Dominikz: Let me join the chorus of thank-yous for undertaking and sharing this. It is interesting to me (if a little head-spinning in some of the technicalities) because I just did room correction with a cheap measurement mic and Room Equalizer Wizard (REW) to create a WAV file to load into the Convolution filter in Roon. So here is my ignorant question:
How do REW-generated filters implemented through a player like Roon or Jriver compare to the approaches in your review? Are the three you reviewed simply more automated, or is there more functionality?
Glad it was interesting!
I personally find REW very useful, and as I mentioned in the post quoted by
@MediumRare, I use REW + manual PEQ to do room correction at my workdesk nearfield setup.
However I was having trouble finding a good EQ setting for my living room stereo setup, which is why I started looking into automated DRCs. If you're not very technically oriented (or don't want to use lots and lots of time measuring-EQing-remeasuring) in my opinion it is very much worth investing in good DRC. E.g. With Dirac Live I was able to get very good sounds very quickly.
Other than the automatic nature of these, do you get and audible difference between say DIRAC and REW?
For my nearfield setup, I still feel I get better results with both Dirac and ARC System 3 (didn't test Reference 4 there yet) than I get with manual EQ - with simple manual EQ there's still some variation in loudness depending on which note is played in the bassline (i.e. still some peaks and dips
), whereas with DRC I perceive notes in the bassline to be similar in loudness. Note that I use only 3-band PEQ in the desktop setup, as that's what I have in RME built-in DSP, whereas DRCs use many filters and in some cases also do additional phase / time-domain corrections.
Also, note that this is a non-blind subjective experience without any objective data to back it up - so please take it with a grain of salt.
Certainly someone more experienced with manual room EQ, with some patience and more EQ bands could get it far better than I have!
Anyway, I will probably stick to manual EQ for the most part on my desk, due to convenience it offers in my setup through RME TotalMixFX interface.
I'll try to do a short summary of my thoughts on using these three DRCs in the nearfield setup too - I feel the use-case is different enough to warrant a closer look.