TOPIC: Problem with Nano DL during Dirac Calibration

I'm running into serious problems trying to calibrate the Nano.

I'm using the Pioneer Lx89 + Oppo 93.
I hope this is not too long as I wish to give as much info as possible to what I'm seeing:

Work Flow:

1. After Finishing with Licence and loading the calibration file etc.
2. Made sure that the nanao utility is on 7.1.
I closed the utility.

3.Opened the dirac. Choose 7.1.

4.Started running the output signal test. Pressed the little Play buttons. Everything was fine. I heard sound fromevery speaker.

5.Started the calibration. First measurement:
Main Left ok
Main Right ok

Then Inoticed that instead of outputting a sound from the subwooferon its own, the test signal came out from the sub (very low) AND from the Right SideSurround TOGETHER.

6. From there, the calibration signal moved to other speakers ((left surround, center, left andright back surround).

7. Before finishing with the first measurement the last test signal came once more from the Main left speaker! It seems like Dirac treated the Sub and one of the surround speaker as 1signal channel, thus returning to the Main Left channel once more to "finish" the 7.1 calibration.

Things I have done to try and fix this:

1.Restore nano to Default
2.Uninstalled Dirac and reinstalled it from the "user download".
3.Changed blu ray players.

The same problem continues.
Dirac takes the subwoofer channel and outputs very faint sound from the sub AND outputs soundfrom right surround TOGETHER and at the end returnes to the Main Left channel once more.

I also should mention:

1. I have tried the first measurement about 5 times (after changing blu ray players, reseting nano etc...). All with the same result: sub + right surround=play together AND last measurement goes back once more to Main left .

2. Everytime I went "page back" after taking the problematic measuremant to the output test page I always saw problems.
Triedthe little play button on center channel (for example) and sound came from different speaker, tried little play button on sub (for example) sound came fromdifferent speaker etc.

Again the problems I saw in the "output test page" were ONLY after aproblematic first measurement.
Everytime I took a measurement, before starting the measurement, the outputtest page was OK=sound from every speaker.


Ihave spend 4 hours on this last night with sadly no results.

Any thoughts?

Perhaps something to do with Configuration in the Pioneer or the Oppo?


Thanks
Ran

Didn't you already have a support ticket open? This sounds like the same issue you had before - ?


"Before finishing with the first measurement the last test signal came once more from the Main left speaker! "

That's normal, Dirac always does the left front again at the end.

Wow John.
I have asked this (Dirac returning to the first channel -Main Left) quite a few people inc on AVS and no one came out with an answer saying it was OK.

So what u r saying is that this is in fact OK and the measuremant ends with the Main left once more?

Thanks!
What about the fact that i get a test signal coming out from the Sub and Right surround TOGETHER?

Is this related to bass menegemant configuration in the Pioneer?

Thanks once more

Ran

Ran wrote:
In normal operation, Dirac runs the left speaker again i.e. it will do all 8 channels and then the front left for a total of nine sweeps. This is in the manual... "The nanoAVR DL HDMI audio processor will generate a test signal, audible as a frequency sweep through the left front speaker, then the right, and so on through all channels including the subwoofer. Finally, the frequency sweep plays through the left front speaker again."

If it's related to bass management in the Pioneer, then you should be able to tell when running the test signals on the Output&Levels page. However I would suggest eliminate that as a possibility by turning off bass management in your AVR (set all speakers to large) and then run another test check (Output&Levels) and a measurement sweep. Keep the levels fairly low, you just want to check where the signal is coming from.

Also, make sure that all weird processing in the Pioneer is turned off, like ambience simulation, surround modes, etc.

John,

Thank you so much for your time.

I will follow your instructions and try this out once more.

2 more questions please:

1. Should I touch the channel levels in the Pioneer? Now they are set according to the Pioneer's own RC (I will turn Pioneers RC off, before running Dirac)?
2. Should I touch the current setting of speakers distance in the Pioneer?

Thanks

Ran

Turn off the Pioneer's RC, and leave it off

Levels and distance/delay - I would leave them where they are, assuming they are correct. The reason is that bass management (when you turn it back on) will at least need correct delays to work properly, that can't be fixed in the nanoAVR DL if it's wrong.

OK John,

So just to get this right in terms of work flow:

1. Turn Pioneer's RC OFF
2. Turn BM OFF by selecting "Large" for each speaker
3. Make sure that Levels and distances are correct.
4. Run Dirac
5. After finishing with Dirac, Leave Pioneer's RC off, BUT select the correct BM for each speaker, i.e return the surrounds to "small" for example

Is this correct?

Thanks!

Ran

Hi, no that's not correct... I'm suggesting that you turn the bass management off for testing, so that you can make sure that the nanoAVR DL is (or is not) working properly. The levels and delays will make no difference to the testing, I suggested you leave them where they are so that you don't have to redo it again later.

If your steps 1-4 complete successfully, then you will know it is not a problem with the nanoAVR. In that case, you can turn bass management on again and try again with the Dirac calibration.

If your steps 1-4 do not complete successfully, then the mystery is still unsolved. Could be the nanoAVR does have a weird problem, could be that you overlooked a setting in the Pioneer.

John,

I did run a full test very late last night.

1-4 was done successfully, i.e during the 9 measuremants the test tones came from each speaker seperately.
BM was OFF in the Pioneer.

I did not listen to the results yet as it was very very late.

I'm a little confused after your last answer.

Should I just leave it like that, i.e BM disabled in the Pioneer and just listen , OR,
Should I engage BM , i.e select "small" for relevan speaker and just listen to what dirac did, OR
Run Dirac once more, this time with BM ON ?

Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

Ran

Ran wrote:
Oh OK, good, sounds like the nanoAVR is OK then.

Yes

Dirac measures everything "downstream" - in the case of the nanoAVR DL that includes the receiver as well as the speakers. So if you turn bass management on, you need to run Dirac calibration. If you change bass management settings or move the speaker, again you need to run a calibration.

(It's not as bad as it sounds )

Ok John,

I will run Dirac once more , this time setting the BM in the Pioneer (ON) , as it should be, i.e Surround on "Small" etc..
Now I'm unsure what we actually did here?

We learned that once BM was ON, Dirac outputs the test signal in a way you can hear it on the Left Surround+ Sub at the same time. In order to "fix" this, We disabled BM, and the problem went away, and now you are saying to re-run Dirac with BM ON, so will this not re-introduce the problem once more, i.e Dirac will measure some channels simultaneously with the Sub?

Your last paragraph has also raised a question as to the necessity of re-measuring every time you change something in the receiver.

This leads me to ask the following:
You may recall that I ran into problems trying to calibrate using the CUSTOM option. My sytem is 6.1 (NO center channel).
During the output test signal page I couldn't get the output test to play from the correct speakers.
Due to that MiniDsp support suggested to try the 7.1 option and re-configure the Pioneer (Center- YES) and use a dummy speaker. Then after finishing the calibration, go to the Pioneer, select Center- NO and take away the Dummy speaker.
This was done during the run I wrote about.

The thing is that after reading your last paragraph about changing stuff in the receiver leading to the necessity of running Dirac once more, I'm starting to think about MiniDsp's suggestion about changing stuff after the calibration is done (i.e taking out the dummy speaker and re-configuring the Pioneer to 6.1) if is this is actually a valid suggestion .

I hope this is of some interest to other members as well.

Thank John.

Ran

I'm guessing that maybe you disabled something else in addition to bass management. Maybe the room correction in the Pioneer or you had some other mode engaged. Only way to know is reengage bass management and try again. In fact, you could set just the surrounds to small first and see what happens, then if that's OK set the mains to small and see what happens. If you get weird results from just setting the surrounds or main speakers to small, then it would seem there's a problem with the bass management in the Pioneer.

You don't have to do all nine measurement locations, just one, for testing purposes. Once you are satisfied that the sweeps are working correctly, you can do a "real" run with all nine measurement locations.

Bear in mind that when the sweep for any speaker set to small runs, you will first hear the sound from the sub (at low frequencies) and then from the speaker. Although you shouldn't in theory be able to tell where the sub is.

With regard to the center channel, if you set the center channel in the Pioneer to off, then when you run the test signal on the Output & Levels page, you should hear the pink noise signal equally from both left and right front speakers? And when you run the measurement sweeps, the center channel sweep should come out both left and right speakers.

If it as I assume in the previous paragraph, then I would do the Dirac calibration with it like that. As I think I said before, you might possibly get some comb filtering at higher frequencies, in which case you can limit the frequency range of correction for the (virtual) center channel.

If I understand u correctly u are now offering a different solution to the one MiniDsp's support offered.

If I get this, you are saying that I should leave the 6.1 configuration in the Pioneer (NO center channel) and run the test using the 7.1 configuration on Dirac and once I do that , I SHOULD get (hopefully) a test tone coming out simultaneously from both Left and Right channel, when pressing the little play button next to the center channel on the output page test and also during the sweeps.
As opposed to the dummy speaker suggestion scheme MiniDsp had.

Is this correct?

Ran

Why don't you just try it?

I will do exactly that tonight.
It's just that the HT system is in the living room, so I have to kick everyone out during the session.
On top of that I get numerous hand shake problems with the Oppo-MiniDsp-JVC RS600 combo, so this takes a long time, that's why I try and get as many answers as possible before starting the session.

I will try this out tonight and report back.

Thank you once more for your precious time

Ran