ikMultimedia ARC 4 Studio

[Michael Canavan]

Revisiting this...

I'd never gotten satisfactory results from ARC 3. Inexpensive calibrated measurement mic or the MEMS didn't make much difference—results were terrible. I came to the conclusion that my sub was the issue. Because of the strange shape of my desk, the microphone cannot handle my room if the sub is engaged.

Last week, I decided to wade back into this. Since I have a reliable way of balancing my sub with the rest of the system, I decided to disengage it and run ARC 3 again—much, much better. Then I added the sub back in and I like the results.

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I went on a hunt a while ago to get a decent sound out of my basement studio. I think I already had ARC but my concern was that the room itself wasn't that great etc. There's a free piece of standalone room testing software called Room EQ wizard, https://www.roomeqwizard.com

Ten years ago it was a PITA to use on Mac, but now it's dead easy. Reading it isn't "fun", but you get all kinds of information on what is out of balance in your room, like echoing high end, and feedbacking sub frequencies etc. It had me build bass traps in the corners etc. Anyway getting some things solved in the room first most definitely led to massively better results with ARC.

[mikehalloran]

I couldn't get it through to anyone at IK that, having purchased the current MEMS microphone directly less than a year ago, I didn't need another. So I purchased the ARC 4 Studio with the $50 discount I posted earlier and will sell the spare mic on Reverb or eBay to extend my discount. Oh well. I need to dedicate some time to set it all up, hopefully later this week.

Hey Mike... I'm still deciding if I'm going to go for this or not, but as an current ARC3 owner if I can get a discount I might be interesting in buying your spare if its the MEMS mic? I have the older style mic and it's my impression the MEMS gives more accurate results?

I am curious what your impressions are of the hardware are? I guess the only downside I see is for me to use it it's going to add another A>D and D>A conversion prior to going to the monitors. Still I do like the idea of a hardware solution rather than using a plugin, and from what I understand this is the first of that kind priced within the reach of mere mortals.

If it works out $-wise, sure thing. If you are able to select the $250 upgrade and apply the $50 discount + Jam Points or just do the $99 software upgrade, we'll make it work.

It depends how you acquired ARC 3. If you cannot select the upgrade and apply the code, then your other option is to apply ARCSTU50 or similar coupon to the box with mic as I did. I'm in no hurry.

As for the box, it does have AD/DA but processes internally 32bit float. There are two modes and they are controlled by the plug.

How much latency is the ARC 4 plug-in adding to the system?

The ARC 4 correction plug-in can work in two-phase modes: NATURAL and LINEAR. NATURAL has a latency of
64 samples, LINEAR has a higher latency of 2100 samples.

https://g1.ikmultimedia.com/html/Manual ... Manual.pdf

https://g1.ikmultimedia.com/html/Manual ... Manual.pdf

[mikehalloran]

…
Anyway getting some things solved in the room first most definitely led to massively better results with ARC.
…

I appreciate that, understand and agree.

My situation is controlled in a large part by the room needing to be handicapped friendly. A lot of my room treatment looks more like barely controlled chaos with my desk being the biggest obstacle. The best I can hope for is that ARC 4 will make my Equator D8IIs a little more neutral (they're already pretty good but there's this hole in the upper-midbass).

I will blend in my sub afterward. Fortunately, my Radial MC3 controller lets me control both level and polarity of my sub from my desktop and independent of the ARC Studio box. There are recordings I use to dial it in to a degree that I can trust.