SadMonster
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2020
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I’ve been playing a lot with the software for the past month or so and I finally feel like I have it set up optimally so I thought I‘d share my impressions here.
Equipment:
2 JBL 705 Speakers with 2 JBL LSR305 Subwoofers
2 ATS Acoustics Triangle Bass Traps
1 MiniDSP DDRC24 with Dirac
Setup Process:
Fairly simple enough for computer nerds but I could easily see Grandma setting the house on fire trying to set it up. The software has a slight learning curve even for computer nerds but nothing too bad, once I figured out the general flow of the software with the MiniDsp device I started to feel very comfortable playing and experimenting with it.
There are so many target curves you can aim for that I found myself switching between them and living with them for days at a time and going back and trying another. I finally got tired of theory today and decided to double blind myself to see my preferences and here is my summary for you:
I double blinded 4 different configurations.
1. Uncorrected
2. Bass corrected flat to 300hz (conservative transition frequency estimate)
3. Dirac Default
4. Full range correction To flat
I had also been listening to bass corrected to 300hz with a 3DB boost to most smoothly transition into the measured frequency response but it was not included in this test because it sounded quite bad, unclear.
Results:
The winner was number 2, where Dirac corrected up to 300hz.
After blind preference tests I found that as suggested by Dr Floyd Toole, corrections above 300-500hz can cause more harm than good as the microphone is measuring the sum of the direct speaker sound and the room, where your brain can differentiate between the two.
I imagine that full range correction might be useful in situations where you are sitting really far from your speakers. I would imagine that the more of the room you are hearing, the more the full range correction would be beneficial. But in my situation, where the speakers are fairly close to me, and directly at ear level, I found above 300hz removed midrange presence which was not offensive in the first place.
With the correction flat up to 300hz, when no bass was playing, it was very difficult to tell when Dirac was even turned on, so the purity of the speakers remains intact here. However, without Dirac, my bass was very uneven, even with bass traps, with lower notes booming and some higher bass notes not having impact. With it on, all the bass just clicks into balance.
Summary: After blindly testing my preference ratings, I found using dirac to bring balance to bass while otherwise leaving high quality speakers unaltered was ideal.
Disclaimer: Of course, I am only one person, and additionally, despite being blinded, I was fairly easily able to tell what correction configuration I was listening to which brings in the possibility of bias. Perhaps for some reason I wanted desperately Dr. Toole’s research to be true and my brain skewed the results. Also due to the lack of listening standards across time and locations no single configuration can score the highest preference ratings for all content. I am okay with this and prefer to look at my audio system as a tool for objectivity and reproduction and do not want to fiddle with bass and treble controls to preference.
Equipment:
2 JBL 705 Speakers with 2 JBL LSR305 Subwoofers
2 ATS Acoustics Triangle Bass Traps
1 MiniDSP DDRC24 with Dirac
Setup Process:
Fairly simple enough for computer nerds but I could easily see Grandma setting the house on fire trying to set it up. The software has a slight learning curve even for computer nerds but nothing too bad, once I figured out the general flow of the software with the MiniDsp device I started to feel very comfortable playing and experimenting with it.
There are so many target curves you can aim for that I found myself switching between them and living with them for days at a time and going back and trying another. I finally got tired of theory today and decided to double blind myself to see my preferences and here is my summary for you:
I double blinded 4 different configurations.
1. Uncorrected
2. Bass corrected flat to 300hz (conservative transition frequency estimate)
3. Dirac Default
4. Full range correction To flat
I had also been listening to bass corrected to 300hz with a 3DB boost to most smoothly transition into the measured frequency response but it was not included in this test because it sounded quite bad, unclear.
Results:
The winner was number 2, where Dirac corrected up to 300hz.
After blind preference tests I found that as suggested by Dr Floyd Toole, corrections above 300-500hz can cause more harm than good as the microphone is measuring the sum of the direct speaker sound and the room, where your brain can differentiate between the two.
I imagine that full range correction might be useful in situations where you are sitting really far from your speakers. I would imagine that the more of the room you are hearing, the more the full range correction would be beneficial. But in my situation, where the speakers are fairly close to me, and directly at ear level, I found above 300hz removed midrange presence which was not offensive in the first place.
With the correction flat up to 300hz, when no bass was playing, it was very difficult to tell when Dirac was even turned on, so the purity of the speakers remains intact here. However, without Dirac, my bass was very uneven, even with bass traps, with lower notes booming and some higher bass notes not having impact. With it on, all the bass just clicks into balance.
Summary: After blindly testing my preference ratings, I found using dirac to bring balance to bass while otherwise leaving high quality speakers unaltered was ideal.
Disclaimer: Of course, I am only one person, and additionally, despite being blinded, I was fairly easily able to tell what correction configuration I was listening to which brings in the possibility of bias. Perhaps for some reason I wanted desperately Dr. Toole’s research to be true and my brain skewed the results. Also due to the lack of listening standards across time and locations no single configuration can score the highest preference ratings for all content. I am okay with this and prefer to look at my audio system as a tool for objectivity and reproduction and do not want to fiddle with bass and treble controls to preference.
