Hi all and thanks for having me on the forum
I'm planning on using Reaper + an 8-channel soundcard to set up an active speaker system with 2 x 3-way mains + 2 x full-range surrounds (so a four-channel system in total).
95% of the time I will be using only the mains for listening to music. The path will (I hope) be:
stereo input (Spotify, Foobar, etc.)
--> Reaper
--> volume control
--> dynamic EQ (for equal loudness curve compensation)
--> crossover (linear-phase FIR-based)
--> min-phase EQ (driver response correction)
--> DAC outputs
--> amps
--> speaker drivers
I understand using Reaper to create crossovers for the mains is pretty straightforward. Is that correct? And will it be no problem to route all audio (system-wide) through Reaper?
Then secondly, I would also like to be able to use the system occasionally to play multichannel content (mostly movies) through my browser, VLC Media Player, etc.
This would look something like:
5.1 or 7.1 input
--> Reaper
--> volume control
--> dynamic EQ (for equal loudness curve compensation)
--> mixdown to 4 channels: FR & FL, RL & RR
Then for the FR and FL:
--> crossover (linear-phase FIR-based)
--> min-phase EQ (driver response correction)
--> DAC outputs (6 channels total)
--> amps
--> speaker drivers
And for RL and RR:
--> high-pass-filter (linear-phase FIR-based)
--> min-phase EQ (driver response correction)
--> DAC outputs (2 channels total)
--> amps
--> speaker drivers
Firstly, is this feasible?
I can imagine there might be difficulties in (a) mixing down 5.1/7.1 channel surround to 4 channels and (b) switching between 2-channel and 4-channel mode depending on the source and (c) dealing with different sample rates. Am I right to imagine this would be difficult?
Secondly, would it be possible to add an IR remote into the chain so that volume control can be implemented in Reaper prior to dynamic EQ/downmixing/crossover?
Thirdly, could this be configured system-wide, i.e. so that all audio being played from all software goes through this configuration?
Finally, could this work in either ASIO or Wasapi, i.e. could I avoid the Windows audio mixer.
I know that's not asking much
Many thanks for any ideas.
Andreas