New Audio Streamer And Room Acoustic Measurement 11Dec19

I built a new HD audio streamer from a $30 Lenovo nettop to deliver high def streams from my music store to my lower level hifi system at Blodgett. I'd previously only been delivering transcoded 320K mp3 streams through Roku media capability (with a horrible UI and navigation), or through Plex with a weak UI. I wanted full 192KHz/24bit streams from my JRiver Media Center and a great UI. So, I put JR MC on a Q150 (1.6Ghz Atom D410/1Gig/nVidia ION/WinXP Home) nettop and futzed with it for a day (graphics drivers, networking issues, etc.) to get it running well. Many have failed or given up attempting good networking from Win7 to WinXP Home but I persevered. Kala even commented that IT really persisted too strongly. The nettop is connected to my TV via VGA, to my network via Ethernet, and to my DAC via optical. JRiver has a keen "theater mode view" which looks great on the TV and has simple navigation of my entire 2TB library. I've also integrated the new APC (audio PC) with my Harmony universal remote via a USB bluetooth adapter - allows slick control of the simple theater UI. 

I also updated my acoustic measurement technology through use of a great donation-pay app called REW, Room Equalization Wizard. REW allowed me to measure my Blodgett Theater audio sound pressure levels (SPL) and distortion (I did so at listening position A and B with a USB measurement mic connected to the Mac. It even allowed me to create a correction equalization curve (which I entered into JRiver MC's parametric equalizer) to improve/flatten response. I focused on reducing the "peaks" as raising the "troughs" would significantly increase power required during playback. I matched the theater frequency response to a "House Curve" as opposed to a flat response as humans do prefer a slightly higher bass and slightly attenuated treble as my House Curve describes. My room and speaker system are decent but there's more work to do, at least at the sub to mains transition and at the 10K-20K high end. I'll boost the sub a bit and then EQ it further if needed. I'll probably need to add a super-tweeter for the high end "repair." I've known of this high end rolloff just from my subjective listening tests but now I have more evidence I should do something about it.

I like this sealed ribbon super-tweeter from Viawave in Russia, the SRT-7. It's flat past 20KHz and is very high sensitivity @ ~100 in the frequency range in which I'd use it. The alternative would be a Fostex 90A, a similarly flat, high sensitivity super-tweeter but using horn technology. I could add a pair of either and adjust the gain using a DIY L-Pad and crossover to compliment the tweeters from my main Paradigm Reference Studio 100s. A good next audio project.

I have been studying and listening to bolster my ancient EE training. I initially thought I do speaker design and sound production but then computers, software, networking & products became a my thing as a pro.