FIR Designer DSP design software version 4.7 is now available. New features include a JBL Professional IIR filter mode, support for brand-specific filter limits and Supplementary Response saving.
JBL Professional IIR filter mode
Eclipse Audio has collaborated with JBL Professional to include a JBL Professional IIR filter mode in FIR Designer & FIR Designer M, specifically for for EQ’ing SRX900 series loudspeakers.
The JBL Professional filter emulation in FIR Designer ensures that IIR filters, used to configure DSP functions for EQ, will produce consistent results when used in the group EQ for SRX900 series loudspeakers. Brand-specific IIR emulation is necessary for audio optimization because some filters produce different results when used across processor brands. JBL Professional and Eclipse Audio have worked together to ensure that the JBL Professional IIR filter mode in FIR Designer interprets filter parameters in exactly the same way as Performance (JBL Professional’s control software).
To deploy the IIR filter based EQ (developed in FIR Designer) into the Performance software, use the EQ View within Tune Mode (Learn more).
The addition of this new mode brings the number of different IIR supported modes in FIR Designer to 18, including AFMG Speakerlab, Biamp Tesira, Blaze Audio, Bose Professional, BSS, Fohhn Audio, Lake, Linea Research, Marani, Pascal Audio, Powersoft, Q-SYS, RAM Audio, RMS-Acoustics, Storm Audio, Symetrix & generic.
Learn more about IIR brand emulation.
Brand-Specific Filter Limits
Some audio brands specify how many IIR filters can be used in their products, as well as which filter types are supported. FIR Designer’s branded IIR modes now take these product-specific requirements into account.
When a brand has specified filter restrictions, the available filters displayed in the IIR tab of FIR Designer will reflect only the options for that brand.
This helps ensure that custom DSP designs created for a particular brand use only the number and types of IIR filters that its products can actually accept.
Select the new #Filters button to see details of the filter limits applying to all (or specific) products offered by the selected brand.
If the #Filters button does not appear for a selected brand, it means that particular brand hasn’t specified limits on the number (or types) of filters that can be used in a custom DSP design.
The Supplementary Responses view in FIR Designer M
Supplementary Response Saving in Project Files
The Supplementary Responses windows in FIR Designer M and FIR Designer allow the main workflow processing — gain, polarity, delay, IIR and FIR filters — to be applied to additional uploaded sets of measurements. (For example, loudspeaker measurement sets captured at different angles relative to the main listening axis.)
Supplementary Responses was originally designed purely as a visualization tool, providing a useful way to check performance of a specific DSP design against an alternative set of measurements, and references to the uploaded responses were not saved as part of the FIR Designer M system or FIR Designer project.
In response to user requests, FIR Designer M and FIR Designer 4.7 now save Supplementary Response measurement filenames, locations and settings within the system and project files.
When a saved system or project is reopened, its Supplementary Responses are automatically available again, making it easy to continue evaluating and refining the DSP design using the same set of reference measurements.
This provides greater convenience and consistency, particularly for projects where multiple measurements are used to evaluate loudspeaker performance and optimize DSP designs over time.
See a video tutorial about using the Supplementary Responses view in FIR Designer.
Get all details about the latest update:
FIR Designer M Release Notes | FIR Designer Release Notes
Michael is the founder of Eclipse Audio and developer of the FIR Designer software range. His career includes senior research roles at Dolby Laboratories and leadership positions at Rational Acoustics, with 30 years of experience in audio DSP, loudspeaker optimization, and acoustic measurement.
