IK MultimediaARC Studio Room Correction System with High-Precision Analysis Microphone, Advanced Room Correction Software, and Stand-Alone Correction Processor for Pro Audio

Most likely a ton of reviews here will be hired sales post but I feel the need as a professional producer and mixer to pass this information on. I just set up and tried this thing today using the 21 step analysis and it is nothing short of STUNNING. The trick to this is utilizing it to flatten the mids-low mids from 100hz ish to around 2k then use a shelf on those ranges to get it sounding perfect for your speaker positioning. Too much bass then shelf down from 100hz a pinch or vice versa. Repeat for the high end at 2k roughly. May differ based on your room but I’m here to tell you this unit and software are absolutely clean sounding and transparent especially at flat lining the mids which is vital for accuracy. Best 300 bucks I’ve spent in decades of equipment purchases! Grab it

Love it. Even just doing the simple correction procedure, I got improved performance over the Sound ID reference system I had been using , and that system was very buggy, on both my old iMac, and my Mac mini pro 4

Would recommend anyone with less than ideal rooms.

For a while I wasn’t even telling anyone that I had it because it almost felt like cheating it made it so easy to nail my mixes; seriously this box is a must have if your mixing in a less than perfect space!

DSP is a must for smaller rooms with little/no treatment. The problem is software based solutions are annoying especially if you have multiple sources and their are very few stand alone hardware DSP solutions and the ones that do exist are usually $1k+. This is the first budget priced hardware DSP I’ve seen and it works very well. You have to play with the software a bit dial in what you want but it fixed a really annoying 125hz peak in my room. Tip: limit the correction range to 500hz.

Chances are almost 100% that if you monitor via speakers, your experience will benefit from room correction. For a while, I had used IK Multimedia's ARC 2 system. It worked pretty well, but it required using a plugin. Monitoring through my DAW sounded great, but monitoring outside my DAW... not so much. So I abandoned the ARC 2 system in favor of a 30-band graphic EQ placed immediately before my powered speakers, a much better solution overall—until the ARC Studio. It's exactly what I needed. I directly replaced the EQ with the ARC Studio unit, and I performed the ARC 4 calibration using my orange-ring ARC 2 mic. Since the ARC Studio is a hardware solution, my speakers now get room correction no matter the audio source going to them.

I have ARC 3, and it works fairly well. I have a decent setup (API's The Box, KH-120s with a sub, bunch of outboard gear, etc.).The most important thing that most people overlook isn't room treatment; it's monitor and monitoring positioning. If you read the instructions that come with your speakers, set them up accordingly, and sit in the right spot you're going to be ahead of the game before any correction software comes into play - and that software will only make things worse.My KH-120s are on isolated boxes that I built and filled with sand. They sit at ear level, and the drivers are 37" apart. There is no wall behind them.The manual for my speakers states that they should not have a wall 1.75 meters (about 5 3/4 feet) behind them and recommends the same distance to a solid ceiling (mine is soft and over that) and notes installation angle and distance to side walls. Lastly, your speakers should be set using the installation angle in the manual.I own ARC 3, so for fun, I took measurements using ARC 3 and ARC 4. The results were similar, as were the corrections.The included microphone is nice, because the software is optimized for it.ARC 4 comes with a box that hooks up between monitors and your output, adding a small amount of latency. I'm using AVID Carbon to reduce latency and found the box annoying, as it needs USB power. The wall wart is made at an angle so that it may cover at least one outlet in your strip/conditioner. Had the plug been oriented differently, it would not be a problem.The box allows a hardware on/off button for the correction. The plugin has a bypass button, so IMHO it's unnecessary. It does allow for correction outside of a DAW, so some people may like this. Also, some folks like dongle boxes.As far as sound, there's not a ton of difference between v3 and v4. I heard the expected slight boost in my lower mids eliminated, but I know it's there so it's not much of an issue for me.The v4 has more profiles to check a mix, so that may be useful for some. I know my speakers well enough that my mixes translate fine. I can see this being useful for some people.All in all, this system works as described, but if care is taken to position monitors to manufacturers' specs, it may not be needed. Some may be in rooms where this isn't possible, and if that's the case, I could see it being useful.

I'm using the Arc Studio in a home environment, not a studio. It wasn't obvious to me from reviews that I needed a separate USB audio interface for my laptop to connect the microphone which requires 48v phantom power. Reviews seem to gloss over this, probably because these interfaces are common place in a studio. Luckily I had a cheap audio mixer that worked out. Also fortunate my DAC and amp also happen to have XLR connectors, so it was easy to slip this inline.I'm using vintage Klipsch Heresey I speakers. They are a 3 way horn speaker with 12" woofer. They've been recently re-capped and I love their sound, but I knew they roll the highs off early. After the room correction was applied, it felt like a blanket had been lifted off of them. The 3db tweeter roll-off before correction was around 9kHz, after correction it was pushed out to about 14kHz. Amazing improvement. Seems most speakers on the market use a 6" or 8" woofer, I'm happy to have the punch of my large speakers, and also have the clarity of newer DSP'd speakers on the market. Best of both worlds. The room correction kinda neutered the bass, the flat default profile was a bit too flat for me, but I was able to edit the profile and bring back some of the midbass punch.This is the best $300 I've spent for my audio setup. Especially if you love large format vintage speakers, this breathes new life into them.