I was wondering if anyone here has use room eq wizard with the 990 to measure and or set up their system? TIA, Brian

I do. You'll find much more information about REW and the BFD at the HomeTheaterShack, of course. I don't have any problems with the 990 and REW or the BFD. Works nicely.

Otto, thanks for your reply. I have looked over the "how to" at HomeTheaterShack, but I am overwhelmed with the whole set up process. Do you own a BFD(I do not), is it worth it to learn how to use rew, even if I don't own any sort of eq? Thank you for your time, Brian

Hey Brian,

There is definitely value in setting up REW and measuring your room, and certainly not a bad idea to do so before buying a BFD (even though they're relatively cheap).

Once you measure your response, you will have an idea of how "bad" it is -- or it could be good just by happenstance. Could go either way. It's definitely fun for me, but I like that kind of stuff.

I know that the setup seems like a lot, but it's not really that bad once you get going. Give it s ahot!

I played around with REW at first to take baseline readings before I treated my walls. Then I bought a SMS-1 and used the SMS-1 to deal with some peaks a valleys.

Although REW has a SMS-1 mode which will measure and compute the values to plug-in to the SMS-1, that was vastly different than what I was getting using the SMS-1's calibration program alone, so I stuck with that. It could have been a problem with my sound card or my SPL meter. Like Brian, I felt a little overwhelmed with all the variables and felt the SMS-1 was doing a good job without me second guessing it.

If I had been more patient, I probably would have gone for the REW/BFD solution. Ironically, REW is what made be want a SMS-1 right away after seeing what a difference a few bass traps made.

Yeah, I'd love to try out the SMS-1 and see how similar the results are. I'm sure it's got less of a learning curve, and it also has a remote, which is a nice thing to have (esp if you have a setting for music and one for movies). If you

And that's interesting that REW made you want to get the SMS-1. I was just the opposite! I first heard about the SMS-1 here at the Saloon (or perhaps on the Outlaw products pages). Then I started googling for SMS-1 and other bass EQ options and ended up with the BFD.

A friend of a friend has an SMS-1, so maybe I'll poke down that avenue and see how it works for me.

Hey, thanks for the response. I am still trying to get a grip on using rew, I really want to see what my in room response is. Otto, did you use rew before you had a bfd? If so, did you just run from your sound card out to the 990 and from an spl meter into your sound card? Are the test tones any louder than what the 990 uses for auto calibration? Is there any chance of doing damage to speakers by using rew? Sorry for the newbie questions, but I have vintage Infinities and really do cherish them! Any help would greatly appreciated. Thank you, Brian

I found the online help index at hometheatershack.com very helpful.
In my setup, I ran a SPL meter (sometimes a microphone) to my sound card (coincidentally, the exact SoundBlaster Live external card shown in the REW help manual), then I ran the output to the 990. To answer the question on the level, the REW software has soundcard and SPL meter calibration wizards that will help you set the right volume levels. In my case, the levels were much more tame than the 990's autocalibration (plus you have full volume control).

Although I was able to send the test tone to the 990 via the USB port when using the 990 as a sound card, I was not able to crack the code on getting my laptop's onboard sound card to leave its microphone port enabled at the same time and gave up on that experiment. It would have been neat as heck if I could have used the 990's microphone input to feed the REW. I was never satisfied with the performance of the sound cards at my disposal and, as I mentioned earlier, my impatience got the best of me and I opted for the SMS-1. Hopefully you'll have better luck.

Hey there,

1) Yeah, I used REW before I had the BFD.
2) Yep SPL meter > Sound Card Input (Line, not Mic)
3) Sound Card Output > 990
4) The tones won't damage you speakers. Just start with the volume low and turn up till you read about 75 dB on the meter. I would not worry about that at all. In the end, you hold the volume control. As garcianc2003 says, REW will lead you through it with its cal stuff.

5) You'll also cal your soundcard to remove any roll off it may have.

6) Don't suppose you're in Colorado?

There's definitely a learning curve, but now that I've done it, I can break it out and set up new curves pretty quickly. It's a very cool tool, and the author is always around and very responsive to questions and comments. brucek on the HTS forum is also very knowledgeable. I don't particularly mind the newb questions, but if you ask them there, they'll direct you to the manual (else they'd be answering the same questions over and over). Still, there are lots of REW newb threads over there that cover almost every kind of question.