I realized when I posted that that only I can really answer the question. But I'm feeling lazy, so there's that. Just wondered if anyone else has done the homework and come to a conclusion.
I keep thinking in a few years someone will have written "The Definitive Guide to Dirac Art" and all the possible permutations will have been evaluated and "The One True Way" defined that we can all just follow. But it's early days. I just don't feel like going down the Evo rabbit hole again, that just got so exhausting.
I personally think the "One True Way" is to get a basic understanding where to put your measurement mic, do the minimum of measurements to access ART, leave everything at default, hit calculate, transfer the filter, not thinking too much into it and call it a day. For most people this would honestly be the best and least time consuming option. The results should be good enough for an automated system (exceptionally good in my opinion aside from my personal preference on the base target curve).
Obviously that is not enough for hometheater enthusiasts who always feel it can sound be better (unfortunately me). Sometimes we have to deal with lots of variables that has an effect on the final result we are hearing like speaker model/type, speaker/subwoofer count, number of cross-terms available, support level + f-support low + f-support high for each group configured, enabling/disabling support for other groups, position of the speakers in the room, room dimensions + room construction (thickness of the walls, materials used, etc.) that creates all sorts of issues that we need to understand, seating position, passive treatments implemented or generally the placement of your furnitures, personal preference for bass, generally prefered listening levels, your own expectation what perfect bass should even sound like can be different, generally psychoacoustics, etc..
A personal example: Science suggest to position 2 subs on the front wall and 2 subs on the backwall for a really good bass performance in small rooms. ART does a great job to optimize for this configuration. I have 4 subwoofers but they perform subjectively better if I leave all of them on the front wall. I have much better "cinematic" bass that way. Maybe the look of having 4 subwoofers in front of me plays a role aswell, who knows.
Another personal example: Since I was a child my right ear is slightly more sensitive or my left ear is slightly less sensitive to hearing bass around 38-43hz. That creates a little imbalance at certain volumes between my left and right hearing. Over the years I have found a fix by slightly adjusting the target curve in that range. My brain starts to focus on other bass frequencies which I prefer. Obviously no guide can take this into account as it is personal, so is the room.
I really wish a definitive guide is possible. But I think it will either become a giant complex mass of information that will give you headaches (put you in a rabbit hole) or it will be something more easily digestible but will leave out too many important variables (oversimplification).
I don't see a way out of experimenting with different configurations, both physical and digital (the ART configuration itself) to get the best result possible.
www.rbhsound.com
