Using third-party measurement microphones

If you're looking to use a third-party measurement microphone for speaker measurements, refer to this guide for supported mics, setting up with the mic in the Measure app and using the mic calibration data.

In this article:

• Using third-party measurement microphones
• Microphone calibration file
• Modifying your third-party mic calibration file for compatibility
• USB mics are not supported!
• Using third-party mics for multichannel speaker calibration
  
  

Using third-party measurement microphones

Using a third-party measurement microphone is optional, as long it is an actual measurement microphone by kind, with omnidirectional capability (this should be specified in the user manual of your mic).

Third-party measurement microphones generally aren't sold with individual calibration data, so they are not best for precise measurements. It is possible to use ARC, ECM8000, EMM-6 and other third-party measurement mics, just keep in mind that for accurate results we highly recommend using a microphone with its own individual calibration data.

IMPORTANT! Sonarworks is not able to guarantee the accuracy of the SoundID SR (Studio Reference) flat target if you are not using the SoundID Reference Measurement Microphone (previously known as Sonarworks XREF 20 measurement microphone)

Microphone calibration file

If your measurement microphone has individual calibration data available in a TXT file format, you can use it in SoundID Reference, as shown below:

1. Launch the SoundID Reference Measure app
2. Proceed to the Hardware Setup stage
3. Select the 'Different measurement microphone' option
4. Click on 'Browse' to select and load a TXT file with your mic calibration data

NOTE! Sonarworks cannot provide calibration files for third-party microphones. If you are using a third-party microphone, please contact the manufacturer for more information.

Modifying your third-party mic calibration file for compatibility

If you have your microphone's frequency response data, you should be able to use it in SoundID Reference, as shown above, however, you will first have to modify it to be compatible with Sonarworks software. See detailed instructions in this article.

USB mics are not supported!

Please note, that USB measurement microphones are not supported and will not work correctly with the measurement software due to clocking issues. To clarify, these clocking issues are unavoidable and cannot be resolved by any clock-matching workarounds.

USB mics are simply not supported, and our support team will not be able to help you with this. We might develop support for USB mics at some point in the future but currently, there is no ETA available on this.

Using third-party mics for multichannel speaker calibration

SoundID Reference for Multichannel uses 3 different microphone profiles, for 3 different angles: 0°, 30°, and 90°. For this purpose, a transfer curve is used for the additional profiles. If you are using a third-party microphone profile (uploaded in TXT format, as shown above), note that ONLY this one profile will be used (Sonarworks is not able to guarantee accurate transfer curve performance on third-party mics). 

For accurate results, we recommend using the SoundID Reference Measurement Microphone. Sonarworks XREF 20 measurement microphones also fully support multi-angle profiles for multichannel use with SoundID Reference.