Addition to the forced software registration: According to IK Multimedias EULA (as of May 2024) you can only transfer the license for the ARC Studio hardware to a new owner after 90 days of ownership. This effectively prevents you from selling the ARC Studio in less than 3 months from the point you registered it, as the new owner would not be able to register the product into their IK Account in that time frame. Art 9. Nr. 4: www.ikmultimedia.com/legal/index.php?R=license-agreement

You underestimate us. We are absolutely here for you to talk about 3.5mm barrel jacks for an entire video.

The registration situation is dealbreaker for me. Thanks again for another outstanding video..

that registration thing is really a curse

I would not purchase ARC because of the registration process and the common practice of companies to change the terms and conditions of use later. Particularly, changes adding agreement to forced arbitration. If one does not agree to the changes, the company locks one out of updates and/or services. It begs the question have we purchased the item or not? The points you raised regarding the ARC makes me wonder about design decisions made by IK. For instance, the notorious small size barrel jack for the power supply connection that can fail with safe connection and even fall out of the socket on devices with the slightest cable movement. Wattage use is of concern for a modern device, it is like the behaviour of a vintage Class A iron transformer amp that continually draws full power even when no audio is present. Great review as per usual, Julian.

Excellent review. Forced registration is a deal breaker.

Having to essentially "activate" the hardware in the way you mention at 5:10 is an immediate fail for me. As you say this process essentially makes it a paperweight without the internet activation. This lack of trust in the consumer makes this a complete no-go IMHO.

Currently YT is flooded with ARC videos. So it’s always good to see when Julian does a competent, un-influenced review. On this note: isn‘t it funny when other reviewers say „no money changed hand“ when they got the device for free? A couple of points. 1. this looks like a useful tool as it takes away some of the headaches of software-only solutions. 2. I would expect a better microphone at this price point 3. no standby is totally out of touch. I am against excessive regulation but this will be needed if companies ignore the sign o‘ the times. 4. I like the idea of audio interface manufactures integrating room correction.

Based on your report, I wouldn’t want this thing free. Price is not at the top of my list for buying decisions. Thank you for your fair and honest review, Julian.

This is a great, independent, unbiased review!

NO !!! to IK Multimedia forced registration policy and poor support + extra payment when selling hardware on the secondary market. It is a retrograde unfriendly policy. This company will fail if it doesn’t change their policy. Thanks for the honest review Julian

Thanks for the great review, good to know this product isn't an option for me, as forced registration is an absolute no go.

You do such a good job of analyzing so many considerations for the devices you review. It never fails that you'll bring up some aspect about a potential purchase that I might not have ever considered or maybe hadn't thought of how significant it was. Those little insights are peppered throughout leaving us much more informed than so many other reviewers. Your reviews are always great, I really enjoy them. Thanks!

Hi Julian! Thank you for bringing this great information to us! Cheers

Great review! Thank you!

Thank you Julian excellent as always x

Now it's time for you to review the newest Audient ORIA, which has the Sonarworks room correction... for Atmos!

Thank you for this.

Excellent review, as usual, Julian. And I totally agree that these obligations to have to enter your details in order to download the software are extremely annoying and I encourage customers to enter fake details so that their database becomes completely useless.

I'm using the built in correction of my neumann monitors for a long time now and i really like it. Good to see that there's competition now, which is not tied to a specific monitor/brand.

I have it i also have sonarworks and they. Both work fine i use arc 4 and vsx for headphones thanks for your honesty

Great review! Would love to see a sound comparison with Sonarworks SoundID Reference. IIRC Sonarwork's target curve is somewhat close to the Harman target in all but treble (inferring from the correction applied to the AKG K371 'phones), so maybe their "flat" curve for monitors is close as well!

With Sonarworks already working with Audient (and Merging) on correction integrated into the interface, absolutely only a matter of time.

Julian it was a great video, again! Have you tried measuring back the corrected sound? After all, it is an external DSP EQ box, although I don't understand how in linear phase mode the delay can be 44.1ms, which contradicts the fact that it is a DSP. What kind of EQ is it using then?

What about phase correction, and level correction between right and left speakers ?! Stuff we find in like Sonarworks Soundid. Does the Arc correct that too, or only the frequency response ?!

10:50 You say everything via asio bypasses APO? Idk if thats maybe an exeption, but I use FL Studio Asio (in FL Studio) and it works fine!

The whole IK Multimedia software download and registration is a real pain and the reason I never used their software. Having said that, I do think this product is exactly what I was looking for in my home studio.

Picked up one of these the day it was released with a $100 discount on Amazon (not sure how I managed that one) - testing was quick and results were (WOW). Really wish it had a standby or off switch. Not having the Harman curve was very strange but east to create a custom setting.

Great show ! Thanks Julian for good information. No question left.

Is it of any interest to select one of the listed speakers at 07:19 while choosing a correction name ? Or is it only a visual avatar for the parameters ?

Thank you for the video. I've noticed that the ARC Studio graph's lower end is 20 Hz. The IK Multimedia page states 120db(A) and a range from 0.5Hz to 40kHz. Is the processing only from 20Hz upwards ? I was thinking of changing my sub room correction with this, but if its lower end is 20 Hz its pretty much useless for me. The 3.5mm barrel jack without any form of locking like the 5.5mm with the 1/4 turn lock have is a joke. 50€ for this "measurement mic" also a joke.

Do you think youd be able to compare the correction to a MiniDSP Flex that uses Dirac for room correction?

Thanks for test. Can you show decay graph instead of fr graph (via REW) ? It will be more useuful ARC's room management ability.

Can I use a regular, non-measurement microphone instead of that plastic toy (IK Multimedia offers the Arc Studio on their website for 50€ off without the microphone)? Do you think a better microphone like the Audix-TM1 would improve results?

Anybody know if it is rack mountable?

would you test the interfaces they build into DJ controllers, pls?

Thanks!

Great video! One question: does this product calibrate any speakers?

If Julian has not, he need to look into engineering school. He's a good fit. Hit me up!

There is a major issue that many producers and sound engineers forget when they use $3k reference monitors and room correction when mixing: that is not the environment the consumer will be in when listening to the mix. I can't tell you how many "professional" recordings i have heard on my car stereo & home stereo only sounded good on a higher end sound system. most music isn't mixed for the consumer environment, though that is what is expected in the pristine, acoustically correct room of the engineer.

Hey Julian - have you seen that Icon released an interface with Harrison (the 32Ci)? - it looks really promising on the paper but would love to see you do your magic with it.

Hey Julian, i would appreciate a test of the Rupert Neve RNHP headphone Amp and other dedicated headphone amps.

Danke!

Can you maybe explain more why you think we shouldnt aim for a flat curve? Or did you just mean for headphones (in which case the Harmann curve is obviously better, but for speakers I would have thought flat is the ideal one).

Hi Julian. what about the phase correction?

Of course you can use the REW corrections with ASIO and DAWs. Just export the correction as an IR and load it in the DAW's Master/Monitor channel.

Awesome video as usual. I would like you to try with an UMIK 1 or 2. I tried here (yes I provided the text file from my UMIK2) and the measurement results were not like the MEMS. (Tried with the 7 step on each mic just to try). You have better knowledge than me to tell how good it is if you try with these mics.

I'm intending to use ARC4 software only (no rig) for live VST playing (no DAW though), does the ARC4 software add much latency besides sound interface¿? Thanks

Did I miss the audio examples "with" and "without"?

Wouldn't you get a highpass filter if you set the leftmost curve point to the lowest possible level?

Could we expect a review of the MBOX Studio anytime soon here ? :) Would really help ! As always, thank you for your great work !

How come you don't eq the valleys in the frequency response chart.

I'm still stuck with my E MU sound card from the mid 00's, which has a DSP for hardware effects that can be applied anywhere in the signal chain. Apart from EQ on the output, I am using a hair of reverb and even the compressor can be useful for listening sessions at very low volumes deep into the night, while everybody's sleeping. It baffles me that modern interfaces not only lack these features, but also, every time I ask somebody if they know of a unit that features hardware EQ on the output, I am told that I shouldn't even require such a thing. As if studio monitors and our listening environments (also called homes) are absolutely perfect and there shouldn't be anything to compensate for. So while this one still does not do everything I'm looking for, at least it seems to steer things into the right direction of showing what we're missing for a long time.

Could you compare this to minidsp with dirac? Some interfaces include dsp features how does this compare in value? Would be nice to see a version that can handle two audiostreams (multiple sets of speakers or headphones).

Julian, my understanding is the "Harmon Curve" was designed mainly for headphone listening. I'm not sure if that would necessarily be advantageous through studio monitors? The LAST thing I'd want would be a lack of mids in the area of vocals, and perhaps snare.y not having a bit flatter curve for mixing and mastering, there is always a chance of overcompensating. From what I've gathered, as you pointed out, the so called corrected room somehow lacks some bottom, with slightly "crispy" higher frequencies. That said, for a couple of reasons, I'm looking at an alternative for my current go to, Sonarworks Reference ID. Yours is an excellent presentation, with much information to ponder. Thanks much.

I got IK’s total studio when it was on sale last year for 200 US. It came with arc 3 and I’m finally getting around to using it. I need a mic and I was going to get the IK mic second hand. Should I be looking at other mics? Edit: I’d also like to say for anyone looking into getting any IK software. It’s ok but it can be a pain to use. When I first did installs it would once a week tell me that I didn’t have a license. That stopped with one of the product mangers updates. If you get anything with a sound library and don’t download something with in I believe 6 months you will have to pay for a download ticket that is like $10. Having the experience I have now I would still buy total studio for $200 but not for the regular price. I would not pay anymore than $100 for any smaller bundle that is full. Like buying T-Racks for $80 would be ok but buying one single compressor plugin for $100 would be a terrible idea.

Great product. Unfortunately no digital in/out.

How does this not have an integrated pre that is calibrated for use w the system like dBx does. If the preamp has coloration what do you do? I was looking forward to this to replace my aging dbx drive rack studio. Not so much now.

Could you maybe do a test of the t.racks dsp 4x4 mini? Is it usable for room correction?

Are there hardware alternatives (even more expensive ones) you’d recommend as alternatives to compare?

very entry level piece of gear, you don want to add an extra AD/DA in your signal path. if you dont have digital in/out on your interface and monitors assuming you have digital monitors you better use something like EQapo or sonarworks.

I would definitely not buy a product with forced registration. Thank you for including that piece of information.

As a musician and geek, one of my pet peeves is when hardware/software companies make using their products a chore. It ALWAYS tells me they did not likely have ANYONE try out the finalized products in the real world before delivering it. This is a cost saving measure that elicits endless frustrations to the user base. For the opposite experience, when I setup SimpliSafe home security at my house, the hardware and software took a total of 10 minutes to setup and I required NO technical know how to set it up. That shows SimpliSafe tested EVERY permutation of issues that the user would run into that would require a phone call to home base. The ARC seems like the opposite.

Damn I didn't know about the forced registration thing. I was ready to pull the trigger on this but honestly you did get me thinking about either interfaces or speakers themselves simply integrating correction. (I have the original, non-connectable Neumanns right now but I know the newer ones have their own correction solution built in which is cool.) And definitely the idea of someone having to pay AGAIN if I decide to sell the unit down the road? Absolutely not. That's a real shame because the hardware box was a big selling point over Sonarworks but if I don't have an internet connection, then I don't get what I paid for? Nope.

Isn't the Harman Curve just meant for headphones?

IK Multimedia are an obstacle course.😊

Is this done with an FIR filter?

Would a $15 DSP board from aliexpress do the same thing?

In my experience room correction is only good at frequencies below 1000 Hz or so: I run Audissey built into my Denon receiver, if I let it correct full range measurements look great, but the audio is unbearably bright. Audissey is great for integrating subwoofers though.

You didnt mention IK charges to sell your hardware. The buyer has to pay again for the license transfer.

I wish they used Adat/optical or Spdif input instead of only XLR but hey its s good start

We need Yamaha AG03/06.

I'm kinda puzzled why IK chose not to integrate a basic audio interface, or why they included a mic, yet no onboard mic input. anyone who spent more than $500 on speakers could benefit from room correction, and they aren't all content producers with Apogee Duets on their desk already. rooting for them to improve in the next one.

Does anyone have the iloud MTM speakers with arc built in? Wondering if they run as a ‘hardware only’ (I.e. no latency inducing plugins in daw) just as well as this?

Now if only someone made this for headphones. The software solutions are unusably bad on windows. I just bodged my own solution using a stereo IR loader guitar pedal and a 20$ headphone amp, and it works!

It's not just IK Multimedia, but Arturia, Kontakt, Steinberg and perhaps many other companies are also requiring registered account and internet connection to download and manange their so software. It's all annoying and especially so users not having ideal connections to their servers. Hope this practice in the industry will change soon.

In a PC environment I think PEACE / APO is going to provide a better result for no money. ARC needs to work on their software/firmware to provide more robust eq.

Fantastic review! Please, for in-room frequency response measurements, use a vertical range of about 50dB instead of 80. A large vertical range just compresses the graph and makes it harder to read.

Big thumbs up but I stopped watching at 6:12. Already too much pain for me to consider the investment. Hopefully ARC Studio will look at your video seriously and up their game. You always provide very good feedback to vendors. Keep it up!

Disappointed. I was hoping for a solution to add correction for my hearing loss as well as the room correction. I guess I am not the only musician out there having at least a little dip in the high frequencies. (I love the iPhones built in correction for hearing loss.)

I'm still amazed in this age of dirt cheap DSP power, that I still can't buy a cheap audio interface that has hardware DSP room correction. Plenty of cheap units with eq and dynamics and effects on the inputs, which I don't need cause I do all that in my DAW, but basically nothing with a universal hardware EQ on the outputs, that would cover output from all applications, with no need for plugins and software virtual audio device drivers and the problems that go with that, and no extra latency going from an interface to an external unit and then to the speakers through multiple sets of AD/DA conversion and buffers. Why oh why is it so hard?

It’s a mems mic… it doesn’t need to be high quality, only very consistent, which they are.

Not sure, but ARC flat is not flat but it has some kind of high roll-off.

Finally someone else complains about forced registration to use an offline hardware you purchased. This is a plague and needs to stop.

What is room correction? Is it the same as doing EQ yourself? I watched the whole video, but im still somewhat of a noob.

Personally I would never leave my full digital speaker management system (phase perfect XO, per-driver FIR correction, full system house presets and then room correction on top), but the subscription-style software registration would probably top me from recommending the ARC even to a casual listener asking for a room correction module. I'd recommend something with Dirac/Audessey even at four times the price. BTW, my NUC endpoint draws on average 11W while processing 6+2 frequency channels with full FIR control and about 1W on PL6 ("sleep") while waiting for input signal.

No need for this while miniDSP products exist A bit more expensive but a ton more features, and stand-alone once set-up.

3:30 and in the uk you’d need a mortgage.

I understand the practicality of sticking a correction device in this part of the signal chain, but I work on the signal integrity philosophy that once a signal is in the digital domain, it never goes through another AD conversion. I'd love to see something like this with an AES/EBU input.

Im 5 minutes into the video and now i don't want the ARC, thanks!!

Excellent product. Very effective and transparent in use. Great build quality with a solid feel. The perfect final touch in an already acoustically treated studio. Full marks. People moaning about registration are splitting hairs for nothing and not purchasing this product because of it are the losers. A simple in-line power switch on the PSU works great as an ON/OFF switch. Cost less than $10 - job done.

It feels like this was a good product that was rushed to market before all its flaws could be corrected. Very unfortunate.

The registration BS is a no go.

that account thing is enough for me to not buy the product at all, f that nonsense

That forced registration is a deal breaker for me. I was planning to buy one but not any more. Sadly, due to this, one day it will just become a paper weight, so for me not worth the money any more.

IK never fails to include unnecessary aggravation.

Clearly not worth the cost, and total agreement that forced registration for accessing software needed for using a hardware product (like forced upgrades and subscription softwares) is inexcusably user abusive -- a definite deal breaker and one of the many reasons I never run Windows any any of my systems. Sincere thanks for the evaluation, none the less.

Yeah, the forced registration is a complete showstopper. I've been wanting a device like this for years, was happy to see it, but I will absolutely not pay for hardware that forces me to register for whatever bullshit reason.

Yes the registration is a minor inconvenience and...just why? But that said so many whiny 'never buy' edgelords just because of that? I get the feeling the vast majority of you wouldn't buy it even if you didn't have to register.

If the IK downloader “needs” the standard download folder, it is already digging the OS API for %x% variables. It shouldn’t. The forced registration is a graft, normalised by prevalence. It shouldn’t. Rent is not always “money”, it may well be information of any kind. That means companies (SoMe, search, media, music…) should “pay” their users for it, and disclose what and why. They don’t. Capitalism is fine if we can just buy things, and own or second-hand sell them. If or when we can’t (EULA) - it’s not even capitalism, is it…? 🤓