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Questions about Dirac ART and Front Speaker choices (Revel F206 or F208)

HockeyDad45

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I am on the verge of purchasing either the Revel F208 or F206 for new front channels. I plan to run Dirac ART when it becomes available. In addition to the new front speakers, I plan to run two Rythmik E15HP2 subwoofers in the front corners of the room.

Room Dimensions: 21'x19' with a Cathedral Ceiling

Would the larger woofers of the F208 be useful in an ART set-up?

Thanks for advice.

Scott
 
I am on the verge of purchasing either the Revel F208 or F206 for new front channels. I plan to run Dirac ART when it becomes available. In addition to the new front speakers, I plan to run two Rythmik E15HP2 subwoofers in the front corners of the room.

Room Dimensions: 21'x19' with a Cathedral Ceiling

Would the larger woofers of the F208 be useful in an ART set-up?

Thanks for advice.

Scott
FWIW ..
-I would go F208. If the room allows, with 2 subs I would put 1 in the front and one in the rear of the room. I think ART will be able to use the rear sub to help cancellation signals.
 
When watching a movie the subs would do most of the heavy bass. You have the choice of bypassing the subs when listening to music and many like to do this, this is when the revel bass drivers would excel. I tend to use my subs though for music too.
It’s hard to comment on a complex room like yours and what Dirac art will do.
 
When watching a movie the subs would do most of the heavy bass. You have the choice of bypassing the subs when listening to music and many like to do this, this is when the revel bass drivers would excel. I tend to use my subs though for music too.
It’s hard to comment on a complex room like yours and what Dirac art will do.
In a multi-channel system, is it better to have one set of Dirac filters for use with multi-channel recordings (movies or music) and a second set of filters for stereo playback?
 
In a multi-channel system, is it better to have one set of Dirac filters for use with multi-channel recordings (movies or music) and a second set of filters for stereo playback?
Not unless you want different target curves for those applications. Your move, of course.
 
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Not unless you want different target curves for those applications. Your move, of course.
I've observed that Dirac attempts (successfully in my experience) to match the speakers, levels for sure, but in other ways as well. I thought that perhaps because my front L/R are incrementally better than the other speakers, all identical (center, surrounds, back), that by creating separate Dirac filters exclusively for stereo the results might be better optimized, but perhaps not as you say. Thank you.
 
It seams that DIRAC does match, but to the worst speaker in the system. So in your case it would make sense to have a stereo profile.
 
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It seams that DIRAC does match, but to the worst speaker in the system. So in your case it would make sense to have a stereo profile.
Where did you get this information?
 
Where did you get this information?
I'm not the person who posted the reply (that Dirac matches to the "worst" speaker in the system), but I do know for a fact that Dirac will level match to the softest speaker of the group. I saw that when I have the system set up as 5.1.4 checking the post-Dirac speaker trims in the software that came with the AVR I was using at the time.

My curiosity in addition is what happens with impulse response and whether measuring multiple speakers changes the way the phase correction filters are designed. I don't have the technical expertise to even begin to analyze those points, and perhaps it is proprietary information that is only available to the software developers at Dirac.

As far as "worst" speaker is concerned, that is not a personal concern as my "worst" speakers are Revel F206; I am adding a pair of F208 for the L/R channels. It was more whether stereo would be better optimized if I used a separate Dirac filter for that purpose.

As there is no definitive answer, I will do an informal experiment this weekend. Right now it is set up as 7.1 with all F206 speakers. I'll make a separate setting for stereo and make new Dirac measurement for the front stereo channels and give a listen. If I notice any notable difference, after I set up the F208 next week, I'll make two sets of Dirac filters, one for stereo, one for 7.1. I will post my totally unscientific, subjective, informal observations.
 
I'm not the person who posted the reply (that Dirac matches to the "worst" speaker in the system), but I do know for a fact that Dirac will level match to the softest speaker of the group.
Granted. It matched all to the softest speaker of the group, not the worst. Worst is not a relevant parameter.

Audyssey has an option to match all speakers to the front L/R but, afaik, Dirac processes all FR to the target curve (which you can select differently for different groups), for timing to the most distant speaker and for the phase correction to the most optimal for each.
 
Granted. It matched all to the softest speaker of the group, not the worst. Worst is not a relevant parameter.

Audyssey has an option to match all speakers to the front L/R but, afaik, Dirac processes all FR to the target curve (which you can select differently for different groups), for timing to the most distant speaker and for the phase correction to the most optimal for each.
Yes I agree generally. To make life easier, I opened a support ticket at Dirac with my question (separate filters for stereo vs. multichannel recommended yes or no), hopefully they will respond and if so, I will pass it along.

Just by the way, the more recent Dirac versions generate unique target curves for each speaker pair, plus center and sub.

Thanks for your reply. Fundamental questions are often the most difficult to answer.
 
Just by the way, the more recent Dirac versions generate unique target curves for each speaker pair, plus center and sub.
Yes but they are only an option, among many.
 
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Granted. It matched all to the softest speaker of the group, not the worst. Worst is not a relevant parameter.

Audyssey has an option to match all speakers to the front L/R but, afaik, Dirac processes all FR to the target curve (which you can select differently for different groups), for timing to the most distant speaker and for the phase correction to the most optimal for each.
I thought (from reading a variety of sources) that the default, "handles" setting of target curves, was intended to maintain the voicing of the speakers....

What is unclear is the voicing of which speakers (I would assume front L/R would be logical, but...)

My current Dirac us using the basic "handles" tuning method, and I like the result
 
Yes I agree generally. To make life easier, I opened a support ticket at Dirac with my question (separate filters for stereo vs. multichannel recommended yes or no), hopefully they will respond and if so, I will pass it along.

Just by the way, the more recent Dirac versions generate unique target curves for each speaker pair, plus center and sub.

Thanks for your reply. Fundamental questions are often the most difficult to answer.
Replying to myself:

As of now, Dirac did not reply to my ticket re stereo vs. multichannel filters. Therefore, I called Emotiva (my processor is an XMC-2) who said that I should definitely create two speaker settings, one for multichannel and one for stereo, and run Dirac separately for each creating two sets of filters.

I did this with my currently connected set up, which is 7.1 as follows: XMC-2 - Buckeye Hypex 8-channel - seven Revel F206 speakers and a Rythmik F12 sub. The multichannel reproduction has been great, but I was not entirely happy with stereo sound quality, consequently I ordered a pair of Revel F208s, which I never set up and returned for reasons below.

I won't bore you with any detail of my subjective impressions other than to say that the separate stereo setting and Dirac filters (with NO sub, just two of the F206s) was a significant improvement for stereo reproduction over the 7-channel filters. Incidentally, Dirac equalized the speakers generally flat down to 32 Hz, easily meeting my needs. For the ten minutes it took to create a separate speaker setting and run Dirac, I believe that this would be worth trying for anyone with the capacity to creates the extra setting and a slot for the filters.

Thus I returned the F208s on a cost-benefit analysis (money and effort, they are big) and because I wanted to retain the seamless multichannel audio quality resulting from uniform speakers. Hopefully this will be useful to someone else out there is ASR-land.
 
Replying to myself:

As of now, Dirac did not reply to my ticket re stereo vs. multichannel filters. Therefore, I called Emotiva (my processor is an XMC-2) who said that I should definitely create two speaker settings, one for multichannel and one for stereo, and run Dirac separately for each creating two sets of filters.

I did this with my currently connected set up, which is 7.1 as follows: XMC-2 - Buckeye Hypex 8-channel - seven Revel F206 speakers and a Rythmik F12 sub. The multichannel reproduction has been great, but I was not entirely happy with stereo sound quality, consequently I ordered a pair of Revel F208s, which I never set up and returned for reasons below.

I won't bore you with any detail of my subjective impressions other than to say that the separate stereo setting and Dirac filters (with NO sub, just two of the F206s) was a significant improvement for stereo reproduction over the 7-channel filters. Incidentally, Dirac equalized the speakers generally flat down to 32 Hz, easily meeting my needs. For the ten minutes it took to create a separate speaker setting and run Dirac, I believe that this would be worth trying for anyone with the capacity to creates the extra setting and a slot for the filters.

Thus I returned the F208s on a cost-benefit analysis (money and effort, they are big) and because I wanted to retain the seamless multichannel audio quality resulting from uniform speakers. Hopefully this will be useful to someone else out there is ASR-land.
Following up - I recalibrated using the new Dirac v. 3.11 (beta). This version corrects timing and other errors. With v. 3.11 stereo playback with the 7.1 preset is identical to the stereo only preset. Levels perfectly matched, audio quality indistinguishable. Very nice, and improved overall as well. Therefore I retract my original comment. It is no longer valid in any respect.
 
With v. 3.11 stereo playback with the 7.1 preset is identical to the stereo only preset.
That's what I would have expected. ;)
 
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