Learn assembling cinemas with Cavern
How to experience 5.1.2 on the cheapest?
Cavern's rendering technology and its industry-first open support for common spatial audio codecs bring true spatial sound to anything with enough channels. This includes both cheaper and older audio hardware, meaning you can get flagship spatial audio with devices that are cheaper than the cheapest dedicated 5.1.2 setup on the market. With the wide range of tools, it's very easy to convert supported content to your available channels, wherever they are in the room. If you have any 7.1 amplifier, converted content can reassign its sides to height channels. If you only have a 5.1 amplifier, don't worry: it can do 4.1.1 - a single surround and a single height. The exceptional sound quality that can be reached with QuickEQ is just the cherry on top. No HDMI? No problem: keep reading until the last case study.
The heart of the process: Cavernize
Cavern's object-based renderer is called Cavernize. It's a friendly application that takes any video or audio file that has a supported audio track, and renders it to your specific layout. A full documentation is available here for Cavernize. That documentation will tell you exactly how to convert content from start to finish.
If you have a standard layout, like 5.1.2 or 5.1.4, just select your setup in Cavernize. It will tell you where to connect which speaker on your amplifier. Yes, 5.1.4 is actually supported with old 7.1 amplifiers. For any other layouts, however special they might be, let's say, if only one elevated channel is available and the other surrounds are at weird positions, there's a solution for that too. In these cases, download and open the Cavern Driver, set up your channels visually, and choose the Cavern Driver option in Cavernize. Selecting it will use the layout you just set up.
High-end room correction - doesn't matter the device
Cavern QuickEQ is the recommended room correction as it seamlessly works together with PCs, many AVRs and processors, even some amplifiers, and Cavernize. For a much increased audio fidelity, perform a calibration, and if possible, apply it on your system, as described in the QuickEQ documentation.
If your system is not supported by Cavernize as an EQ, it's still supported in Cavernize by burning the calibration into your rendered files. To do this, export your calibration using the Equalizer APO - convolution (per channel) target, then use Cavernize's Apply output filters under the Rendering menu to load the exported calibration. The output filters have to be reapplied on every launch of Cavernize. It's one of the very few features that don't save the last setting by design, as it's very occasional for most users. When output filters are applied, a checkmark is visible next to the menu item, and all renders performed in that running instance of Cavernize will render with room correction enabled. When the resulting files are played on any system, they will sound with QuickEQ's qualities.
Case studies
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HTPC - the absolute top end
A Home Theater PC is where you get everything Cavern and others have to offer, both the video and audio can reach the absolute top end of theaters. Using MPC-HC controlled with Cavern Remote, on a PC that has Equalizer APO calibrated using QuickEQ, you will get a significant experience boost even with codecs that are not supported by Cavern. Audio calibration applies to everything your system can be used for: movies, music, games, even audio production. On these systems, Cavernize is only used to render your content to your specified layout. HTPCs are where all QuickEQ features are supported, like CUCC to reach an incredible seat-to-seat bass consistency using all your speakers.
An HTPC setup consists of the following components:
- The HTPC - practically any new PC is powerful enough
- An audio interface - 8 channels for optimal experience
- Amplifiers - cheap pro stereo amps are great value
- Main speakers - any
- Subwoofer(s) - any, even passive ones, which is especially optimal for price if a single amplifier channel remains after connecting the odd number of mains
AVRs - simplicity and comfort
When a home theater is built on an AVR (with the exception of the PC being the content source - that is an HTPC setup), general usage could get significantly easier. However, there are now two choices for conversion, both with a tradeoff:
- Calibrate the AVR, convert with Cavernize: in this case, calibration is the same process as for HTPCs, no EQ is applied when rendering. Room correction is handled by the AVR, and this is where precision issues can appear. QuickEQ can't export full precision filters for all devices, as most of them only allow manual setup with legacy peaking EQ (IIR) filters. Bypassing this limitation is the other option.
- Calibrate the content: as described under The heart of the process: Cavernize section, Cavernize can render the content for a specific room with nearly a full value QuickEQ correction. Using this option adds an extra step to content conversion, but the results are worth it over the previous option.
Old AVRs - backwards compatibility for the entire millenia
When no HDMI is available, because it wasn't a thing when the used AVR was released, we have at least SPDIF to transfer legacy codecs. This is the key to use Cavernize with both spatial channels and QuickEQ: selecting AC-3 as the Output format allows transporting the render to very old AVRs. Some extra setup is required, as this feature uses FFmpeg. FFmpeg's setup is described in the Cavernize documentation.