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Audyssey XT32 vs Dirac Live
- Thread starter Dougey_Jones
- Start date
Well it can't process your Atmos channels as they are not actual "channels". You can process 7.1. If you listen to 2 channel music and want to do 2.1 and use Dirac as your eq, it does a fine job. Would I consider it an upgrade over Audyssey XT32, yes I would (no Atmos channels on pc yet). Multeq-x is a different story.
You can try the free trial. I did so on my X3600 and found I preferred the sound of XT32.
Did you match the F/R - Target curves? (cos otherwise, you would - obviously - be comparing the target curves and not the systems themselves...)
Yes I did, you can see my small study here:
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
www.audiosciencereview.com
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
www.audiosciencereview.com
Note that I later found out that my stock Audyssey mic was significantly mis-calibrated. I now have the ACM1-X mic, which fixed the target curve issue. I didn't try and compare against Dirac after this. For the Dirac comparison I did do, I still tried to get the target curves matched.
Yep -
I should do something similar.... (when I have time & the house to myself... a rare combination!)
My own subjective comparison of default Audyssey and Default Dirac (the XT32 AVR was a 2013 model, so no adjustment of target curves, or turning off of MRC!) - had Dirac as definitely superior... immediately noticeable - and primarily an improvement of clarity in the midrange - which may well have been down to the MRC.
I looked at those measurements - good effort there...Yes I did, you can see my small study here:
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
Note that I later found out that my stock Audyssey mic was significantly mis-calibrated. I now have the ACM1-X mic, which fixed the target curve issue. I didn't try and compare against Dirac after this. For the Dirac comparison I did do, I still tried to get the target curves matched.
I should do something similar.... (when I have time & the house to myself... a rare combination!)
My own subjective comparison of default Audyssey and Default Dirac (the XT32 AVR was a 2013 model, so no adjustment of target curves, or turning off of MRC!) - had Dirac as definitely superior... immediately noticeable - and primarily an improvement of clarity in the midrange - which may well have been down to the MRC.
Yes I did, you can see my small study here:
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
Audyssey's Next Generation of Room Correction (MultEQ-X)
We all understand that incorrect position. There is no miscommunication. Have you tried taking confirmatory measurements properly - same area, random sample points? Incorrect position, aping measure point? He's only talking about an apples to apples comparison in a specific sense. You are...
Note that I later found out that my stock Audyssey mic was significantly mis-calibrated. I now have the ACM1-X mic, which fixed the target curve issue. I didn't try and compare against Dirac after this. For the Dirac comparison I did do, I still tried to get the target curves matched.
Just a side note: I know people complained about the cheap looking Audyssey mic a lot on various forums, but I am not sure if that's even a factor in the real world. My old Denon AVR-4308CI came with an identical looking mic but it weighed solid, like a ton, the one I used for DL (PC version) is the Umik-1 that cost quite bit more than Audyssey's, and now an Anthem mic that looked and feel like the Umik-1 (I bet it might be made by them in a different color, but that's just my wild guess) and if I looked at the results I really don't see any evidence the quality of such mics would/could make any audible difference.
About your preference of the "sound", it obviously boils down to a subjective vs objective kind of thing again. I have yet to see a good set of actual graphs that include FR, impulse response, phase, distortions, and other graphs that REW or similar software so that we can compare such RC systems more objectively. At this point, based on what I have experienced and use I found DL the best overall mainly because of the UI that allows a lot user adjustments, and with Audyssey mult EQ X and the Editor App, I would probably put Anthem ARC Genesis last, though I have only been playing with it for 3 days so I may change my mind on that. Trinnov, being out of my $ reach, I will never know what to say about it. From what I read, it is likely on top, rule them all, including RoomPerfect, but I also know you can't trust internet talks as people can and will say all kind of things without providing evidence that we may want to see.
If I were to draw a quick premature conclusions of my own, I would say in terms of value vs $, Audyssey with the $20 App and the free Ratbuddyssey (there are paid options that likely are better than the free Rat) is the best, followed by MultEQ X (only from what I read and played with the demo). On money no object basis, excluding Trinnov, Dirac seems to be the best in terms of ease of use, user adjustability and results out of the box, that is after just one run/attempt, without tweaking.
About ARC Genesis, do you happen to know which site/forum to look for actual REW (or similar) graphs, even just FR and impulse response? Please don't tell me AVSF, there are 726 pages, I scanned through probably 10% of the post so far and did not come across much REW graphs. Funny that's not an issue with Dirac and Audyssey, though most of the Audyssey's once don't really do much justice for various reasons. Yours are among the best for sure, and thanks for that..
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Yes the Audyssey mic looks cheap but the actual mic element is very similar (perhaps the same) as the element in the UMIK-1. The UMIK seems better quality since it is in a metal housing and has a preamp/USB interface, but the actual mic isn't much different. The bigger issue is the way calibration is done. The receiver assumes some base calibration for the Audyssey mic, for which the Audyssey mics are manufactured to be close to that target. But since they aren't individually calibrated, one can expect some error to reference. After getting the ACM1-X and its individually calibrated file, I found that my stock mic had 3-4 dB of error for the upper and lower freqs, enough to significantly affect the post-calibrated timbre. The ACM1-X is quite inexpensive for an individually calibrated mic; even the UMIK-1 isn't individually calibrated.
Dirac works off of a room curve and not manual PEQ. Some processors allow manual PEQ. I know StormAudio and Emotiva have manual PEQ as an option as well as Dirac. There could be others...
MultEQ-X will let you take your REW PEQ filters and put those in instead (it won't do the Atmos layers as those are not "channels").
FWIW, I recently had the opportunity to demo both the Dirac-enabled Onkyo/Integra RZ50/DRX 3.4 and Audyssey-enabled Denon X3700H side by side in my living room and the results were quite surprising, at least to me.
For context, my 12-year old Arcam AVR600 (great sound, horrible reliability) crapped out for good right before the holidays and after a few weeks of internet research, I narrowed my top 2 options down to the respective Onkyo and Denon models. Given that both offered free shipping and no-charge return policies, I decided to just order both models, try them out side by side, and keep whichever one I preferred. I actually ended up purchasing the Integra DRX 3.4 version of the Onkyo as it was slightly less expensive, plus I have a full set of separate power amps and would just be using it as a pre-pro, so didn't need the slightly more powerful RZ50 version.
Given the fairly similar specs and price point, I was expecting any sonic differences between them to be relatively minor, and that my preference would largely come down to how well the features were implemented, how nice it looked in my setup, etc.
To my surprise there was a very clear audible difference between the 2 units, with the Denon offering superior performance in almost every respect.
In both cases, I ran the respective room correction software during initial setup and used both strictly as pre-pros with the same set of power amps in order to compare apples to apples.
The Onkyo/Integra sounded much less present - dialog was less clear, imaging and sound staging less distinct, bass was thinner, and fine details were obscured, with music playback in particular coming off really disappointing. In fact, it sounded so subpar that I thought something must have gone wrong during the initial setup process, so I reset it to factory mode, ran the full setup and Dirac software again, but still ended up with similar results.
By contrast, after going through the initial setup, the Denon sounded absolutely fantastic from minute one - full, clear and present, with rock solid imaging, deep bass, a wide soundstage, and tons of detail in both movies and music playback. Really impressive. Needless to say, I ended up keeping the Denon.
I have no idea how much of this came down to the room correction software vs. the hardware implementation, but frankly I was surprised by how big the difference was. Prior to this, I'd never owned any Onkyo or Denon product so have no particular brand loyalty, and had never used any room correction software, so had no prior biases in this regard either.
In any case, I'm not going to make any claim as to the overall superiority of one room correction software over another - all I can say is that in my particular context the Denon with Audyssey provided better results.
What I can say, however, is that there really is no substitute for trying a device out in your own setup, and in the room you intend to use it, and I would strongly advise doing so if at all possible.
For context, my 12-year old Arcam AVR600 (great sound, horrible reliability) crapped out for good right before the holidays and after a few weeks of internet research, I narrowed my top 2 options down to the respective Onkyo and Denon models. Given that both offered free shipping and no-charge return policies, I decided to just order both models, try them out side by side, and keep whichever one I preferred. I actually ended up purchasing the Integra DRX 3.4 version of the Onkyo as it was slightly less expensive, plus I have a full set of separate power amps and would just be using it as a pre-pro, so didn't need the slightly more powerful RZ50 version.
Given the fairly similar specs and price point, I was expecting any sonic differences between them to be relatively minor, and that my preference would largely come down to how well the features were implemented, how nice it looked in my setup, etc.
To my surprise there was a very clear audible difference between the 2 units, with the Denon offering superior performance in almost every respect.
In both cases, I ran the respective room correction software during initial setup and used both strictly as pre-pros with the same set of power amps in order to compare apples to apples.
The Onkyo/Integra sounded much less present - dialog was less clear, imaging and sound staging less distinct, bass was thinner, and fine details were obscured, with music playback in particular coming off really disappointing. In fact, it sounded so subpar that I thought something must have gone wrong during the initial setup process, so I reset it to factory mode, ran the full setup and Dirac software again, but still ended up with similar results.
By contrast, after going through the initial setup, the Denon sounded absolutely fantastic from minute one - full, clear and present, with rock solid imaging, deep bass, a wide soundstage, and tons of detail in both movies and music playback. Really impressive. Needless to say, I ended up keeping the Denon.
I have no idea how much of this came down to the room correction software vs. the hardware implementation, but frankly I was surprised by how big the difference was. Prior to this, I'd never owned any Onkyo or Denon product so have no particular brand loyalty, and had never used any room correction software, so had no prior biases in this regard either.
In any case, I'm not going to make any claim as to the overall superiority of one room correction software over another - all I can say is that in my particular context the Denon with Audyssey provided better results.
What I can say, however, is that there really is no substitute for trying a device out in your own setup, and in the room you intend to use it, and I would strongly advise doing so if at all possible.
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ryaneagon
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Thanks for sharing this. Did you happen to compare them before room correction?
I did try switching off the room correction on the Integra to see if it made any improvement, and my recollection was that if anything it sounded even worse - a bit more full bodied, but also less focused/more muddied.
I haven't actually tried switching off the room correction on the Denon yet since I've been so happy with how it sounds when on, but I suppose I really should if only to see how much of a difference it makes.
Will report back once I've had a chance to try it out.
Note that there are 2 issues: 1. the test is sighted. 2. you said you never used any room correction before. You could get differences simply due to using them both wrong in a different way. A more appropriate test would be to learn how to calibrate both systems optimally (or at least in a similar enough way, at the very least using identical target curves and measurement points), and then compare the results.
True, but in fairness it was never my intention to make any kind of comprehensive scientific test, nor am I making any definitive claims. I just decided to try out both units in my own system in order to inform my final purchase decision, and I'm sharing my personal experience here.
Nothing more than that, and take from it what you will.
I suppose it's possible that if I had played around with the settings on the Integra enough, I might have been able to get it to a similar level of performance as the Denon, but since I was getting everything I wanted from the Denon right out of the initial setup, it was kind of a no brainer.
Vacceo
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There is an element that may be relevant too: the amps on each AVR are different. How different, I don´t know, but the gain could be a factor.
Thanks for sharing. Did you apply the distance tweak (multiply distances by 0.875) on the Denon to fix the incorrect calculation of distances (see avsforum thread)? This would further improve imaging performance. MultEQ-X already accounts for this, but it doesn't sound like you got that app.
It does look like there is a bit more one has to do with Dirac to set it up correctly, as discussed in this thread.
But otherwise this mirrors my impressions of Dirac vs. Audyssey for stereo listening (I used the Dirac Live PC trial). I found XT32 sounds better.
And I found Dirac to sound better... (for stereo listening)
From your past post: "My own subjective comparison of default Audyssey and Default Dirac (the XT32 AVR was a 2013 model, so no adjustment of target curves, or turning off of MRC!) "
Have you tried a more recent version of Audyssey on a current receiver, with target curve adjustments?
Still a lot of vagueness between the two room corrections and their performance, and a lot of mixed results. Would be nice to get more comprehensive comparisons of the two so we can understand in what conditions which of the DRCs perform better than the other and why. i.e. is it speaker dependent, or room acoustics dependent?
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