Room EQ Wizard Releases Beta Version V5.19 Beta 5; Available for Download on AV NIRVANA
(Room EQ Wizard)(May 22, 2017) A new beta version of Room EQ Wizard (REW) was made public yesterday, and the only place on the Net to download it is AV NIRVANA. I recently caught up with the software’s author, John Mulcahy, to find out what’s new in this beta release. According to Mulcahy, V5.19 beta 5 has some interesting new additions along with a workaround for Java problems associated with the latest Windows 10 Creators update. You can visit roomeqwizard.com to see a full list of notes detailing changes instituted in the new version, but I’ll summarize a few of the highlights.
Owners of the Outlaw Audio Model 976 AV Surround Processor will be happy to know that it’s been added to the list of supported equalizers. This is the first Outlaw Audio product to receive EQ support. Users can now tap the power of REW's Automated EQ features to generate filter settings that are directly compatible with the Model 976.
Mulcahy says an additional measurement technique called Stepped Sine has been added to complement REW's log sweep measurement method. Stepped Sine is well suited to distortion measurement of electronic components as it can resolve lower distortion levels than log sweep, especially for higher harmonics and higher frequencies where sweep measurements are limited by the noise floor of the device. It also allows both THD+N and N to be measured (N being the combination of noise and non-harmonic distortion). Neither is available with sweep measurements; the tradeoff is that a Stepped Sine measurement takes a lot longer.
Several graph control features have been added to All SPL in order to simplify the workflow when time aligning and generating vector averages of multiple measurements, producing them directly for all currently selected measurements (previously vector averaging could only be done on a pair of measurements at a time and time alignment had to be done on each measurement individually). There are also new buttons to produce minimum phase or excess phase versions of a measurement, handy for users implementing phase correction using a tool such as rePhase.
Mulcahy also says a change to calculating system delay has been installed to help with time aligning subwoofers. This change uses the start of the impulse response rather than its peak. REW automatically chooses to use start time rather than peak time when the peak is significantly after the start, as it is for subwoofers due to their limited bandwidth.
Finally, Mulcahy says the Windows 10 Creators update exposed a bug in Oracle's Java Virtual Machine, causing REW to crash on startup. This latest beta works around that bug by switching away from the Windows look and feel to an alternative called Nimbus. Some things will look a little different, but most of REW's interface will look the same.
Users can download Linux, OS X, and Windows versions of REW’s V5.19 beta 5 release by visiting the Downloads section of AV NIRVANAirvan.com.
