I’ve tested the included microphone and it wasn’t meaningfully different than my UMIK1 so go with the NAD mic if it’s better for you. I find the NAD microphone more forgiving of the MLP placement. The UMIK1 seems to be more sensitive to placement.
I love Dirac, but the measuring process isn’t very intuitive and is a bit finicky. I would highly recommend following the Hartman or Storm Audio guides to setting up Dirac (
https://www.harmanluxuryaudionews.com/2019/07/23/dirac-live-hints-and-tips/).
A couple of mistakes I made when learning:
1. Make sure to not take measurements too close to boundary walls (must be >45 cm away!)
2. The MLP measurement is by far the most important and must be perfectly positioned (I use a laser measure)
3. Each measurement should be >30 cm away from any other measurement
4. The microphone should point up
5. The microphone should have line of sight to the speakers
6. The room should be as quiet as possible
7. Treat volume and mic sensitivity as signal to noise. Increase volume to increase signal, reduce mic sensitivity to reduce noise
8. Try one of the Harman curves at first because they’ll give some bass that you’re likely accustomed to with all the room modes
There‘s an amazing Storm Audio seminar with the Dirac guys on YouTube that’s 1hr:45min that has many nuggets of info on measuring and Dirac, but it’s something you can watch in the future once you have one good set of measurements.