Room is 20 ft x 11 emptying across ~ 4 wide x 15 ft hallway into a ~ 10 ft x 9 kitchen. Past the kitchen is a ~ 3 ft wide descending staircase. Beyond that is a ~ 3.5 ft wide open closet comprising most of the length of the long wall to the corner. There are three ~ 2 ft wide bay windows at one end of the short wall, which usually stay closed. A triangular ceiling peaking at 11 ft extends over everything.
Troy Crowe and I haven’t finalized design of the main speakers he’s building for me. But most likely they will resemble these but minus the back loaded bass horn. Speaker System No.2095 – Joseph Crowe
My plan was to build a 3.1 (3.3?) system for DVD and BD movie sound, but designing a center channel speaker that will at least approach the tonality of the mains and won’t block the view of the 65” TV screen looks problematic.
Thus, all this talk about room correction may seem premature. But as all my source material is digital and I’ve yet to own a standalone DAC, I reasoned that if I’m going to spend serious money on one-and since most experts and experienced DIYers all claim that it always sounds way better when the room/system is acoustically and electronically corrected-then a MCH DAC with stereo DAC sound quality and software with a not too arduous learning curve seems to be the sensible investment.
DAC budget is ~ $5.5K. But I don’t mind complaining about the dearth of MCH DAC choices, at least offering more generous output voltages and use of other DAC chips. Markw4 at diyaudio.com and others claim that it’s not just output stages, quiet power supplies and digital filtering schemes which determine overall DAC sound quality. They say AKM chips have at least some sonic advantages over the omnipotent ESS chips. But Mark mentioned last year that post-COVID supply chains and other factors will postpone an eventual swing towards AKM chips for some years.
Yes, as I’ve read from those at gearspace forum, the first step should be to acoustically improve the room. But IIRC, they also said that the best way to do that is to take mic measurements of the room and use the saved WAV files and analytical and software (which?) to determine the room’s problems (ring modes?) and their locations-and thereby know what acoustical materials to use and where to place them.
Yes? If so, then that’s why I have been asking here about MCH DAC and room correction software comparisons.
