Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1487666
44 W I N T E R 2 0 2 3 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y A dub stage that has been built from the ground up and designed by a talented and experienced acoustician should sound pretty great. More importantly, the mixes created there should translate and sound good in other listening environments as well. But let's be honest; not every stage is equal. These days, many of us have taken to building studios of our own, myself included, with varying degrees of success. One piece of the puzzle I found to be helpful in getting my mixes to translate better from room-to-room is speaker correction EQ. Monitor Correction Experiences Matt Foglia CAS wrote a very informative article for the Fall 2019 CAS Quarterly where he did a deep dive into Sonarworks Reference 4. Matt provided his firsthand experience of setting up and using the software for his home studio and his personal results. To get a nice look at the implementation of the software, I highly recommend going back to give that a read. (Back issues of the Quarterly from Fall of 2005 to the present are available on the CAS website under "Publications" and then "CAS Quarterly Archives.") At the time, Sonarworks Reference 4 was only capable of correcting a stereo signal. Today, Sonarworks' latest product is called Sound ID Reference, and the multichannel option can correct up to 9.1.6. There are actually quite a few options available to handle this task, and they generally fall into two categories. The more automatic options scan each speaker using a calibrated measurement microphone, and then apply EQ and delay to compensate for irregularities in the listening environment. Products that fall in this category are Sound ID Reference, Dirac Live Room Correction Suite Multichannel (which also offers up to 9.1.6 room correction), Genelec's GLM 4 (which, in addition to calibrating your speakers, generates an in-depth analysis they call the GRADE report), and JBL's Intonato system. The second category includes the Avid MTRX with an SPQ Speaker Processing Card in conjunction with the DADman software, and BSS Audio Soundweb London, which allow you to manually adjust your EQ correction. My pre-pandemic work experience had me shifting daily between one of 11 studios that were all built with different b y S a m C a s a s C A S