“It's a fine adjustment I'll carry for wherever I go :) It's a pleasure to use your products.
The ONLY thing that made me sad was the enigmatic purpose of the app for iPhone. It's very strange and looks so non-functinal and contra-intuitive that it seems belonging to another company. Above this, it seems like imposing on us the only two brands that will (probably) if we want to have the same benefits we have our desktop system. It's so strange I don't if it's due to bugs or whatever. I LOVE Sonarworks/SoundID! Please, fix this app soon! The commentaries section on Apple Store begins with a bad review from one of Brazil's LEADING soul/pop artists (a notorious audiophile)...
Good look! Love you!”
“Magic in a box. Thats the best way I can summarize it. I got the kit with the measurement microphone, and the calibration code being laser etched into the mic is a great feature - no paper graph to lose.
I thought I liked how my monitors sounded before, with no processing. Now I'll never be able to use them without it. The difference is night and day.
Amazing product, supremely easy to use, and the value is off the charts. I can't believe I spent this many years without it!”
“I've got to be honest. If I had known how different this system would make mixing/Listening I would have bought it long ago. So I got IK ARC 3 system for Xmas. Liked it a lot. Did great things. Wasn't 100% on my mixes though. Just wasn't translating. I have a pretty decent room that's dead for recording and mixing. Not the best but decent sounding. Always took me 3-5 trips to the car to get a mix dialed in. When I started using ARC, it was taking me 2-3 trips to the car to get even better mixes. I read lots of comparisons (there are a plethora) and wondered just how different they might be. I originally purchased SoundID because I was tired of jumping through hoops to listen SYSTEM WIDE to anything. In my DAW the ARC plugin worked fine, but not in any other media listening environment. Youtube, iTunes (Music), Or just the pop up media player in Finder (I'm on mac).
ARC system also has no options for headphones, just monitors. I purchased the Mic/Software bundle online and was given a code for the software within 5 mins through an email. I installed it and set it to my two different pairs of headphones (Sony & KRK) to test it.
To my (somewhat) surprise, it sounded very balanced and much more separated. I didn't have the mic yet so I thought about using the one that came with ARC. I figured that might be setting myself up for a letdown so I thought against it and waited until the supplied mic got here a week later. (I might still do that test, but that's for later...)
The config was pretty straight forward. The settings it tried to figure out were off by a few inches but the software let me adjust for that. After it took (quite a few) measurements, we were off to the races. I spent some time figuring out what I could get away with system wide. The software installs as a listed sound device so you can monitor any (as far as I can tell) app through the correction. Sexy!
Turning it off and on I could REALLY hear the stereo image smear and become un-separated while listening to commercial tracks. I mean the difference was almost like switching from stereo to mono. Good job so far!
After mixing and listening for a day a half I loaded the VST plugin version next to the ARC 3 VST on the output channel and began to A/B them. To my surprise, they didn't sound THAT far away from each other. The ARC still had some good separation and it way better than not having it, but when I put the SoundID on, it was like the smear fairy came through and magicked all the phase cancellation out of the room! Just wide and clear. you could hear every thing the producer/engineer was trying to get out of that song.
I had a problem sometimes sitting effects in the mix. Put them where you think they barely poke out, listen to it in the car and there's way to much FX. Go back and tweak once or twice to guess and get it right. With SoundID I was able to get the effects almost dead on the first mix. It really lets me know how it's going to translate. Low end really translates too. I'm not having to dial it back so much when I hear the 1st draft. :)
All I can say is try it for yourself and see what you think.”
“Actually it's very impressive.
Of course I knew my system (dynaudio BM5+sub) and its issues but the result after correction is sooo good, I can't go back to a Sonarwoks free situation!
+ it's impressive too on headphones (here a dt990 pro).
I was thinking for years about this option to complete my studio, I should have done that before though!
Great software”
