Is Sonarworks necessary/worth it?

[Spring Goose]

btw it's Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven Professional

[kelldammit]

i only use the headphone plugin, and i like it very much. with my atm50x cans (generic profile), it sounds pretty much like my monitors in my treated room, and has helped enormously with translation to other systems. maybe not perfect, but no surprises when dialing in sounds or getting rough mixes (and subsequent checking/tweaking) together when i can't fire up the speakers.
so, for me, yeah...well worth it.

[discogsaddict]

I think its definitely worth trying the demo. I bought it and use every day

Having spent lots of time learning about acoustics, fully treated 4 different work rooms and used maybe 10. I can say for £99 its one hell of an improvement!

You could spent a fortune on speakers and lots of timing building acoustic treatment (or money buying it) and yet still be troubled by bigger dips and peaks.
At the very least youll do well with a decent pair of headphones + sonarworks as a second monitoring reference paired with speakers

[Lati]

I have used studio version for a few years and I like it and use it all the time when working with audio. For casual listening I tend to turn it off though, since I like the sound of my headphones (Sennheiser hd 600) and speakers (Genelec 8050) a bit better without it.

[Josephhh]

I use the headphone version . No complaints really, seems to do what it says on the tin .

[Spring Goose]

New software coming soon.

[E_Anderson]

Realphones by dSoniq and call it a day. Room stereoization + freq response correction + tons of control = all anyone needs

[Adrian Earnshaw Music]

I like what it does to my lightly treated environment and helps bring it all together. I have noticed that it does put a load on the system when using resource-hungry plugins like Omnisphere, which results in crackles. This only started happening in the latest versions and is documented on Gearslutz.

They have now come out with a new version so we will see how this goes.

[sigmundklaus]

Be very mindful with all these generic headphone correction plugins.

I've had three headphone with individual Sonarworks claibrations. The individual calibration in some cases was totaly different from the generic profile.

Imagine using a generic profile that compensates for a peak at 8k but in your specific headphone that peak is at 9.5k ...

With Sennheiser headphones the individual calibration was quite close to the average profile ... With Audeze? Totally different picture.

[sigmundklaus]

Oh, and also... I've got a pair of Focal Clears. I think it would be impossible to measure these properly as they are extremely sensitive to placement. High-end frequency response changes a lot when you move the headphones 1-2 milimeters in some direction

[Mvller]

Imo, if you're making good music with your setup and you already know it then Sonarworks can be not really useful

[alberto_balsalm]

Never understood the hype for these types of plugins. Every time I tried them, the corrections never even remotely sounded close to a flat monitor sound, it just made the headphones sound different, almost always in a weird way too.

A far better approach is to look up frequency response graphs for your headphones, and then manually try to tinker with the offending frequency ranges that are in the ballpark of those response graphs.

[Spring Goose]

Never understood the hype for these types of plugins. Every time I tried them, the corrections never even remotely sounded close to a flat monitor sound, it just made the headphones sound different, almost always in a weird way too.

A far better approach is to look up frequency response graphs for your headphones, and then manually try to tinker with the offending frequency ranges that are in the ballpark of those response graphs.

This sounds a bit like some comb filtering i think, but it did make my mixes better. I don't think the drivers/software got on very well with my Focusrite drivers/software which are a bit touchy to begin with. I'm talking about the old software, i haven't tried the new software.

[NDash24]

If you're in a pinch, in an untreated room without proper placement of studio monitors (or if you don't have any) then I would say it's worth it. It's one of my most favourite investments that I got when it went on sale. I know they now have SoundID out, but I've used Sonarworks Reference 4 Headphone Edition and I love it. I usually go out and do reference checks in a car and take notes on the mix to improve, it's still a long process compared to having all the right tools along with treatment and placement but due to my circumstances, I find Reference 4 Headphone Edition extremely helpful and I use it all the time until I could improve my room conditions.

As for their Monitors edition, I'm not sure, I know they have a calibration too but I think it's really dependent on your room and whether its treated or untreated, I personally don't feel the Monitors edition is worth it as there are many variables that could alter the sound.

I ended up getting a really cheap pair of headphones included in the list on Amazon, going through the characteristics to make sure I could get the flattest frequency spectrum after calibration and it seems to work well. Of course you may still have a boost in an area (mine had a slight boost in low end) but knowing this, you'll still have a better idea of how to go about your mixes.

I personally do Hip Hop music/production and find it's perfect for what I do, I cannot speak for someone involved in a more complex genre doing live, off-floor recordings but I stand by the headphone edition of Reference 4 and it's helped me make a tremendous improvement on my mixes that I've recommended it to friends.

[ramseysounds]

Imo, if you're making good music with your setup and you already know it then Sonarworks can be not really useful

That's what I thought. I was amazed at how much clearer my mixes sounded (and translated) after I started using it. Biggest gain was it made me stop over-compensating for what I assumed was a lack of bass. Couldn't mix without it now and I'm in a treated room.