# Finally got a chance to mess around with REW! Great app!



## inivid (Apr 20, 2008)

So, I finally got the chance to play with REW and I must say that it's quite astonishing, what it's capabilities are.

My system is pretty primitive. I've had it since I was 17. I'm now 27.
It's an old JBL home theater system (JCS1). I simply use it as a 2-channel system. The original speakers are long gone. I still run the original subwoofer (ARCSUB10) that came with the receiver. The receiver has a Pre-Out/Pre-In, which I have wired to an Alesis M-EQ 230 that I use for correction.

*For Reference*
JSR635








Infinity US-1








Alesis M-EQ 230









I only messed with the Infiniti US-1s. Thus, all graphs are only of the US-1s.

Here's what the US-1 looked like before. This is with the EQ bypassed and the receiver's bass and treble set to zero.









This is after a quick 20min correction session.









I'm going to go over everything again today, as I was just messing around with REW and was getting a feel for the software (which, there's still way more I need to learn). Additionally, as I was putting my meter away, I realized it was set to A-weighting. Oops. I then, threw my Focal calibration cd in and sure enough...it sounded like poo. haha. 

Here's an overlay of the before and after.









So, as previously noted, I'm redoing it today with the meter properly weighted.

Though it's been decent for the last 10 years and having the EQ makes it waaaay more bearable, I really need to upgrade my system. Recommendations are extremely welcome, as I do not claim to know anything about current home audio offerings. I only want a 2.1 system that's comparable in size, that I can utilize external correction on, such as I currently have. (Although a parameteric EQ has been recommended to me.) 

Thusfar, REW is phenomenal and I haven't even begun to utilize everything it an do.


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## brucek (Apr 11, 2006)

While excellent for subwoofer measurement, if you're using a Radio Shack meter, the information above 3KHz is highly suspect. If you want to do full range measures you'll require a better microphone and preamp such as the ECM8000 and XENYX802 preamp. See this thread for info on this combo (part-way down the page).

brucek


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## inivid (Apr 20, 2008)

surprisingly enough, i think my dad has both of those in his home studio. i'll have to see if he's got them boxed up or not. he's got more stuff than he knows what to do with. haha. 

thanks bruce. :T


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## brucek (Apr 11, 2006)

Any mic preamp would do, and most studio type or measurement microphones would be fine if you have a calibration file for them. The files are easy to convert to REW format. We do have a generic ECM8000 calibration file on our download page that works quite well for that mic.

brucek


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## inivid (Apr 20, 2008)

brucek said:


> the information above 3KHz is highly suspect.


is this a generalization of the fore mentioned meter, or were you referring to the graph?

could you elaborate? :blink:


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## brucek (Apr 11, 2006)

> could you elaborate?


There's actually a fairly good article here, and we've had various comparisons by members that seem to verify that over 3KHz it's a bit of a **** shoot. We've done tests at the lower end and offer 'usable' calibration files for the three types up to 200Hz on our download page.

brucek


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## inivid (Apr 20, 2008)

thanks. that was a good read. all info noted.


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2008)

brucek96386 said:


> Any mic preamp would do, and most studio type or measurement microphones would be fine if you have a calibration file for them. The files are easy to convert to REW format. We do have a generic ECM8000 calibration file on our download page that works quite well for that mic.
> 
> brucek


I have an Audyssey Mic Calibration file with a .apn extension. Could you advise how I could convert this for use with REW?

Thanks!


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## brucek (Apr 11, 2006)

The information has to be in text format. Are you able to dump the file to notepad and read it? If so, it's easy to put it in REW .cal format.

brucek


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2008)

Thanks for the tip, unfortunately it is not text based.

I used Windows to search the Net for this extension and it indicates the following:

The .APM file extension identifies macro files for Planit's Alphacam computer-aided design and computer aided-design application for the woodworking sector.

Will have to do some research...

Thanks for your reply!


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