I calibrated a really nice system for a customer comprising of Arcam AVR 850 and Arcam P777 7 channel power amplifier driving Revel Concerta Speakers for front 3 and side surrounds with SVS speakers for rear surrounds and 4 Q Acoustics for Dolby Atmos Speakers, cleverly mounted at height using speaker brackets. The customer has 2 SVS SB2000 subwoofers, a home media PC which integrated with his 65″ LG B7 OLED creating a hub for all his music and some movie streaming. This is backed up by a Sony UHD Blu Ray Player and there was also some custom acoustic treatments in the room.
This was an interesting calibration because the customer has had his Arcam AVR 850 for some time and has been playing with Dirac since its first iteration. He had a good understanding of Dirac and had used it set the system up to a high performance level as was demonstrated to me on arrival.
I felt there was still a fair amount of room for improvement and as always started from the beginning by taking a good set of measurements to give me the platform I need to work from. I spent about 3 hours integrating the 2 SVS subwoofers, to squeeze as much performance from them as possible despite them not measuring that great at the MLP. From here I worked on creating the right balance of audio to blend all the differing speaker together but to maximise their individual strengths and rule out their weaknesses.
The end result was a very impactful, dynamic sound that is totally cohesive as a sound field despite the differing speakers, with a fantastic amount of high frequency clarity and detail, really very exceptional in that regard.
Then the last check was with music, previously the customer had to reduce the musical bass a lot to avoid muddying the sound, after the calibration he could have a really nice amount of bass which helped add a natural character to the music, especially vocal while remaining completely crisp and clear throughout.
Customer Feedback
All I can say is that you are a genius mate . You have what I would call Golden Ears !!!!!!! ☺👍☺👍
To be honest I did think that I may be disappointed because I did quite like the bog standard Dirac result but that was because I didn’t appreciate what a skilled calibrator could achieve.
You have taken my system to the next level, a level that I only dreamed of. I could have invested significantly more money in different hardware and not achieved the results that you have delivered for a far less cost and so I thank you greatly…..
Fantastic return on investment and something that I may never have achieved even given many years,