Dirac Live + MiniDSP News!

Cheers beanbag - it's s/w though and your setup is almost certainly different to mine. If it can be made to work, and I'm 90% sure it can be, I'll find the way

A great workman realises his own stupidity?:ROFL:

And the inability of his peers to do forum quotes correctly?:ROFL:

Well it is up and running with JRiver and Qobuz Hi-Fi. Some software issues along the way, but basically it is possible to get t to work.

What's more you can engage or disengage the Dirac correction on the fly. Engaged and you just KNOW what you are listening to has a flatter in-room response.

Done about an hour of listening and it is very interesting to hear what it is doing. I'd definitely recommend buying the miniDSP mic as it is not expensive and is all you need until the trial expires in 2 weeks.

Throw out all preconceptions and the BS you have read on forums and try it for yourself. Really. Like it or not it is just a bit of fun, and a cheap one at that in the scope of this hobby.

The above remark about the mic is obviously only true if you are already using a laptop / PC plus a DAC or soundcard.

User211 said:

What's more you can engage or disengage the Dirac correction on the fly. Engaged and you just KNOW what you are listening to has a flatter in-room response.

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Justin, one of the best features of Dirac (or Trinnov, etc.) is that you can create one or more custom target curves which please you most*. Takes some time and tweaking to do, but it's well worth the effort.

*Assuming that the trial version permits this feature...

I haven't tried that yet Ken but will knock up a number of different curves over the coming days.

I might also cross-check its supposed corrections in the frequency domain with HolmImpulse i.e. FR before and after correction independently verified by another piece of s/w.

Check impulse response before/after, as well. *Should* be a noticeable improvement.

Also also, if Dirac is eliminating a peak or peaks in the LF, you should see better bass decay characteristics.

RUR said:

Justin, one of the best features of Dirac (or Trinnov, etc.) is that you can create one or more custom target curves which please you most*. Takes some time and tweaking to do, but it's well worth the effort.

*Assuming that the trial version permits this feature...

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It does let you do that during the trial. It's a fully functional trial. I didn't let it flatten out my house curve with the bass when I initially tried it.

RUR said:

Check impulse response before/after, as well. *Should* be a noticeable improvement.

Also also, if Dirac is eliminating a peak or peaks in the LF, you should see better bass decay characteristics.

Click to expand...

I've noticed the Dirac processing kills the soundstage flat. There's no fore/aft imaging when it is applied. I reckon its the impulse response compensation that's doing it. Bummer - there is no way to turn it off.

That's what it needs, really - switches that decide which correction algorithms are applied at any one time.

User211 said:

I've noticed the Dirac processing kills the soundstage flat. There's no fore/aft imaging when it is applied.

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That's my experience with whatever room corrected systems I have seen - I was hoping you would find a way out

User211 said:

I've noticed the Dirac processing kills the soundstage flat. There's no fore/aft imaging when it is applied. I reckon its the impulse response compensation that's doing it. Bummer - there is no way to turn it off.

That's what it needs, really - switches that decide which correction algorithms are applied at any one time.

Click to expand...

Kinda surprising, as that's not been my experience with Trinnov or TacT, both of which improved the soundstage considerably in every respect.

FWIW, Trinnov does permit FR only (and a variety of other choices) correction. Much more user flexibility than Dirac.

I really think the Dirac s/w is young - there's no balance control in the audio processor either which is just too basic an omission. This means when using Qobuz Hi-Fi there's no balance control at all, unlike JRiver, which can apply it before the audio processor gets it.

The imaging in the same plane as the speaker is actually more precisely defined with it on. It is just that the fore/aft depth perspective dies. I'd be really curious to see what affect sliders for variable impulse correction would have on this (if any).

There is balance control.
On the window that shows your 4 filters and the option to turn them on or off, click the little arrow to the right of your selected filter.

What do you use to test soundstage depth?

Fantastic hadn't clicked on those for a while. It is missing in the usual windows place i.e. Speaker Properties->Levels tab.

Soundstage depth? Ears I'm afraid.

What do you think of it overall beanbag?

Lol, I first put my right ear in, if it gets wet, the stage is deep. Normally my soundstage is deepest during full moon

User211 said:

What do you think of it overall beanbag?

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You can see some of my comments and charts in my thread at ComputerAudiophile.

One thing I am impressed is how it can fix low frequency problems. It made the LF / room response of both my speakers flat AND the sum to be flat too AND made the phase more even. That is hard to do with EQ only, and probably involves some FIR magic and other "fancy math processing stuff". Practically, it cleaned up the low frequencies a little bit and made the bass less boomy. Also, it means you won't have to buy a second sub or lots of expensive bass traps to even out the room response.

The first time I ran it, I had a very damped room. I would say it seems to make very little difference as far as I could tell.

The second time, I followed the suggestion from the company to remove some of the acoustic treatments so the sound could be more lively, and then let Dirac "fix" the rest. Then I noticed a very small difference. Without Dirac, voices had a slight tinny and echo-y sound, like somebody was singing thru a telephone or cardboard tube. (I think that may be "comb filtering" effects from having a close reflecting surface. Also, sometimes the imaging would wander a bit depending on the note, for example, the "s" sound would come from a different place than the vowels, and when a cello was going up and down the scale it seems to be moving left a right a little bit. Dirac improved both of these things, but the change is small enough that you won't really notice unless you do a quick A/B comparison.

I don't know what is this "soundstage depth" thing, since voices seem to either come from the wall behind the speakers, or way behind the speakers when they echo more. I haven't really experienced good depth perception, so I wouldn't know. In general, I don't listen to rock, or "crusty middle aged male" music like jazz blues or "female vocals", where the recording is a mix of close-miked sources. I tend to listen more to classical or ancient music where the voices and sounds are obviously coming from a distant stage.

beanbag said:

Also, it means you won't have to buy a second sub or lots of expensive bass traps to even out the room response.

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This will be very much room dependent. If one has modal or SBIR nulls, no amount of EQ will fix them and it's all down to placement and/or multiple, properly placed transducers.