We don't talk about Dirac enough in this forum.

[Koeitje]

I'm just waiting for MiniDSP to release the SHD with an HDMI input. Don't need a gazillion channels, but I like to downmix surround formats.

 

[abdo123]

I just ran through the setup of the Dirac 3 trial tonight and it was an unmitigated nightmare. I'm a Product Manager by trade who's been developing consumer having software for 15 years and the entire experience left me shaking mad trying to get it to work.

After installing everything I was greeted with a message that I didn't have a license and was prompted by a non direct link to acquire one. After getting that, I still couldn't figure out how to get the license to connect to the software. After a long while of troubleshooting I saw in the bottom left hand corner I was auto signed in to an old account from when I joined the Dirac 2 beta that never worked for me either. Ok, fine. Probably not a primary use case.

I go into the calibration section and I have no idea what do do. No call to action, so I click on everything - nothing happens. I.play the noise tone and nothing. I decide to turn it up, and once it's blaring loud I see a tiny little black line that represents the meter. Ok. It doesn't tell me when to stop so I turn it up as loud as I can handle, which is only halfway in the blue. Fine.

I run the tests and the first one is so loud it's painful. I look at the dots on the screen for where to place the mic and it just says Next. So, I guess at where it wants me to put it. Once I'm all done I accidently mouse over one of the dots and it tells me the position - that would have been useful info to have. Much to my surprise the entire thing is backwards. The right most dot represents "far left". They did the entire thing from the perspective of the person sitting in the chair. Who on earth would do that intuitively?

I view the filter page and again, just a total guess as to what I'm supposed to be doing here. I dumble my way through it and export the filter which loads into the processor without issue. Yay!

This is where the nightmare begins...

I soon realize that the filter isn't having any effect. I'm a long time user of EAPO, so I try a bunch of known troubleshooting. I restart the computer, uninstall all the software, reinstall - nothing. I just can't get the virtual device to show up. I reread the docs 5 times, scour the net for clues, try to contact support only to be respected to the same knowledge base and quick start guide and I'm ready to throw my keyboard through the television.

Finally I find a doc that talks about using vsthost and voicemeeter. Voicemeeter is a total dealbreaker because it massively degrades sound quality when it decides to and chews through processor cycles, but I figure I can use vb cable. I set up the VST host they recommend - the first one deadends on the link from the docs and come to find out you either need to subscribe to them or build not from a github repo. More chores for a $500 app.

I find a different free one they recommend and the instructions are wrong in several places. I get it all setup to find that in order to work, the disc processor has to run inside this janky vst app that seems like it's from 1994. If I close it Dirac stops. Whatever.

How does it sound? Hard to say. I was so pissed off by now that any impartiality went out the window. That said, the dialogue resonances I was trying to correct were still audible, so it's not even like it paid off in the end.

Very long story short - I wouldn't use this for free in its current incarnation, let alone shell out $500 to do some personal home theater EQ. I'll stick with REW until they figure out how to make good a good experience with results worth the investment.

Clicking on the question mark on the top left will give you information on what to do on each step of the process.

I have a feeling that you man-handled the process because of your background and experience and didn’t pay much attention to things.

Dirac Live only generates the filters, they provide another software to apply them.

 

[abdo123]

I'm just waiting for MiniDSP to release the SHD with an HDMI input. Don't need a gazillion channels, but I like to downmix surround formats.

They mentioned that they will release one?

 

[JoachimStrobel]

After using the 'focused imaging' arrangement on Dirac 3.0 for a week or so, I'm very very impressed by how well it performs. My bass response sounds better than anything I could achieve (or have achieved) myself manually (or anyone without a proper education on acoustics for that matter). Also, apparently there is something called a sound stage that I didn't have before.

I really thought it was expectation bias, but I can ABX the Dirac filters (MiniDSP device) and this thing is really doing God's work on my system.

I mean it won't fix any speakers that are inherently flawed, but I feel it did a good job separating the effect of the room and the response of my speakers, even though it took like only 10 measurements in total.

It was honestly so good, that I firmly believe now that unless you're a therapist or doing a job that only a human can do, a robot will replace your job eventually.

I feel like among the things that are talked about in this forum, these sort of solutions (that arguably has the most impact) are rarely talked about or recommended, and it's mostly about buying the 'best gear' or having the 'prettiest toy' with very little evidence (excluding speakers and headphones) on how audible that investment will be.

So feel free to share your experiences with Dirac and this thread, perhaps we can inspire other people to invest in it.

I would like to know if a skillful usage of REW&RePhase will show similar results. Or Acourate?

 

[Koeitje]

They mentioned that they will release one?

No, so I'll probably waiting until forever. Problem is that Dirac license is per channel, so a 16 channel processor is super expensive with Dirac. Don't want to pay for 5-10 channels of Dirac I wont use.

 

[Valhalla]

After about five years of using Dirac ‌Live occasionally, I stopped using it as I felt it will make the sound artificial and less sounding like real music. You can't put some nonlinear speakers in an acoustically horrible room and expect to correct everything with Dirac. I prefer to control early reflections passively (using panels).

 

[abdo123]

After about five years of using Dirac ‌Live occasionally, I stopped using it as I felt it will make the sound artificial and less sounding like real music. You can't put some nonlinear speakers in an acoustically horrible room and expect to correct everything with Dirac. I prefer to control early reflections passively (using panels).

An absorber doesn't remove the early reflections, it only reduces its volume, they also does not have flat absorption curves so the volume reductions are not consistent over the entire frequency range. As result, your off-axis response is getting colored / less flat.

For me knowing the Spinorama of your speakers + adjusting Dirac accordingly gives you an astounding result.

 

[Valhalla]

An absorber doesn't remove the early reflections, it only reduces its volume, they also does not have flat absorption curves so the volume reductions are not consistent over the entire frequency range. As result, your off-axis response is getting colored / less flat.

For me knowing the Spinorama of your speakers + adjusting Dirac accordingly gives you an astounding result.

Sure no absorber panel has a flat absorption coefficient but no speaker will reflect all frequencies at the same level from directivity point of view.
Dirac may give flatter response at listening spot but the music will be somehow less engaging. which made me stop using it.

 

[abdo123]

but no speaker will reflect all frequencies at the same level from directivity point of view.

All decent speakers have controlled directivity. Where the reflections are consistent with on-axis response. (Off-axis is quieter, and remains flat)

Have a look at the horizontal directivity of any of the Genelec speakers measured on this forum. Or even better, the Dutch & Dutch 8C has controled narrow directivity all the way down to 100 Hz !!!

That’s why the Spinorama is so important, if your speaker is behaving very differently off-axis than on-axis, EQ will just make things worse.

 

[thewas]

I would like to know if a skillful usage of REW&RePhase will show similar results. Or Acourate?

For my taste and according to my experience (own and use both Acourate and REW since many years and have tried also a Dirac 2 and 3 test versions) they can give similar good sounding results as I personally anyway prefer minimal corrections.

 

[SadMonster]

I've never had acoustic treatments or digital room correction...I have Dirac enabled MiniDSP and two corner bass traps that are triangle shaped so they also cover the area behind my towed-in speakers coming in the mail.

I am very excited but also nervous that I won't be impressed because it was expensive!!

 

[jhaider]

Dirac is good stuff, and one of the few automated room correction systems that actually knows what it's doing. But I feel like we talk about it all the time! Maybe that's just me.

I’ve found that the “big four” (ARC, Audyssey with app, Dirac, RoomPerfect) all work pretty well, the former three as long as use is appropriately tailored (limit bandwidth, adjust target curve/room gain). RP does “less” in my room at least (unpublished to date; waiting on a new version of the MP-60 hardware) and doesn’t have a target curve per se; perhaps because of both it sounds excellent once you use the voicing tool to EQ multisubs calibrated to minimize spatial variance with the idea that room correction can create the final target curve. I’m not going to use a general purpose Mac as anything but a simple source in the audio system, so no experience with software-based systems.

When Dirac sorts out DL Bass Control, that is going to give them IMO the clear lead. If they manage to introduce more enhancements to DLBC, such as allowing use of mains as bass sources and better controls for subs with disparate capability then everyone else will have to work a lot harder to catch up.

 

[BullBuchanan]

Clicking on the question mark on the top left will give you information on what to do on each step of the process.

I have a feeling that you man-handled the process because of your background and experience and didn’t pay much attention to things.

Dirac Live only generates the filters, they provide another software to apply them.

I'm aware of that. The Dirac Live Processor. It's referred to as a "standalone" solution, but after hours of trying to make it work, the only way I could was with the help of 3rd party software. I didn't go into as an expert, because when it comes to audio, I'm anything but. My previous comment about my job is just to frame the fact that I'm not a luddite who doesn't understand how to use applications.

It was just a really bad user experience.

 

[BullBuchanan]

Ever wonder if it’s just you?

Is it possible that the configuration issues were a perfect storm on my machine? Sure.

The sound setup, reverse orientation of the measurements, lack of filter information etc. All appears to be part of the core feature set, unless they created a worse version of what everyone else has just for me.

 

[voodooless]

Ever wonder if it’s just you?

No, it's not just him. I've had a similar experience a few weeks ago when I tried the trail on Mac. The user experience is really terrible. It's very unintuitive and I found quite a few bugs as well. Once you know your way it's okay though.

The results though were quite interesting. I've tested them with my home office setup with 2xLS50 next to my screen. The result was a much more focused image, and quite a bit better bass control. I already EQ'ed the LS50's, so tonally there was not that much of a change.

If I have some more time I'd like to try convolution using one of the free room correction filter creation tools. I won't really be able to compare head to head, but it should still be interesting. If it works nicely, I'll test it on the downstairs system with HifiBerry DSP, which currently runs a simple manually optimised EQ using REQ.

 

[Coach_Kaarlo]

Is it possible that the configuration issues were a perfect storm on my machine? Sure.

The sound setup, reverse orientation of the measurements, lack of filter information etc. All appears to be part of the core feature set, unless they created a worse version of what everyone else has just for me.

Well we had opposite experiences - I find it easy and intuitive. Particularly compared with other apps. Key thing though, it works.

 

[Cahudson42]

And too much about Roon..

 

[BullBuchanan]

Well we had opposite experiences - I find it easy and intuitive. Particularly compared with other apps. Key thing though, it works.

Personally I find REW a lot easier to work with. It just lacks the same level of automatic correction. If you don't know how a thing works, there's relatively clear documentation that explains it and they don't do anything the opposite way that you would intuitively expect it to.

I went back into Dirac today to try to recalibrate, this time with my sub only to find out it's impossible. Bass management doesn't exist for PC and they have the audacity to sell it for another $350-$500. It may be common practice in the audiophile world to pay more for your speaker accessories than the speakers themselves, but for someone like me that just runs pure 14 ga copper cable from monoprice, it's a ludicrous proposition to spend $1000 on bad software that has one useful feature just to automate some room correction. On top of that they seem to hide what they're actually doing, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that it isn't just expectation bias.

I desperately wish I liked it, because the prospect of an easy and intuitive way to improve audio quality seems great. The algo engineers are probably quite talented, but everything else: the website, the app(s), the business model, the documentation, et al. is awful.

 

[onion]

I agree about REW. Having done a couple of calibrations for 4 subs, it's easy to do now. It also satisfies a geeky thirst for tech knowledge I have (why else would I be on this site?). Not sure I'll bother with Dirac if they do release a bass module for the mini-DSP now.

 

[txbdan]

I agree the Dirac Live software is clunky and unclear. When I first started using it (the webpage was a little different) I couldn't for the life of me figure out WHAT to download. I'm running it on a Mac and host it with SoundSource (which is excellent btw), but there is a bug in DL3 where it won't play sound unless you already have sound playing before you run DL3. So I have a 30min noise file I play in Quicktime, then load DL3 and then it works for running a measurement/calibration. From there its pretty smooth sailing and the plugin works perfectly hosted in SoundSource from there on out.

Another quirk I should mention, it when switching filters and turning filters on and off, there is a random delay. Sometimes it seems that it doesn't take effect at all, or there is a long delay before it changes, or short. It causes me to lose confidence in what is selected so sometimes I'll remove the plugin and reload it from scratch with the filter I want.

Software hassle aside, it is an absolute GAME. CHANGER. I want to yell from the rooftops to everyone wasting their time and money on speakers with no correction, use this! I've played around with REW a good bit, demoed Sonarworks and IK ARC3, but none of them work as well as DL. DL just sounds "right". I use the Olive-Tool target curve, load it up, and BAM, perfection. I correct full range as I find it tightens up the image as well.

BullBuchanan, you can correct with a subwoofer. I do this by using an REW RTA with periodic pink noise to roughy dial in the sub level and xover point. Then I run the DL calibration as normal. The subwoofer plays along with each left and right channel and it fixes everything up nicely. You don't have to do the REW RTA step, but that'll take some of the heavy lifting off of DL.