It all boils down to incorrigible room artefacts and how well you know your monitors at the end of the day, and sonarworks has helped a lot of people in the process. Once you've optimised as much as you can, you can totally give sonarworks a shot and see if that makes a significant difference. The 38% 'rule' also has certain caveats which I won't get into now, in short, it's not an exact position you HAVE to sit in, to your surprise, maybe a couple of feet forward or back might give you tremendous results in terms of the aural balance. Speaking from personal experience- if your room/studio has basic acoustic treatment and you've got studio monitors to listen on, I'd recommend working with Room EQ wizard to get an idea as to how the frequency response at your listening position colors your perception of the sounds coming from your monitors. I feel I 'know' my headphones though, and only use the correction for different perspective when I get ear fatigue or am comparing to pro mixes.

I've used the demo sonarworks for my headphones as well and like it, but similarly found a correction curve on redit and it felt as good, just no nice GUI with an EQ plugin and % adjustment. If this changes I would consider the $300 investment, but I feel I'm able to do 70-80% as good of a job as sonarworks could. I mix 75% of the time on headphones, so for now this DIY method works for my needs. Doing this identified nasty buildup in my low end and immediately made my speakers sound more balanced. In my case I don't have space to do real bass management but have a few broadband panels. Export these, and apply the corrective curves, turn them on/off, and see if it makes a difference.Īfter you've spent a day trying this, you'll have a better idea of if sonarworks is totally 'worth' it for you. It will design correction filters automatically.

Be a little systemic with this of course. Do measurements in various places around the listening position and average the responses. If you want to see 'what it can provide', rent/borrow a measurement microphone, and use Room EQ Wizard to make some measurements.

Sonarworks trial not working