Official Arc System Wish List!

[Peter_IK]

The ARC Studio is great and with "Phase" set to "Natural" the latency is negligible. But in my studio the "Linear" setting sounds much better, but then the latency is long making it useless for tracking and when trying out mic positions.

How about a bigger version with a more powerful DSP, so we don't have to change the Phase setting back and fourth when tracking and mixing, so we can set and forget it?

Using any linear phase tool will introduce latency at the expense of quality. Normally folks are only mixing or mastering with such tools and during tracking there are minimal plugins that use resource-heavy functionality like linear phase (usually none) used.

However, of course your suggestion/request will be relayed. Thank you.

[CMSE]

The ARC Studio is great and with "Phase" set to "Natural" the latency is negligible. But in my studio the "Linear" setting sounds much better, but then the latency is long making it useless for tracking and when trying out mic positions.

How about a bigger version with a more powerful DSP, so we don't have to change the Phase setting back and fourth when tracking and mixing, so we can set and forget it?

Using any linear phase tool will introduce latency at the expense of quality. Normally folks are only mixing or mastering with such tools and during tracking there are minimal plugins that use resource-heavy functionality like linear phase (usually none) used.

However, of course your suggestion/request will be relayed. Thank you.

I perfectly understand why a longer latency is introduced when using a more processor hungry audio process and the only way to deal with that problem is to upgrade the DSP, which of course comes with a premium and considering the price of the ARC Studio that amount of DSP power won't fit the budget, hence the suggestion for a ARC Studio Pro a more expensive version with more DSP power and negligible latency when setting "Phase" to "Linear".

ARC Studio is a great product, this is just some constructive feedback to make a better more expensive version in addition to the current ARC Studio.

[nikolai]

Not exactly sure what the thinking is behind the signal part of the ARC Studio's signal/clip indicator blinking on/off when listening at workspace/conversation volumes, but having the box set up and accessible between desk/rack and monitor the blinking is pretty distracting. Or at late night work/listen levels no signal indicator at all...is it even doing anything at those levels?
Is there any way to implement optional full-time signal indicator that simply turns red for clipping or even just disable it and only have the red for clipping?

[acdc2000]

arc 4 is best in broad mode for my room. but it have a large high q gap then in some frequencies. so arc should be allow the EQ in edit mode with higher q to boost this gap until it sound best. or maybe do more correction types to choose between broad and default.

[acdc2000]

it is also usefull to be able to correct in bass range left and right independent because it happen that on low bass in my room a 78 hz sine tone sound as it come from more left and is not clear locatable(in compare with arc disable).in songs it help to get better sound to reduce stereo width in this frequency. so to get better speaker correction it is also usefull to allow reduce stereo width in small muliband stereo imagine settings include in arc

i am maybe not the only but bass location errors on speakers cause same strange ear feeling as incorrectly polarizes speakers

the developers of arc should also compare the correctet results of speakers with a correctet heaphone when hear a kick drum in mono in a simple test drumloop. I always hear that kick drum sound much more diffrent and dull after correction as with the headphone in default or sharp mode.

I have a treated room and 6 large melamin foam basstraps.

[matt.montag]

My unpopular opinion: I think room correction can be marketed to a larger hi-fi audience.
I don't want to bring up nightmares of the Onkyo Denon A/V receiver room correction, but I mean... that's the idea.

So my wish would be to make the ARC box more self-contained and user-friendly: with a microphone input. Or, let me hook the microphone up to my phone (like the USB UMIK) and calibrate with an app. Anything to avoid the requirement of an audio interface+laptop in the picture.

(confession: I bought an audio interface with the ARC 4 because I didn't have any XLR inputs)

[acdc2000]

I get in arc 4 lots of hearable prering on kick drum and I think arc 4 can be much better when there is a additional mode that correct left and right speaker with same eq settings in minimum mode. Only the diffrences from left to right channel should be correct with linear phase mode. this avoid prering which sound very bad on kick drums and transients when all is correct on linear phase mode.

because when use diffrent eq settings on left and right channels the phase shifts of the minimal eq setting create due to phase shift between left and right channel strange stereo image in bass range but good transients

[mrmine75]

I want to suggest to add the possibility of editing the eq with more points and options like Q factor to draw Bell curve more precise and accurate.
Very thanks

[horacewimp]

I perfectly understand why a longer latency is introduced when using a more processor hungry audio process and the only way to deal with that problem is to upgrade the DSP, which of course comes with a premium and considering the price of the ARC Studio that amount of DSP power won't fit the budget, hence the suggestion for a ARC Studio Pro a more expensive version with more DSP power and negligible latency when setting "Phase" to "Linear".

ARC Studio is a great product, this is just some constructive feedback to make a better more expensive version in addition to the current ARC Studio.

According to my understanding of physics, the latency of linear phase EQs is not due to high CPU load, but a general characteristic of these EQs (pre-ringing..). It should simply not be possible to program latency-free linear phase EQs, no matter how much computing power is available.
As far as I know, there is no such thing - but I would be delighted and very surprised if someone invented it
And yes, btw. I'm very enthusiastic about ARC Studio. In the past, I've always transferred my ARC curves to a Behringer DEQ2496 in order to have a hardware standalone solution for room correction. This is a much better sounding and easier to use solution!

[thymusepithel]

1) I wholeheartedly agree I'd like more control over the correction, I'll just expand on it a bit. A "cut only" mode for frequency ranges of the user's choosing would help tons where the correction makes the situation very noticeably worse, or simply where it is overdoing it where it would have been fine with less gain in that spot of correction.
For example, this would really help me lower the volume of the peak at 54 Hz whilst keeping ARC Studio from trying to boost my speakers in the frequencies below where it only causes quite audible issues to boost them since they're built to roll of at that point.
Another common issue it would solve is where ARC Studio tries to boost a null it shouldn't. (Maybe my fault too considering I use only one spot to calibrate? I assume there would be an attempt of null detection going on somewhere aided by the different measurement locations you're supposed to use. But maybe I'm way off on that. It also wouldn't help if the null basically covers the whole measurement area.)

I have lowered my target curve over the whole spectrum to -6dB which really helps, but of course removes the possibility of boosts where I'd actually would have liked to use them and I also can't roll any other frequency with the target curve manually now.

This feature would be, by far, the most important improvement to me.

The rest is just small stuff:
2) A measurement creation mode that allows you to simply measure the same spot a few times. Currently I just measure the same point seven (was it seven?) times since it gives me the best results for my needs (just me in my fixed listening position).

3) Calibration file for the mic. I'd really like to have some hands-on proof that my measurement mic is working as intended. It helps keep me sane.

4) LED on the CORRECTION button just a little bit less bright. I tend to see glares around bright objects in the dark and this LED is actually annoyingly bright in comparison to others - the other two LEDs are fine and have never bothered me.

Also, thanks for making this. I love the set-it-and-forget-it of the hardware version, it does a great job overall and I'm happy to have it here