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Dayton OmniMic Precision Measurement System - Page 61

post #1801 of 1990
11/24/12 at 5:07pm
thanks for the reply.

the darn price jumped 100$
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post #1802 of 1990
11/24/12 at 11:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea View Post

thanks for the reply.

the darn price jumped 100$

What was the Dell notebook that you had at the PA GTG several weeks ago?

It appeared to be more than adequate.
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post #1803 of 1990
11/25/12 at 12:51am
Alienware M11X.

Yes it works fine - it is somewhat overkill, but it small and portable. I've recently purchased a Kindle Fire HD tablet and am really turned on to the convenience of a tablet! They start up immediately, are easy to carry, and exceptionally simple.

When I saw that latitude tablet with windows 7 for $200 I immediately thought of using it with omnimic. Ultimately though I'd rather have a faster machine with my next update to the M11X, and not a slower machine like that the Intel Atom based tablet. I'm watching the Microsoft Surface tablet, but I'm unwilling to pay $800 for that thing when there are maxed out laptops like the Lenovo Y580 for $800-$900 that have WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY better specs that would put my M11X to shame (though not a tablet).

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/82530/microsoft-store-lenovo-ideapad-y580-laptop-core-i7-3610qm-2.3ghz-8gb-ddr3-750gb-hdd-32gb-ssd-15.6-1920x1080-2gb-geforce-gtx-660m-bluray-drive-wifi-n-usb-3.0-6cell-win-7-prem
or
http://slickdeals.net/f/5549826-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y580-Laptop-Core-i7-3630QM-8GB-DDR3-1TB-HDD-1920x1080-2GB-GeForce-GTX-660M-Windows-8-900
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post #1804 of 1990
11/25/12 at 5:05am
Don't get an Atom based netbook. You'll stop using it in disgust due to it being a slow turd. I couldn't stand mine and replaced it with a 11.6" notbook (not a typo biggrin.gif ) with a CULV processor (very low voltage Core 2 Duo). Way better machine.
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post #1805 of 1990
11/25/12 at 6:12am
I'm about halfway through this thread. I'm going to buy this in a few days, possibly CM. I've got a Toshiba Satellite A215-S6816, with the dual core AMD athalon 2.4 Ghz 64-bit chipset and 4gb of RAM running windows 7 ultimate 64 bit...do you guys think I'll have any problems?
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post #1806 of 1990
11/25/12 at 6:17am
Given its much more powerful than the atom notebook the designer uses you should have no trouble. My experience is that there is more of a problem when scaling with a HD screen than with lower def screens but this is just an inconvenience for a few such as myself.
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post #1807 of 1990
11/25/12 at 6:18am
no that machine will work fine.

my wife has a low voltage dual core 1.3ghz 13" dell vostro and omnimic works fine on it and Bill says it works fine on his netbook, which will be even slower...so you'll definitely be fine.
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post #1808 of 1990
11/27/12 at 6:45am
Just pulled the trigger over the weekend on the system...biggrin.gif

Can't wait to actually see what's going on in my living room on real graphs...beats running sine waves at every freq with a handheld...
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post #1809 of 1990
11/27/12 at 10:37am
I used to use a RS meter and warble tones also. 1/3 octave measuring just doesnt cut it. I use 1/24th for frequency response graphs and it tells a much more complete story, not to mention way more accurate. But even better than this is the ETC measurements. No hand held sound level meter will tell you what your room reflections are doing, and this even more than FR defines how your room sounds.
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post #1810 of 1990
11/29/12 at 8:57am
Hola all:

Well, the $295 is a bit out of my budget, but if someone finds that they're not using their o-mic as much as they thought, or are looking to try something else, please PM me and we can work something out to both of our liking, I'm sure.

Looked into REW but the plug and play appeal and ease of use of this seems worth the additional $'s, imo.

thanks.

James
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post #1811 of 1990
11/29/12 at 9:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mastermaybe View Post

Hola all:
Well, the $295 is a bit out of my budget,
Use this:
http://www.holmacoustics.com/holmimpulse.php

with one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Icicle-Converter-Preamp/dp/B001EW5YQS

And one of these:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=390-801

and any decent amplifier.
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post #1812 of 1990
11/29/12 at 10:40am
^ no additional cabling needed? And if you please, what do you mean by "any decent amplifier"? Extreme noob here, in this area.

I have a Denon 4311 with all 11 channels outputted to Crown XLS 1500's and my subs pre-outted to an XLS 2500.

Either accept XLRs or RCAs.

I've read about so many opting out of REW and HOLM because of equipment/set-up issues and really do not want to run into the same...but at the same time, I'm willing to do the work to save a couple hundred.

EDIT: this "Icicle" appears to not work with Windows 7 according to multiple amazon reviews, btw.

thanks!

James
Edited by mastermaybe - 11/29/12 at 10:48am
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post #1813 of 1990
11/29/12 at 10:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mastermaybe View Post

^ no additional cabling needed?
Only a wire from the computer sound card to the amp input and one from the amp output to the speaker. If you're measuring in-room response the cables from the amp to speakers are already there.
Quote:
And if you please, what do you mean by "any decent amplifier"?
One you'd listen to.
Quote:
I've read about so many opting out of REW and HOLM because of equipment/set-up issues
You can have HolmImpulse up and running in ten minutes. Their documentation is poor, it assumes you know what you're doing, but a search will turn up a number of sites where complete tutorials are posted.
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post #1814 of 1990
11/29/12 at 10:54am
Is this up to snuff, Bill? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002TTOJUC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=736869-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002TTOJUC

I've read it's a good one for REW so I'd expect similar results with HOLM. I'd be willing to spend $150 to get this in order.

Sorry for the OT, I'll take this to PM here on in...

James
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post #1815 of 1990
11/29/12 at 11:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mastermaybe View Post

Hola all:

Well, the $295 is a bit out of my budget, but if someone finds that they're not using their o-mic as much as they thought, or are looking to try something else, please PM me and we can work something out to both of our liking, I'm sure.

Looked into REW but the plug and play appeal and ease of use of this seems worth the additional $'s, imo.

thanks.

James

James,

My experience with REW and with Omnimic has me picking up the omnimic for sake of convenience everytime. You can be measuring in 2 minutes with the omnimic and it'll take you 10-15 to get setup and measuring with the REW equipment.

When I'm going to audio meet to audio meet - the omnimic is king.
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post #1816 of 1990
11/29/12 at 11:58am
I agree except when in your own home REW is simple, it just takes the initial setup and then it is as easy as placing your microphone at the position and hit measure. The initial setting up the sound card, cables, etc... is what is time consuming but REW itself is simple. I have a computer in my rack room that is on all the time and whenever I want to take a measurement I just have to connect my mic to the XLR cable and place at the LP(or wherever) and done.
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post #1817 of 1990
11/29/12 at 12:19pm
I don' think I've ever had such a $ vs. convenience conundrum, honestly.

I just know in my gut after reading dozens of opinions from those that have used BOTH, that the omni is unquestionably easier to use/live with, but at the same time, if you're spending much more than $100 to use REW/HOLM I think you're doing something wrong, so a ~$200 savings is nothing to sneeze at.

Worst fear: I'll use EITHER of them a handful of times in the first few months and then that will pretty much be the end of it. You can only measure the same room and equipment so many times, and I'm not one to be switching out my gear nearly as often as so many others. THEN, it's $100 vs $300 all over again, lol.

I'll TRY to make up my mind in the next few days, lol. Since measuring equipment doesn't seem to be planning on making any quantum leaps in the near future, the nice thing is that you can be set a good long while with either...so another point for omni over the long haul with it's ease of use and speed. biggrin.gif

choices.

James
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post #1818 of 1990
11/29/12 at 12:22pm
The reality is that this will be almost exclusively for my own room which has been measured before with my Cap and found to be within +/- 4dbs from 14hz to ~17kish using just XT32 so I know I'll prolly be in even better shape after adding my quad Daytons.


James
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post #1819 of 1990
11/29/12 at 12:26pm
Can you borrow an OM? Or pool with another local phile or three to share one?
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post #1820 of 1990
11/29/12 at 8:16pm
Just opened mine up. Let me say that the free boom mike stand deal is worth it...this thing is not plastic, nice heavy machined metal. Very adjustable. Take the plastic insert out of the adapter that comes in the omni mic package and it screws right into the boom mike stand.
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post #1821 of 1990
11/29/12 at 10:56pm
mastermaybe,

You make a good point.

I used REW for quite a while and each time, I got more worn out pulling out all the pieces and putting them together. With that said, it's very powerful software and can do things that omnimic can't do, such as calculate filters for my sms-1.

By contrast, the omnimic has one cable that you plug in and a cd that you load in your player and you're ready to go. For determining my sms-1 filters, I've gone to using the omnimic to take the readings and import them into REW. Don't have to have all the REW hardware hooked up so this gives me the advantages of REW with out the setup pain.

Then.....just as you said....you put this up in the closet and don't touch it for a while. BUT, I know it's there. Stupid, but if it wasn't, I'm sure something would happen that'd make me wish I had it.


My guess is that you're fairly young and every dollar counts. As you get older, you'll find that you do accumulate a lot of stuff and from an economic standpoint, doesn't make much sense.
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post #1822 of 1990
11/30/12 at 3:57am
Omnimic is a lot easier for me to use too. As you say the setup, along with my soundcard's noisy mic input, made REW just too much of a chore. With Omnimic it's a few minutes to get it hooked up and measuring.
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post #1823 of 1990
11/30/12 at 5:33am
I'm just going to hold out (read: spring all-but instantly for) the omnimic.

I appreciate everyone's viewpoint, but I know I'll have zero issues reasoning away the "ease of use" angle.

thanks and have a great weekend, all.

James
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post #1824 of 1990
11/30/12 at 5:47am
Man, talk about control! I'm using this with a 2 x 4 Advanced MiniDSP in a box. It's pretty sweet, taking real-time measurements and making real-time adjustments, all simultaneously. biggrin.gif
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post #1825 of 1990
11/30/12 at 5:49am
It is amazing what can be done with this combo. The day I got Omnimic I improved the performance of my miniDSPs crossovers and equalization.
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post #1826 of 1990
11/30/12 at 5:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimP View Post

mastermaybe,
You make a good point.
I used REW for quite a while and each time, I got more worn out pulling out all the pieces and putting them together. With that said, it's very powerful software and can do things that omnimic can't do, such as calculate filters for my sms-1.
By contrast, the omnimic has one cable that you plug in and a cd that you load in your player and you're ready to go. For determining my sms-1 filters, I've gone to using the omnimic to take the readings and import them into REW. Don't have to have all the REW hardware hooked up so this gives me the advantages of REW with out the setup pain.
Then.....just as you said....you put this up in the closet and don't touch it for a while. BUT, I know it's there. Stupid, but if it wasn't, I'm sure something would happen that'd make me wish I had it.
My guess is that you're fairly young and every dollar counts. As you get older, you'll find that you do accumulate a lot of stuff and from an economic standpoint, doesn't make much sense.

Hi Jim,

I do have a SMS-1 too, and I'm still on the fence on what to do here: buy all the components to run REW, or just pull the trigger on the OmniMic.

While, I can still deal with the cumbersome process of pulling things together to run REW. I do also like the fact that eventually I can simple hook the OmniMic and be done with it. However, after reading your post, it seems like to calibrate the SMS-1 you still need a combination of OmniMic and REW.

So, if I want to calibrate my SMS-1 (determining the correct filters), I can go ahead and buy the OmniMic and download REW on my PC (no additional hardware required for REW). Is that correct?
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post #1827 of 1990
11/30/12 at 5:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Theresa View Post

It is amazing what can be done with this combo. The day I got Omnimic I improved the performance of my miniDSPs crossovers and equalization.

Improved where? One point in space? One or two listening positions? An entire listening area?
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post #1828 of 1990
11/30/12 at 6:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cr136124 View Post

Hi Jim,
I do have a SMS-1 too, and I'm still on the fence on what to do here: buy all the components to run REW, or just pull the trigger on the OmniMic.
While, I can still deal with the cumbersome process of pulling things together to run REW. I do also like the fact that eventually I can simple hook the OmniMic and be done with it. However, after reading your post, it seems like to calibrate the SMS-1 you still need a combination of OmniMic and REW.
So, if I want to calibrate my SMS-1 (determining the correct filters), I can go ahead and buy the OmniMic and download REW on my PC (no additional hardware required for REW). Is that correct?

That's correct.

The deal with coming up with filters for the SMS-1 is that you can come up with a lot of combinations that look right on the sms graph but don't sound the same. Once I started using REW, the filters it'd recommend worked well.

I do recommend that combination of omnimic and REW. Less time trying to get the right hardware and getting it to work well together and more time actually calibrating.

The irony is that I'm about to buy a new preamp that has XT32 in room calibration. Of course I'll be testing it to see what it's doing.
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post #1829 of 1990
11/30/12 at 6:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mastermaybe View Post

Is this up to snuff, Bill? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002TTOJUC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=736869-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002TTOJUC
I've read it's a good one for REW so I'd expect similar results with HOLM. I'd be willing to spend $150 to get this in order.
I have no personal experience with it, so I can't say. I use a Blue Icicle myself.
Quote:
I just know in my gut after reading dozens of opinions from those that have used BOTH, that the omni is unquestionably easier to use/live with, but at the same time, if you're spending much more than $100 to use REW/HOLM I think you're doing something wrong, so a ~$200 savings is nothing to sneeze at.
The Omni does have the appeal of plug and play, but Holm is hardly rocket science either. I've never used or even investigated REW, so I can't speak to that. Omni also has more features than Holm, but unless you really need more than what Holm offers that 200 bucks will buy a lot of beer.
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post #1830 of 1990
11/30/12 at 6:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary J View Post

Improved where? One point in space? One or two listening positions? An entire listening area?

In several listening positions. I do not have the equipment, knowledge, or patience to measure at more than a few positions. This has been thrown in my face before and I readily acknowledge I am not that advanced. I doubt I will ever be advanced enough to justify a turntable for many off axis measurements. What I have are speakers that sound great (to me) at my listening position.
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