TOPIC:

After successful configuring DIRAC with DDRC-88A (5.1 setup) the AV preamp (an UMC-200 fom Emotiva) shows weird speaker distances: 32ft for every speaker...looks like that is the max. distance the preamp can handle.

Question: must I set the speaker distance to the listening position manually in the preamp per real measurmemt or is the distance of the speakers also considered in the DIRAC measurement and the distance in the preamp should be set to 0ft?

rgds
sealpin

Dirac Live takes care of speaker distance and level so you have to zero distance and levels in your AVR.

So if the preamp thinks the speakes are all at the same distance of 32,8 ft this is due to the procesing time within the miniDSP I guess?

sealpin wrote:

So if the preamp thinks the speakes are all at the same distance of 32,8 ft this is due to the procesing time within the miniDSP I guess?

Speaker distance in the AVR should be 0 for all speakers including the subwoofer. Did you run Emo-Q? You have to switch EQ completely off in the UMC-200 and set speaker distances and levels to 0.

I ran EMO-Q and the systems sees the speakers in 32,8 ft - all the same for all 5.1 speakers.
Of course I do not use the EQ...I choose flat.

What surprises me are the 32,8 ft distance for all speakers...

So...sholud I leave this, maybe because this is the delay due to the processing time the miniDSP requires, or do I set all distances to 0ft?

If all speakers are set to 32.8ft then they end up at a delay of 0 anyway. So there's absolutely no benefit of having them set to 32.8 ft. Set them to 0, then run the Dirac Live calibration process.

Why should I run the DIRAC calibration again? It was done already.
The preamp itself has a calibration function EMO-Q, which I started after DIRAC calibration was done, and the EMO-Q showed such measurments...

sealpin wrote:

Why should I run the DIRAC calibration again? It was done already.
The preamp itself has a calibration function EMO-Q, which I started after DIRAC calibration was done, and the EMO-Q showed such measurments...

Emo-Q might have changed parameters in your AVR. Dirac Live doesn't know anything about those settings because it sits downstream. It's probably best to reset your UMC-200 to defaults and then run Dirac Live.
Then set crossovers in the UMC-200 based on what DLCT finds.

Sorry...I do not understand why I should run DIRAC calibration again. It was done and works fine.

AFTER I calibrated with DIRAC I just connected the UMC-200 and let its calibration run, expecting it to do....nothing...! Because DIRAC did all the job already.
For level it was nearly perfect, no big adjustments done by EMO-Q.
For the distance it was surprising but as long as all speakers have the same distance in the UMC-200 I might not need to adjust anything here.

And only this fact is something I wanted to have clarified.

Running DIRAC again will not change anything, because the miniDSP is connected behind the UMC-200 and does not know anything what happens before it...

I hope it is clear now...

sealpin wrote:

Sorry...I do not understand why I should run DIRAC calibration again.

You don't need to. I just described what generally should be done. Set AVR to defaults and run DL.

sealpin wrote:

Running DIRAC again will not change anything, because the miniDSP is connected behind the UMC-200 and does not know anything what happens before it....

That's exactly the reason why you need to zero all levels and distance settings otherwise they will be applied on top of DL.

Except for the distance I did exactly that...no EQ is used, speaker size small for all except the mains, frequency for the Sub to 80 Hz.

Still the distance is somehow strange, unless 32,8 ft is the latency the miniDSP adds to the signal due to its signal processing.
If this is true it is some 29ms (32.8 = 9,99m, sound speed at 20 degrees C results in 2,912 ms per meter).

sealpin wrote:

Except for the distance I did exactly that...no EQ is used, speaker size small for all except the mains, frequency for the Sub to 80 Hz.

Still the distance is somehow strange, unless 32,8 ft is the latency the miniDSP adds to the signal due to its signal processing.
If this is true it is some 29ms (32.8 = 9,99m, sound speed at 20 degrees C results in 2,912 ms per meter).

For the 88A it should be shorter. miniDSP wanted to publish exact numbers once they get around to measure it.

@ sealpin,

Markus is correct in his explanation that I don't think you should go this path of combining both EMOQ (basic IIR we're guessing) after Dirac. If anything, you're completely loosing the benefits of Dirac by adding some IIR on top of Dirac. Dirac will do Level, Time and of course frequency tuning. That's all set unless you want to manually EQ your system. The target curve editor is the way to go if you want to do it.

I'm not sure how that 32.8ft come from but latency for a DDRC-88A (variable depending on the number of filter Dirac believes it will need) will be circa 13ms. Not 30ms.

Hoping this info helps.

DevTeam

I do not combine EMO EQ with DIRAC - in fact I never intended to do. The DDRC-88A should do all speaker configs and EQing.
The only thing that my preamp does is setting the frequency for the speakers which are set to small to 80 hz.

Because the preamp sets all speakers to 32,8 ft it is practically the same as setting it to 0ft for all speakers.
So this is what I configured in the UMC in the end.

Regards
sealpin

^
Does DL support a 80Hz crossover frequency?
You also might want to reverse polarity on your sub depending on the filter slope set in the UMC-200 (12dB or 24dB). The 12dB setting introduces a 180° phase shift.