# dayton emm-6- which direction for rew measurement?



## jaschoon (Mar 7, 2015)

hello:

i am going to start gathering studio room response measurements and am not sure how to point my dayton emm-6 in relation to my speakers.

i have heard several explanations of the direction- e.g., "upright", "pointing up", etc. from that i would expect to set the mic up so it looks like a rocket about to blast off. 

pretty simple, except...

i have seen other guides that show a picture of the mic pointed down. a couple folks seem to think they need to point directly at the monitors, similar to the barrel of a gun.

help?!?!?! :help:

thanks, j


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

I don’t know where the idea of pointing the speaker at the floor came from, but the advent of cheap measurement software has given us no shortage of room measurement “experts” with no professional background or training in the field, many of whom merely follow the advice they see on the internet from other amateur ultracrepidarians. You won’t find any literature from companies like B&K (manufacturers of high-quality measurement mics, among other things) that supports such a practice. Practically speaking, down-right orientation wouldn’t matter for low-frequency measurements, since both the mic and signal source are omnidirectional. But I wouldn’t use it for anything else.

The primary reason for up-right (90°) mic orientation is digital room correction (e.g. Audyssey, YPAO etc., found in most AVRs these days). It’s mainly an “ease of use” thing, being more convenient than re-orienting the mic to measure each speaker in the system. Upright orientation requires a 90° calibration file when used for main-speaker measurements. It should be noted, upright orientation can give inaccurate upper-frequency results in some rooms, depending on a number of factors like type of ceiling type and texture, distance between the speakers to the listening position, etc.

Pointing the measurement mic at the speaker, or somewhat off-axis (doesn’t matter) will get the most reliable frequency response measurements for main speakers. 

Regards,
Wayne


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## jaschoon (Mar 7, 2015)

wayne:

thanks! so, shall i point the end tip at the monitor (or split the monitor pair) that i'm using during measurement?

thanks,
j


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Since you presumably want to measure both speakers, it’s fine to position the mic at the listening position and point it straight ahead. It’s best to measure each speaker separately, as comb filtering can affect measured response in the upper frequencies if the mic isn’t absolutely perfectly centered when measuring both simultaneously.

Regards,
Wayne


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## jaschoon (Mar 7, 2015)

wayne:

thanks for your follow-up. that makes sense- ill do each individually.

i really appreciate your time and effort. 

j


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