@Kal Rubinson added his review of Dirac Live to Stereophile.com
Adoption of DSP-based speaker-and-room correction in home theatera parallel universe to audiophiliais almost universal. It's easy to understand why. Home theater matured in the digital age. Its fans were expected to install several loudspeakers in a full-range setup that included at least one...
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I bought the multichannel upgrade and installed both the plug in and standalone version on my Windows PC. Since I make JRiver my default audio output device for everything, I quickly realized I had no use for the standalone but I will keep it installed in case I want an alternative pathway.
I ran the wide correction for home a couple of times b/c I've set up both a stereo and a surround sound (with LFE by JRiver) use case on my PC, I picked the widest listening area b/c I find it better corrects the room. That method calls for 17 separate measurements. Surprisingly, it does not take long at all to do, b/c 8 sets of them are left/right pairs which merely require the boom to be reset from one side to the other. (you must have a microphone boom for this to work. Mine cost $20 on Amazon.)
The hardest trick on the multichannel for my 4.1 occurred b/c I don't have a center channel, and JRiver won't pass anything but a 5.1 channel to Dirac. Ultimately, a found a junk speaker, and drove it with my THX AAA 789, so JRiver had a center channel. Since Dirac corrects each speaker individually, using that speaker not affect the correction on the other speakers.
I also measured and corrected full range. Frankly, the proposed correction of the already EQ'd Metas and LS50's above the Schroeder frequency was so slight, I didn't see how it would hurt to either use or not use it.
I put in my own target curve which is very similar to if not identical to the Harman curve, and it's hard to find a flaw with the sound, though it seems to eat into how loud I can play everything. Fortunately, I'm in a small room, and don't like to play much above 75db ever. I set the meters so, playback is around -3 dbFS, and there is no indication of digital clippping, so I plan to not use the -8 dbFS recommended by Dirac.
I also use the Dirac Live corrected Metas + SB2000 at both my regular height stands (24") and surround sound height (65")-did a separate correction for them at that height, to capture a 23 channel personalized HRTF (know by Smyth Research as a PRIR) for my A16 headphone based binaural ATMOS system.
The Dirac corrected system sound great for both the actual stereo-4.1 speaker system and the virtual 23 channel over headphones Atmos system.
Now, my only question is when is Dirac planning to release multi sub bass management for PC. Anyone have an update on that one?