Thank you!
You have an amazingly tight spread, especially in the 20-40 Hz range. Mine isn't anywhere near that tight.
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Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac
- Thread starter Flak
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Thank you!
You have an amazingly tight spread, especially in the 20-40 Hz range. Mine isn't anywhere near that tight.
I think it’s a result of my left and right subs having basically the same measured response. One is corner loaded and one midwall so probably some luck or Klipsch just hit a home run. It looked this good before I added a third behind me, that one helped above 40Hz.
This is already a long thread, but finally I had the time to set up my Marantz Cinema 30 with Dirac ART. Here are my before and after measurements in REW. At the moment I'm running a 2.2 setup, so I'm showing L+R plots.
Before:
After:
Quite impressive, I must say. Needless to say, my system sounds better than ever...
Before:
After:
Quite impressive, I must say. Needless to say, my system sounds better than ever...
Miniyouuuu
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The bass sounds great! I’m just wondering if there’s a 25Hz mode that stays on a bit too long. But honestly, those frequencies aren’t very noticeable.
Also, what do you think about the soundstage? Dirac sometimes adjusts the width and depth to get that perfect bass balance. It makes the sound sharper and clearer, but it might feel like the stage is a little too tight. How does your setup sound to you?
Also, what do you think about the soundstage? Dirac sometimes adjusts the width and depth to get that perfect bass balance. It makes the sound sharper and clearer, but it might feel like the stage is a little too tight. How does your setup sound to you?
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I would imagine that would only be a situation of correcting full range, which we don't know. However, that would be a situation to have Dirac just correct up to the room transition. I think it is always a good idea to try to test limited correction vs full range correction to see what is preferred. Good speakers may not need any correction (above the transition). It can provide pretty after projected correction results but it is always possible to sound worse.
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There is indeed a room mode at about 23 Hz in my room. I have two subs and Dirac ART is able to make good use of them. However, one of the subs is located in a null of that 23 Hz mode. That leaves only one sub - the other one - coupled to the mode, and it doesn't get any «help» in reducing the decay. But like you say, it doesn’t matter that much. Very little content hits that frequency, so it’s not bothering me.
I find that the soundstage depends a lot on the recording. The good recordings I have heard thus far has had a wide and satisfying soundstage.
Are you using Dirac to correct full range, or is correction limited to bass frequencies such as under 300hz? Or ?
I’m correcting full range. I’m of course aware of the well known fact that correction above the transition region is hit or miss. I tested this a lot on my previous setup (NAD M33), and found that I preferred full range vs. up to 300 Hz. It’s not a big difference, though.
In my listening room it’s open one one side and heavy absorption on the other, so I get relatively more direct sound from my speakers than I otherwise would. My guess is that this somehow makes it more suitable to full range correction. This is pure speculation, if course.
I find full correction a net positive, even with well designed speakers. I set my max bass boost at zero db and then draw the curve below that so the end result is a 3 db relative boost below 100 hz, flat at -3 db from 100 to 2500, and then a slope that starts at 2500 and ends up at -5 db at 10 kHz. And I use this curve for all speakers so they sound as identical as possible, even though I’m mixing TAD and KEF speakers. Pans don’t change character as things move around. Atmos music sounds best this way also, although for music I much prefer stereo, but using all my speakers so Dirac can do its thing below 150hz.
My experience is good speakers, meaning those with well behaved directivity, are easier to correct and sound even better after correction. Most importantly they need to have low distortion, low resonances and well behaved directivity. DSP can’t fix these, but it’s great at addressing frequency response variances.
Mine is the opposite with “good” speakers in a treated asymmetrical room. Seems like you would prefer it but I don’t like correction above 300Hz in my set up. I’ve tried and tried and tried again. No right no wrong, Pepsi vs. Coke type deal.
Miniyouuuu
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Could you please specify the microphone you are using? While the above 500Hz correction using my previous microphone (Umik1) was not to my liking, the Umik2 offers increased timing precision that allows for a full range correction
Umik1, on a Mac if that matters. I can only describe not to my liking as pushing the Dolby noise reduction button on a cassette. It’s not terrible by any means.
Miniyouuuu
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Despite a Dirac expert’s claim of no differences between Umik1 and Umik2, my Umik1 microphone reduced the soundstage and made the highs “pixelated” and noisy. The Umik2’s smoother highs and less reduced soundstage make me apply a full-range correction.
KenMasters
Active Member
I doubt the mic has anything to do with it. I've calibrated my system in many different ways, from fully automated to fully manual.
Fundamentally I find trying to "correct" the response in my room much above 300Hz or so results in a less engaging, lively sound (even when set to follow the in-room response).
I've come to the conclusion that if you have decent speakers and your room is not particularly problematic, it sounds better to leave the speakers and the room to interact naturally above Schroeder.
Though I have no objection to applying some broad correction above Schroeder if there is anechoic data to suggest the speaker might benefit from it.
What's the correct way to use Diract ART with four subs along with bass shakers? The four subs use all of the sub ports on my Denon X4800H.
I know I can split a sub RCA signal but I don't fully understand how that modified signal would affect the bass shakers. I have a MiniDSP 2x4HD in case that helps.
Thanks.
I know I can split a sub RCA signal but I don't fully understand how that modified signal would affect the bass shakers. I have a MiniDSP 2x4HD in case that helps.
Thanks.
I believe I learned something new and surprising for me by asking the Hyperion (makers of the APR-16) and various AI tools how crossover settings work with Dirac ART. Please correct me if I'm missing something or have something wrong.
Dirac will measure each speaker's in room acoustic response (phase and magnitude) POST any crossover settings you have made in your AVR or AVP. So if the speaker is set to large, it will measure the speaker's actual in room response, and if you set it to small with an HPF of 80hz, it will measure it's in room response with that HPF in the signal chain. That said, what determines how much bass is actually sent to this speaker is more a function of the f support low, so if that is set to say 100hz, then Dirac ART will not use the speaker much below 100hz. So far so good, but if the f support low and the HPF are at a similar frequency, then you're unnecessarily introducing phase and magnitude issues from the HPF in the chain that Dirac now has to account for.
So if I have large mains, medium size center and surround and small height, the AI is telling me I should set the mains, center and surround as full so Dirac sees their true frequency and phase response, and I should regulate how much low frequency they see by setting the f support low appropriately. For for large mains f support low might be 40hz and for the center and surround 80hz. For the small height, set them as small with an HPF at 60-70hz, just as protection and set the f support low at 100-120hz, so the HPF is not introducing additional phase issues near the f support low frequency. This way Dirac is not compensating unnecessarily for the HPF in the signal chain, and the bass that is sent to each speaker is managed by the f support low.
Does this make sense to you all?
One risk is if Dirac is accidentally turned off then you may overdrive some of the speakers, so as a compromise maybe set everything to small but with lower than normal HPFs.
Dirac will measure each speaker's in room acoustic response (phase and magnitude) POST any crossover settings you have made in your AVR or AVP. So if the speaker is set to large, it will measure the speaker's actual in room response, and if you set it to small with an HPF of 80hz, it will measure it's in room response with that HPF in the signal chain. That said, what determines how much bass is actually sent to this speaker is more a function of the f support low, so if that is set to say 100hz, then Dirac ART will not use the speaker much below 100hz. So far so good, but if the f support low and the HPF are at a similar frequency, then you're unnecessarily introducing phase and magnitude issues from the HPF in the chain that Dirac now has to account for.
So if I have large mains, medium size center and surround and small height, the AI is telling me I should set the mains, center and surround as full so Dirac sees their true frequency and phase response, and I should regulate how much low frequency they see by setting the f support low appropriately. For for large mains f support low might be 40hz and for the center and surround 80hz. For the small height, set them as small with an HPF at 60-70hz, just as protection and set the f support low at 100-120hz, so the HPF is not introducing additional phase issues near the f support low frequency. This way Dirac is not compensating unnecessarily for the HPF in the signal chain, and the bass that is sent to each speaker is managed by the f support low.
Does this make sense to you all?
One risk is if Dirac is accidentally turned off then you may overdrive some of the speakers, so as a compromise maybe set everything to small but with lower than normal HPFs.
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No, this not correct. Dirac ART will disregard any previous settings of crossovers for the speakers. Read for instance the manuals on Dirac.com:
https://helpdesk.dirac.com/en
I don’t know anything about Hyperion, but you should stop trusting the slop that AI is serving you.
I’m pretty sure what I wrote was incorrect, but I also don’t see anything written by Dirac stating that ART will disregard crossover settings. From what I’ve gathered now, I believe f support only limits how a speaker supports itself or other speakers. F support does not limit the bandwidth of the signal that is intended for that particular speaker. But the crossover setting in the processor does limit this signal’s bandwidth and Dirac sits on top on this.
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