TOPIC: Looking for best practices using Dirac Live

Are there any good article about using and setting up Dirac Live, preferable v2.0

I am searching for tips an tricks

Like "don't try to let Dirac correct a big dip", and stuff like this.

I need real world experiences with Dirac for a stereo setup

The best thing is just to jump in and do a calibration, get familiar with the workflow then see what the result is.
When the system is running properly it only takes about 10 to 15 minutes to do a calibration.
If the resulting predicted response still has uncorrected dips in the low frequencies you are hitting the limit of Dirac's 10dB maximum boost but don't get ahead of yourself, do a cal, check the forecast results, check the audible results and then you are in a much better place to know if you need to change the target. The default target is very good for most things.

entripy wrote:
+1
After I received my SHD, I spent hours messing around with target curves. I now just use the default target.

Thanks, does it sounds better for you with Dirac?

Martin-Andersen wrote:
I listen only to classical music and by "listen" I mean active listening, where I sit and actually reflect upon the musical content. Dirac allows me to this far better than any upgrade I have ever done in the past. The more obvious areas are in the lower midrange bass and low bass, where the voices of the stringed instruments can get muddied and bungled up. It also improves the high frequencies in a very subtle way - it seems to soften the highs without the "tone control" effect.

Hope this helps. We all have listening preferences, so experiment. I've seen where some folks will just mask out Dirac on the high frequencies and use it only on the mid bass and below. I can understand that, For me, the target curve is fine. The effects can be subtle.

It is very unusual for results to not be much better with Dirac. Occasionally if you have a very high quality system and good ears you may prefer limiting Dirac to working below 500Hz or so where most room problems are and not letting it mess about with mids and highs.

Personally I wouldn't consider not using Dirac over the whole bandwidth and my systems sound a complete mess when Dirac is turned off. It is very unusual to find a room which doesn't have several low frequency problems which you may well have got used to hearing, but it can be very difficult going back to that when you have heard your system with room problems hugely reduced.

As a former DSP engineer I'm happy to say that Dirac is one of the closest things to magic I've ever known. It easily betters previous systems that used simple EQ "corrections". There is a school of thought which says that any signal processing can only make the sound worse. Any such effect is inaudible to me, Dirac lets through all the music I was aware of and lets me hear it better. The gains easily outweigh any theoretical losses.

But Dirac isn't actually magic, it is state of the art theory and implementation but you still need to take a slight amount of care when calibrating and it cannot solve all room problems. One particular problem it can't addess is Speaker Boundary Interference Response, when low frequency reflections from the room structure produce a near cancellation of certain frequeuncies. These very deep dips can't be solved with any amount of gain, send more out and more reflects back and still cancels through interference. So some problems can only be solved with room treatment.

Purely to get a handle on the workflow, you might like to know you can just complete the central measurement and then move on to complete all of the other steps. Obviously don't do this to get meaningful results though.

I'm new to Dirac but from what I've read most tend to prefer some boost over the bass region compared to the default. Dirac V1 had a Harman target option that was popular for example.

Others have told me to experiment with different microphone spacing.

entripy wrote:
All true. I'll add that other null locations are associated with room modes and so their position is independent of where the speakers are. The combined effect of all of this is that changing both speaker and listening positions can and (where possible) should be be investigated to see what gives best results. In my own room this can make a big difference, and I've also made meaningful improvements with large bass traps. (Size sadly matters here and I've tried smaller amounts of absorption that have frankly done nothing useful at all.)