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Used REW+DIRAC for the first time - advice needed

Lawhaus

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Hello all,

I've been slowly upgrading my system and I now own a Hypex NC502MP amp, KEF R11 and SVS SB-1000 sub. The final missing piece was some form of EQ/DRC I thought, to better integrate my sub and get an idea about my actual room acoustics.

Inspired by many others on this forum, I bought a MiniDSP DDRC24 and Umik-1, and started doing some measurements. The best results I get so far is when I just use Dirac and tweak the curve to my liking (no REW + MiniDSP EQ). The REW measurements actually show significant differences before and after Dirac. I'm just not completely sure what I'm looking at.o_O

  • Depending on the 'smoothing' setting in REW, it looks good or bad. Which settings should I use to determine the results is good?
  • What vertical scale in the graph should I use? I have no idea how to interpret this.
  • REW shows the high frequences rolled off A LOT, is this normal for the KEF R11's? Could this be a problem somewhere in the chain?
Smoothing 1/12 before and after:
Schermafbeelding 2021-11-16 om 21.40.09.png


Smoothing 1/48 - Is this good or bad?
Schermafbeelding 2021-11-16 om 21.36.45.png
 

aedagnino

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It's actually quite good! 1/12 is fine, but you have to be aware that correction should be applied differently if it's low or high frequency, as psychoacoustically we perceive frequencies differently. I believe dirac takes this into account and behaves accordingly, but a lot of people limit it to anywhere between 300-500hz downwards. REW also has a setting called variable smoothing that takes note of these differences.
 
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Lawhaus

Lawhaus

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It's actually quite good! 1/12 is fine, but you have to be aware that correction should be applied differently if it's low or high frequency, as psychoacoustically we perceive frequencies differently. I believe dirac takes this into account and behaves accordingly, but a lot of people limit it to anywhere between 300-500hz downwards. REW also has a setting called variable smoothing that takes note of these differences.
Thanks for the feedback!

I've read about only doing bass with Dirac before, so will experiment with it in the future.
There are so many things to test. I also never could measure the effect of the phase knob on the sub, so that will be next as well.
 

Webninja

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There are a few good starting with REW posts here:


I have Audyssey and use REW to measure with and without it. I also use it as a check to see how well Audyssey adjustments are working.
 

mcdn

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REW has a smoothing option of ‘psychoacoustic’, which is the most helpful for removing the jaggy detail you can’t hear
 

dougi

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The measurements seem well taken. At first glance, comparing with KEF measurements in the white paper on the website, the treble hump and upper treble rolloff don't seem to match them, but they do if you compare with Amir's measurements of the R3 with similar topology. It may sound a bit bright at high volumes. Nothing you couldn't shape with a tweak to a DIRAC target curve if you are keeping the correction full range.
 

holbob

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Looks good. I go into Dirac and make sure it isn't boosting anywhere by moving the target curve points if needed.
 
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