“I recently moved and had to set up a new studio. I'm using Focal Solo 6be and the first thing I noticed is how bad it sounded in my new room. I felt like the sound was not focused, and I had a hard time hearing the lows and lower midrange. I don't have the time or supplies at the moment to acoustically treat my room, so I decided to try Sonarworks.
So impressed with these results!! The sound is as good or better than it was before. It would probably be even better if I combined it with acoustic treatment, but as it is right now, the sound is incredibly crisp and I don't feel like I'm missing out on any frequencies. Worth the buy for sure.”
“The upgrade went smoothly, and measurement with the microphones was easy and intuitive to carry out. I also appreciate the calibration files provided with the microphone. This allowed me to use it with REW to confirm how effective the room calibration is with before and after room measurements.”
“Once I finished the calibration I was really happy with the result. I have a small studio space and the biggest thing I noticed was how it cleaned up the bass frequencies. The calibration process was a little tricky as I kept getting feedback when being prompted to raise the volume to the target level. Eventually, it worked but it took a lot of adjusting to finally get it to work. I've noticed that if I'm listening to music on my Mac Book Pro and my screensaver turns on that Sound ID Reference will disappear from my list of output devices. It requires that I restart ID Reference to get it to work again. Hopefully, this can get fixed with an update. Other than those things I like the product quite a bit and use it all the time. It has improved the sound in my studio space. Before getting Sound ID Refenece I would only mix on headphones because my room was way too bass heavy.”
Hi Tim,
Thank you for your review, we really appreciate it!
We're glad to know that your experience with SoundID Reference has been mostly positive so far, but I am sorry to learn that some problems have been present.
As you mentioned in your review that you have encountered some sleep state issues with SoundID Reference, I wanted to let you know that we have recently released a new SoundID Reference beta version (v5.7.3) which includes a major rework of the macOS driver and aims to resolve various issues such as sleep/idle-time problems and the SoundID Reference virtual device disappearing from the output list. We have been working on these improvements for a while now and we hope that the product experience is greatly improved for our macOS users.
For more details on the beta and steps on how to install it, see our Community post here: https://www.sonarworks.com/community/soundid-reference/posts/12241588603282-new-beta-macos-driver-update-beta-testing-soundid-reference-beta-version-573
If you have the chance to try out the beta, it would be great if you could let us know about your experience in the Community post linked or by submitting a support request. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Best regards,
Zane from Sonarworks Team
“I used the Headphone Sound ID Reference for over a year before upgrading to the Speakers and Headphone with Measurement Mic and what a great thing to do! I should've done it before! Now my mixes sound the same "everywhere" I listen to. Everything that was "weird and not accurate" on other listening devices or environments is a thing of the past. Don't waste your money on many different monitor brands or "funky" plugins before getting Sonarworks Sound ID Reference with the Measurement mic, you won't regret it. Of course, a minimum of room treatment is mandatory in a studio but you already know that right!”
