I’ve been using my desktop for a long time as my primary media source for some time having thrown out my cd changer and dvd drive a long time ago [though i’ve since invested in a record player which i love]. So I was interested to read about these new audio features of Vista (MS’s immenent, if long delayed next version of windows). Windows can use a microphone to calibrate your speakers for frequency response and room positioning etc.. And it can do this, correcting/tweaking on-the-fly all audio singals output from a computer, in software, by just stealing a few cycles of CPU along the way. Neat. yet another reason to start thinking about throwing out your home stereo components. Now if MS could just do something about the general mediocre quality of integrated soundchip hardware found in most computers…
in Vista, we have a perceptually tuned version of room correction. Because we don’t expect everyone to own an instrumentation microphone, we have designed it so that you can use [most any] cheap microphone costing a few dollars to do an excellent job. IF you have a more expensive microphone, you can calibrate your room very accurately. All of this is implemented in in-box Vista software, using less than 5% on 3GHz CPU. Our room correction will equalize frequency response, time delay, and gain between all of your main channels, as well as build a first-reflection-cancellation filter if one or more of your speakers are near a reflective surface. If you do have a high-quality microphone, the room correction system will also flatten the overall frequency response and adjust the subwoofer delay accordingly.
more here: link