I need to add some love to the Sonarworks world.

I have lived in the world of IK/Multimedia ARC 2 (Automatic Room Correction) for about 3 years. Changed my world. A lot. No complaints. Separate profiles for my JBL LSR305, M-Audio AV-40, Casio PX-330 piano (has line in so I can work with the piano but have all the sounds).

Decided to try Sonarworks for headphones on the laptop…was impressed with the demo. Impressed enough to purchase the headphone license. Then we get the PLAPA discount, so I decided to go for the full Reference 4 upgrade. It’s November — studio upgrade season. Tried really hard to build room profiles using my reference mic from ARC2. That was an abject failure. OK…I’ll get the Sonarworks microphone and do the whole thing.

Wow.

I “shot the room” this afternoon. Took a bit of fooling around to get a proper level so I could calibrate. When the software told me how far apart my speakers were to the half-inch I was excited to proceed. Many measurements. I got good by the end and could put the mic almost exactly where the software wanted it.

Now I get to listen to music for a couple of weeks to re-train my ears 😉 Definitely a different adjustment than ARC2. Bass is way more in control. My “Mix Test” doesn’t get the whole house vibrating anymore on the dub music. The boomy jazz bass is still very bass present, but the fretboard sound is quite “visible” and no longer lost.

I’m really buzzed about the loss of the buzzy-room bass…really.

Happily I can flip between ARC2 and Reference 4 without much difficulty — mad skillz ya know…

So far I have gone more than an hour at full reference volume on the mix test without running out of the room 😉 SPL meter is reading the same as always — 74 dB for most things, 85 dB for the ZZ Top and Conspirator.

Time to let the ears rest…little bit of Robert Jon & The Wreck 😉 I turned it down…