Components. Looking at using the CDT Unity widebands on the dash and some 3.5" in the pocket...
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Tuning open air vehicles is a challenge. What sounds good engine-off to demo for friends will sound different from engine-on around town, and really different from driving at speed like on the highway or trail. It's a hard compromise to optimize all situations at the same time so I've seen people usually optimize more for one driving condition vs the others.
It's a bummer your bike isn't compatible with the system that jdunkl54 keeps hinting at because it's kinda awesome :)
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Yea I'm sure it is.. ... Or why would you have worked on it!!! LoL. It honestly surprises me that with as many Goldwings are on the roads there isn't ANYTHING thats plug and play easy(Kustom Wingz/Evil Wingz does make some one off stuff tho)... But no harnesses, larger front speaker adapters, hell I can't even get the rear speaker harness without going through Mother Honda....I wrote several companies about working up a harness years ago for the DSR1 and wings and basically just got a canned response of thanks we will take that under advisement. Oh well... Ill say this about the HD guys...they are far more likely to cut and splice then most of the wingers.....
Feel free to message me any tips you think may be pertinent lol. I certainly appreciate the Spreadsheet and your other contributions!!
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Hi All, ive been following this from over on DIYMA.
there are a few things i dont understand yet, but i'll start with this one:
When you use the tool to set your house curve and then create the driver curves, you enter in crossover points and slopes into the tool. then you take measurements in REW with all crossovers switched off, except for tweeter. then REW should tell you how to EQ it (i'm using minidsp, so maybe REW with give me biquads for Minidsp? perhaps thats another question) does the resulting EQing include the crossovers too? or do i do the parametric EQ stuff, then go into the crossover section in the DSP and switch on the filters/crossovers to match that set in Zazzis tool at the beginning?
Does that make sense?
Thanks
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
I don't think REW sets crossovers automatically for the minidsp, I could be wrong.
Ultimately the crossover is just another parametric EQ filter. Use it just like you do parametric eq filters to hit the acoustical target of each driver (what the RTA shows when measured at your listening position).
Normally my order is
1) Set time alignment data, if using a mono sub channel out of dsp or linked channels, adjust sub 6db down in dsp (that way when both your door woofers are playing, sub will match their level). If using seperate L and R sub channels, make sure to turn the left off when measuring right and right off when measuring left sub out.
2) Measure speakers raw response using moving mic method (MMM) and pink periodic noise without any EQ (Set appropriate safe crossovers so you don't blow smaller speakers). Include a sweep of each driver to get distortion profile.
3) Set crossovers to what they need to be to match acoustic response (this could be 6db, 12db, 18db, 24db, 36db slopes / octave and butterwoth, linkwitz, etc types). I try to really use this to match as much to my target curve as possible.
4) Finish matching to the target curve with parametric eq.
5) Measure again with MMM and pink periodic noise (including a sweep of each driver to measure distortion to compare to before eq, that way you can really tell if you boosted something that shouldn't be) and see how you did and adjust accordingly.
6) Then go into measuring pairs of speakers.
7) Go to band limited pink noise and listen to see if everything is centered, I suggest 10 minute max for this part. Your ears will start to not work properly after about that amount of time.
There is a good discussion on this stuff here: https://www.caraudiojunkies.com/show...tic-Crossovers
and here: https://www.caraudiojunkies.com/show...stic+crossover
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Good info, thanks
So the crossover points you set in jazzis tool that create the targets aren't necessarily the crossover points you will end up with. Cool. I'll check out those threads.
Thanks.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Quote:
Originally Posted by
champ222
Good info, thanks
So the crossover points you set in jazzis tool that create the targets aren't necessarily the crossover points you will end up with. Cool. I'll check out those threads.
Thanks.
The ones you set in Justin's spreadsheet are the acoustical crossovers, the electrical settings in the DSP only matter in that you hit those acoustical.
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Re: Justin Zazzi's tuning companion for room eq wizard
Hi TheLexus, I assume you found an answer to your question? I see you removed your question here.