MusicRadar

The ARC plug-in sits on the master bus of your DAW.

1 of 3 » View in gallery

• Review

Tests

To evaluate ARC, we started in 'studio one' - a small room, about 11x10' with a low 7' ceiling, carpet and some acoustic treatment (diffusers and two bass traps). Monitoring comprised a pair of Alesis Monitor One MK2s with a Genelec powered sub (ARC works fine with subs, by the way), which is a typical project studio setup with a balanced, neutral sound.

We did three tests in studio one; the first with the minimum of 12 measurements in the listening position, and the second with the full 32. For the final test, we compensated for two positions, with 20 measurements at the listening spot and 12 further back in the room - similar to the 'client couch' position described in the ARC manual.

We also put ARC through its paces in 'studio two' - a larger room at 20x16' with a high 11' ceiling. This room was bedecked with heavy drapes on the back and side walls, and the listening spot was quite close to the speakers, so room anomalies were less of a concern. The 'monitoring' in this instance, however, constituted a pair of trusty old Mission 701s, which, while great for pumping out tunes, aren't intended as studio monitors, and so provided a good test of whether ARC can work its corrective magic on the speakers themselves.

Results

In studio one, ARC really tightened up the response across the board and put paid to the low-end problems thrown up by the dimensions of the room. Although all three tests gave slightly different results, the frequency graphs showed a clear trend caused by the small room.

Over in studio two, while ARC didn't transform the Missions into true reference monitors, it did flatten out their tone and tamed their slightly skewed lower-midrange, making them more suitable for musical work.

In both environments, the sound became more consistent across the measured sweet spot, and when moving around the listening position, any annoying, 'swimmy' phasing was virtually eliminated. Transients became tighter, and the high-end snap of kick drums seemed to connect better with their low-end 'oomph'. ARC offers four different target EQ curves to tailor the sound, and we found that the Mid Comp option (with a dip at 2kHz) worked best in both situations.

Overall, the ARC System offered real sonic improvements and gave us greater confidence in mixing.

The final acid test came when we compared the adjusted monitor sound to the legendary AKG K240DF studio reference headphones, which boast an extremely flat response. It was apparent that ARC had indeed coaxed a similarly neutral tone from the Alesis monitors.

Disadvantages of the ARC System are that you can only enjoy its benefits when the plug-in is active, and so not when using, say, a regular media player application. Some might feel that it's a little expensive, too, especially when they consider that KRK's forthcoming ERGO system costs not much more and is an 'always on' hardware solution, audio interface and monitor switcher to boot (although, of course, we can't yet vouch for the quality of its room correction). Then again, you can easily spend far more on conventional acoustic treatment products.

Summary

If you’re serious about getting as accurate a sound as possible from your mixing environment, you won't go far wrong with the ARC System. It will be especially valuable if you can't acoustically treat your room to a sufficient degree in the conventional manner, or if you need portability.