miniDSP Flex

[antcollinet]

Impressive.

What is going on at 49/50Hz? Room mode? And what would you state regarding the before/after subjective listening?

 

[anotherhobby]

Then Why is Dirac showing insane swings in the mesaurement? 12 dB measurement to measurement variation at 58Hz is a bit much for one seat.

First measurement was seated position. The Dirac measurement box was 5" high and 12" wide, which is as far as I move my head. I'm only 3' from each speaker, so small movements are magnified.

 

[waynel]

That notch is caused by the left and right walls, and the me sitting perfectly in the middle of my subs. I did try moving them side to side and offsetting them. The notch just moves around. I concluded I'd need to build a 3rd sub and put it behind me to remove that notch.

assuming you are running the subs in mono (which is what I recommend) ,you can try placing them asymmetrically so that the notch from each is at a different frequency. I too had a problem with a notch (at 40 Hz) which I solved with 2 subs placed asymmetrically.

 

[abdo123]

First measurement was seated position. The Dirac measurement box was 5" high and 12" wide, which is as far as I move my head. I'm only 3' from each speaker, so small movements are magnified.

I'm under the impression that the location you're in might not be the best location bass wise, here is a comparision with my living room with 5 different seats (no smoothing). Response is more or less the same with certain seats simply having more bass than others.

Also you can cover your desk with a fluffy fabric or something like faux fur to get rid of the comb filtering happening in the highs.

 

[anotherhobby]

Impressive.

What is going on at 49/50Hz? Room mode? And what would you state regarding the before/after subjective listening?

Subjectively I think the improvement Dirac has over me doing my own DSP is huge. When I was doing my own DSP, I defnitely noticed more variation when moving my head at my desk, where now there is surprisingly little. I'm also pretty sure I was getting some phase shift in places when I was setting my own DSP filters. It was minor, and overal it still sounded quite a bit better than no DSP, but that sensation is completely gone with Dirac. It sounds very natural to me. I love it.

 

[anotherhobby]

I'm under the impression that the location you're in might not be the best location bass wise, here is a comparision with my living room with 5 different seats (no smoothing). Response is more or less the same with certain seats simply having more bass than others.

Of the 3 places in my small office that you can practically put a desk, it is in the best place for audio. This is a near field system for 1 human.

 

[Ultrasonic]

I'm under the impression that the location you're in might not be the best location bass wise, here is a comparision with my living room with 5 different seats (no smoothing). Response is more or less the same with certain seats simply having more bass than others.

In case you aren't aware, it's worth bearing in mind that Dirac measurements involve varying position in three dimensions (up/down, left/right and forward/back).

I'm not sure I've seen a nearfield example before to have an idea of what may be typical.

 

[abdo123]

In case you aren't aware, it's worth bearing in mind that Dirac measurements involve varying position in three dimensions (up/down, left/right and forward/back).

I'm not sure I've seen a nearfield example before to have an idea of what may be typical.

These are just guidelines, i’ve found better results by putting the microphone where my head would actually be.

 

[Ultrasonic]

These are just guidelines, i’ve found better results by putting the microphone where my head would actually be.

Quite possibly but I suspect what was posted will reflect what I said .

 

[anotherhobby]

I have what I think is a bug in my Flex, and I'm wondering if anybody else who has a Dirac model that has noticed this. If I have Dirac turned on and then switch between presets, Dirac clearly turns off under the hood, but shows that it's still on. It's very easy to hear the difference, but I also confirmed with measurements. In order to A/B settings, I have to switch presets and cycle Dirac off then back on. This happens 100% of the time, so it should be easy to reproduce.

 

[stren]

Thanks anotherhobby for the write up - this is similar to what I've debated for my home office, just not willing to drop the money yet...

 

[anotherhobby]

Up till this comment all was looking good . I have a feeling the step I quoted may been a mistake though. Did you compare what Dirac did on its own to what it sounded like after your extra tweaking?

Why I suspect this wasn't the way to go is the distinction I made somewhere above between getting the smoothest response at a single point, and the volume average that Dirac deliberately targets. Dirac could have got the response you ended up with but 'chose' not to...

What you enjoy listing to most is the ultimate deciding factor though .

Well your prediction was correct sir, Dirac wins. I didn't seem to out smart it, or improve it by trying to flatten the variations in the curve. It looks flatter, but subjectively sounds just a tiny by worse.

 

[Ultrasonic]

I have what I think is a bug in my Flex, and I'm wondering if anybody else who has a Dirac model that has noticed this. If I have Dirac turned on and then switch between presets, Dirac clearly turns off under the hood, but shows that it's still on. It's very easy to hear the difference, but I also confirmed with measurements. In order to A/B settings, I have to switch presets and cycle Dirac off then back on. This happens 100% of the time, so it should be easy to reproduce.

I'd contact miniDSP support to let them know. Sounds like an early bug...

Submit a ticket

support.minidsp.com

 

[Ultrasonic]

Well your prediction was correct sir, Dirac wins. I didn't seem to out smart it, or improve it by trying to flatten the variations in the curve. It looks flatter, but subjectively sounds just a tiny by worse.

The sort of changes that I would explore to the target curve are more general / smoother ones. I prefer the bass points on the target curve below 100 Hz all increased by 1 dB for example, and others prefer more significant bass boosts, and I guess possibly a few prefer cuts. Equally you may want to boost or roll-off the treble a bit.

Do try only applying Dirac below say 150 Hz at some point too.

You might also like to have a Google to find other people's experience of using Dirac Live in a nearfield setup like yours, which as I said I have zero experience of but can see it's somewhat different.

Oh, and don't worry about trying to get this somehow 'perfect'. Long term I'd view it as something to tinker with if/when you fancy. It's cheaper that buying new cables or components...

 

[abdo123]

I have what I think is a bug in my Flex, and I'm wondering if anybody else who has a Dirac model that has noticed this. If I have Dirac turned on and then switch between presets, Dirac clearly turns off under the hood, but shows that it's still on. It's very easy to hear the difference, but I also confirmed with measurements. In order to A/B settings, I have to switch presets and cycle Dirac off then back on. This happens 100% of the time, so it should be easy to reproduce.

email the MiniDSP support about it, they're very responsive and will likely fix it in a future update.

 

[anotherhobby]

I'd contact miniDSP support to let them know. Sounds like an early bug...

Submit a ticket

support.minidsp.com

email the MiniDSP support about it, they're very responsive and will likely fix it in a future update.

Case opened! I also can't upgrade my firmware. That process fails, so I'm hoping they have a fix for that too.

After considering how I listen, and the fact that that this system is on a motorized desk, I landed on these 4 configs for the Flex presets and ran Dirac for each of them (also, running without subs is useful when my wife is working across the hall):

• Seated with Subs
• Seated without Subs
• Standing with Subs
• Standing without Subs

Wow it's awesome having room correction when I'm standing! For some reason I hadn't really thought about it until last night. The bass response was always so bad and boomy when standing, so I've been avoiding using the desk in standing mode other than when I'm not listening to music, but now Dirac has made it sound just as good as sitting!

I didn't have a great spot on my desk for the Flex, so I pulled the feet off the bottom and put some on the side, then flipped it vertical like one of those little NAD amps. It uses less desk space and looks better this way next to my little Topping rack. It's nice that they made the bottom of the Flex flat and clean like the top so it looks just as good on it's side.

 

[Ultrasonic]

View attachment 183539

Much better looking that trying to do the same with a 2x4 HD or DDRC-24!

 

[vicenzo_del_paris]

If you buy the flex with Dirac, custom fees and vat will be calculated on the total declared item (including Dirac license).
While if you order just the flex, custom fees and vat will be calculated on the flex unit only (+delivery fee).
Then once the unit is received, you can get the upgrade without import free nor vat as it is a virtual asset.
When I got the ddrc-24 Dirac upgrade I only had the dollar/euros conversion fees.
The only drawback is a couple of days to wait for the upgrade once the unit is received. The avantage is 30% less of vat and import fees (as licence price is a bit less than half of the unit price).
Unless minidsp does not declare the cost of the Dirac license to transporters but I would be surprised as usually it is the amount of the order that is used.

Hello,

For those who are located in Europe, ordering directly from minidsp really worth it compared to Audiophonics.

I bought the Flex on MiniDsp in 2 steps.
First, the unit (unbalanced version) only.
Second, the Dirac upgrade.

The unit itself was in total 555€ (450€ minidsp price with shipping + 90€ for duty fees and French VAT at 20% + 15€ DHL processing fees).

Almost 250€ less than Audiophonics
Thus, 30% less expensive.

And Dirac license was 180€ (no vat/fees)

 

[Italeffect]

I also can't upgrade my firmware.

Not sure if it applies in your case but I tried to update my firmware first thing and got a generic failure message. Turns out it had shipped with the most recent version from a few days ago!

 

[anotherhobby]

Not sure if it applies in your case but I tried to update my firmware first thing and got a generic failure message. Turns out it had shipped with the most recent version from a few days ago!

Mine shipped with 1.21 and update is for 1.22.