The sting from kicking yourself will dissipate as you enjoy the control Dirac gives you going forward !
Sure, but now that I had it for a few days, I wish that control was better. Sure, having a parametric EQ with tons of points to adjust is a huge step forward compared to even the 9 band graphic EQ in the Pioneer, which in itself, is a lot better than most receivers.
However, this very complex system doesn't have the choice of something much simpler and effective; being able to adjust an EQ while you listen to your favorite music and movies. It would be so much faster if I could load the project and that didn't stop whatever is playing at the time, but allow me to adjust the curve while it applies the change in real time, just like I can do with my old Sansui SE-7 EQ and I have done with countless other EQs for over 40 years.
The way this works, I have to go through this annoying process of setting the mic in something like 5 positions at least, which really isn't necessary. One placement where your head is when you watch movies should be plenty to do the test. Without doing the test, you can't just setup an EQ curve and send it to the receiver. But OK, once you do the bare minimum 5 positions, then you can do whatever you want with the curve, and you need to, because if you simply apply what it thinks sounds the best according to the test, it sounds pretty bad. You might say "But you didn't do the test for all the positions", to which I reply "Life is not eternal. Every second counts, and when you're in your 50's, you start feeling that thing of "I'd better use my time the best possible way". Well, to me that doesn't include sitting still and barely breathing for like a minute or two, change the position of the mic, another minute or two, and so on.
But at least, if you were able to simply change the curve (that's time well spent) and push it to the receiver, great. The problem is that the test determines that your front speakers should have a gain of +3 dB, your height ones +4 dB, your center -1 dB (that's temporary because I need to mount two extra brackets on the wall for the insanely heavy Emotiva center speaker), then one of the surrounds -1 dB, and the other -0.5. Then the subwoofer at -11.5 dB. But that's not what I want. I want all of them at 0 dB, and then, later on, when I'm listening to music, or just create an Atmos audio file with some white noise in Cubase and play it from a thumb drive, I can adjust those levels myself.
But Dirac Live allows me to adjust the curve as much as I want, but every single time I push it to the receiver, then I have to go and move all the gain sliders to 0 because it will push those speaker values from the test. As far as I can tell searching online, and my own digging through the interface, there's no way to prevent it from overwriting those values, or change them in the Dirac Live app so when pushed, they will be the values I want, not the ones that the Dirac audio engineers determined that I should have. I would be so happy if that was the case, so if I'm wrong, please correct me and I will be very grateful for it. But I doubt it is possible.
Same for the crossover if I choose to use the correction with bass management (not the $300 one, the one that comes with the receiver). It determined in the test that my crossover has to be 70 Hz, and if I choose to use bass management, every single time I have to go through all the groups and set that crossover to 80 Hz, or maybe 100 Hz. Emotiva told me that they recommend 80 Hz for my speaker, and no lower than that.
So the Dirac Live thing is good in the sense that having a parametric EQ, and one with so many points to edit, is not something you get on most receivers. But I would be much happier if they had a "light version" for people who simply want to adjust that EQ, for all the speakers at once, while listening to the music and movies they know. Not wasting time in pushing a curve, then having to change all the speaker gain levels back to 0 dB, and if the curve is still not good, then you have to open back then Dirac Live app (which in Windows has a bug for which you can only open it once and the next times it won't open again until you power cycle the receiver), tweak the curve, push it again, change the levels again, and so on. I have done that about 6 times already, when if I had the choice to edit the curve while listening to music, it would take me a lot less time, then save a curve for rock, another for classical, then another for movies. And a receiver of this price level should have more than the 3 presets the Onkyos and Pioneers have had for the past ten years or more.
So in conclusion, Dirac Live can give you a great sound quality, but it overcomplicates things. Now, having all that testing on so many different points, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying, give me a choice to have it simple and efficient, because I trust my ears a lot more than what the Dirac Live engineers think should be the ideal sound quality for me.
