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MiniDSP SHD Dirac Live Rivals

Soniclife

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The only major difference, aprt form price, between the solution I proposed (and that I'm using) and miniDSP SHD is that with miniDSP SHD you are getting both hardware components (comp and DAC) in a single housing.
The minidsp also adds analogue and other sources into the mix neatly, this is it's main advantage over a PC based solution.
 

Krunok

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The minidsp also adds analogue and other sources into the mix neatly, this is it's main advantage over a PC based solution.

True. Although my guess would be that most folks stream music either from NAS or from the Net these days.
 

soundwave76

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Krunok

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Yes, in probably thousands of studios all over the world. :) I have two Genelec SAM sets myself (8331+7350 and 8340) and the GLM software works flawlessly. Here are a few reviews for you:

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/genelec-ones
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/vi...ones-studio-monitors-re-writing-the-rule-book
https://www.musictech.net/reviews/genelec-the-ones-review/

From what I can see none of these 3 reviews contains a control measurement taken after the correction to verify the results. Or..?
 

digicidal

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The minidsp also adds analogue and other sources into the mix neatly, this is it's main advantage over a PC based solution.
Exactly. There are plenty of "back of the rack" solutions available (even more if you DIY), but precious few all-in-one solutions for 2-3 sources and DSP "for all" - at least in the under $2K price range. DAC/Streamer/Pre's are available for most budgets - but paired with even "lite" room correction capabilities? Quite a bit more rare.
 

Soniclife

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True. Although my guess would be that most folks stream music either from NAS or from the Net these days.
Amongst people who should be using some form of room correction, I'm not so sure that's true.
 

Willem

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I totally agree, up to a point. In very small rooms the crap from room modes occurs at such high frequencies that successful equalization becomes very localized at one listening position. In those situations my personal preference is for less bass output. But otherwise, yes absolutely.
 

soundwave76

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From what I can see none of these 3 reviews contains a control measurement taken after the correction to verify the results. Or..?

GLM shows you the corrections immediatelly after the analysis. Corrections are always room dependant so I am not 100% sure what you mean by 'control measurements'? Here's a pic of my 8331+7350 setup and it's GLM corrections. My room has a nasty -15dB drop around 80Hz which the sub fills pretty ok.

glm.jpg
 

TimW

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I just received my SHD a week ago. I also just rearranged my living room and went on vacation so I haven't used Dirac with it yet. It replaced the miniDSP DDRC-24 that I was using before, the plugin interface is identical for both units. MiniDSP just released Dirac Live 2.0 support for their devices and I'm eager to try that out soon. They also now ship the SHD with a wifi usb dongle so you don't need a wired connection for streaming. I learned all of this from a newsletter they sent out two weeks ago that also mentioned, "While not ready for primetime, we're indeed actively working for an exciting new streaming option for the SHD series. Once again a free upgrade. Stay tuned!" I have my fingers crossed that this new streaming option will be native Roon support.

MiniDSP doesn't provide any draw characteristics, but as the whole thing runs on a 12V DC wallwart...
Actually the full size SHD is mains powered with a standard switched/fused IEC power entry module. The switch on this module is the only way to turn the unit on and off so I agree with @dwkdnvr that the lack of a 12V trigger is a shame. Fortunately the SHD does not turn on with a violent pop at the outputs like the cheaper miniDSP products. It comes on a few seconds after being powered with a click from the output relay, like standard amps and preamps have. So I just use my power conditioner to turn the unit on and off which works perfectly as it remembers its previous settings. I usually use the unit with a logitech harmony hub which had a profile for the SHD that works just fine. The only issue is those few seconds of delay that the SHD has upon startup as the harmony hub was trying to send input commands to it during the delay which of course didn't work. Usually you would fix this issue by adding a power on delay in the harmony hub set up but because the hub doesn't actually turn on the unit, this isn't an option. So I had to remedy the issue by adding a delay to the harmony activities that include the SHD and now it works as expected.

Upgrading from the DDRC-24 brought some very noticeable improvements. First of all I have a screen which is very nice. Second of all I can now connect all of my sources including a tuner and a balanced output phono preamp for when I'm feeling low-fi. My open AV shelves look much better with this big black box with a screen rather than a tiny box with wires and a blaring blue led coming out of the front. It's very nice to be able to switch presets on the fly without a computer connected, although the SHD does mute and load for a second or two between presets. And it feels good knowing my balanced input amplifier is being fed a balanced output. Of course I can hear a difference with things sounding just a bit more detailed and refined but the difference is so slight and the investment so great that I would bet this is due to placebo.
 

Krunok

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GLM shows you the corrections immediatelly after the analysis. Corrections are always room dependant so I am not 100% sure what you mean by 'control measurements'? Here's a pic of my 8331+7350 setup and it's GLM corrections. My room has a nasty -15dB drop around 80Hz which the sub fills pretty ok.

View attachment 32976

Control measurement is measurement taken with correction filters active independently of the software you did correction with. In other words, you should take spatial measruement with REW from your LP to see what are real results of room correction. In ideal situation you would also have taken initial measurement before correction so you can compare frequency and phase response before and after correction. That is the only way to check the quality of the job that automated room correction SW did.
 

Deeluik

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Great to read about different solutions here.

For me I did the following after deciding to get rid of a Denon AVR (X7200WA) due to it’s unsatisfying musical qualities, which were especially revealed with my Genelec 8050 monitors, and settled for a decent laptop with Win10 in tablet mode and the built in APO EQ for DSP (via the free Equalizer APO application, REW and UMIK-1) For system wide room eq this is great for streaming mostly via the browser and for instance for Spotify via the win 10 app one can use connect from the app as well. For music listening I user Jriver Media Center with it’s own built in DSP tailored specifically for music as WASAPI is not influenced by APO EQ.

To control everything I use a pepper jobs Airmouse. When we want to watch TV we turn the TV on and close the laptop lid this way the screen is switched automatically to the TV.

For DAC I use a NAD M51 which I got rather cheap second hand probably due to the review here on ASR ;-) Though it sounds greatly to my liking with my Genelec 8050BPM’s with room eq in the laptop. I did a one on one comparison with the Denon AVR setup with Audyssey Pro but a decent 2 channel DAC beats it fair and square! This is consistent with the test reports on AVR’s vs 2ch DACs I read here on ASR.

Also my wife wanted some new lighting and some dampening of the reverberation noise from our small kids in the listening tv area so I convinced here to get acoustic ceiling panels with dimmable led spots this improved audio quality a lot.

We tested this for some time now and it got through the WAF :) Make sure you have just the tiles in Win10 she needs and for instance pinned favorites in the browser. And thanks to our cable tv provider which has a website which provides the same experience as their settop box. Using the Airmouse to control this is as simple as using a Wii remote. So we just have the Laptop, the DAC and a TV. A logitech harmony is used to switch inputs if necessary. And there is an Apple TV connected via HDMI to the DAC without DSP for emergencies which hasn’t been used since we had this set-up being ca 1,5 years.

If I did not have the Genelec 8050’s yet. I might have gone for using the MiniDSP U-DIO8 AES EBU out to a Genelec SAM setup. Then DSP in the Laptop was also not necessary and DAC Amp and speaker were matched. If you can make a ‘house’ curve in GLM then this would also be a great setup for both 2ch and multichannel.
 
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Ron Texas

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@feynman Is your system going to require a sub or are you going with full range (or nearly full range) speakers? Without a sub, all you need is a PC and either foobar or JRiver (there may be others which work). Get a calibrated microphone and use REW to recommend filters. Those filters may be converted to FIR filters with Rephase and applied using a convolver DSP.

With a sub, things get more complicated. If the mains are stand mounts, they should be rolled off to get best results. That's what I mean by "bass management". The MiniDSP you are contemplating should be able to handle the necessary aspects of sub integration including including time aligning the sub. However, if no sub, you don't really have to have it.
 
OP
feynman

feynman

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Thanks to all for keeping this going. I'm still paralyzed and haven't made any movement toward my next system (so no decisions yet on speaker configuration, etc.), but I'm learning. I appreciate all the feedback.
 

beefkabob

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MiniDSP support helped me reflash the OS and get the LAN working again. I'm happy. SHD or SHD Studio + powered pro speakers (neumann, genelece, JBL, and maybe others) and a massive powered sub = happiness.
 

Deeluik

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An update from my side on experimenting with room correction in multi channel. I used an oppo 203 as multi channel dac via HDMI to replace my Denon AVR. To do room correction to my 4.0 speaker setup I used Jriver media center. I did the measurements with REW and had it create param eq filters. Then I inserted the filters into Jriver MC. As Jriver MC can be used with a wdm driver I could use it as a virtual AVR decoding dolby digital+ coming in from the Netflix App on Win10. After adjusting the input and output buffer settings in Jriver lipsync was ok and the result is more than pleasing movie sound. With the oppo 203 it is also great that you can already perform basic dsp like speaker distances and gain. Also the dac filter can be adjusted to personal taste.

Are there more virtual AVR solutions? As I really like having little cables and do the cabling virtually inside a pc :)

btw is there a more appropriate thread to share these findings?
 
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feynman

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A few years later - same question. I sold my SHD, kinda regretted it...so I have this question again.

I'm looking for decent room correction, USB DAC, one analog input, a remote control for volume, balanced output to power amp, Airplay/bluetooth (not absolutely necessary as the computer is a Mac and I can choose that for Airplay).

Any new ideas appreciated (or just tell me to get another SHD).

I can aso easily do software EQ since everything is running through the Mac. I use Soundsource that I could load PEQ from some measurements, or do standalone Dirac, etc. if that's the most logical choice. If so, any good remote volume control options? I don't always want to use my phone for this.

Sorry - too long of a question. Any replies appreciated.
 
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