TOPIC:

Title says it all. Trying to get my Dirac to work right. In this group I am probably the dunce in the room so please be patient. I recently installed a new Outlaw 975 AVP, surround channel speakers and amplifier to upgrade to 7.1. Now I need to calibrate correctly the room using the Dirac 88a.

1. As I understand it, if you don't wan't the Dirac to correct for a receiver's 10 db subwoofer gain you run the calibration under the custom setting. How would I know if the Outlaw AVP is boosting the subwoofer channel?

1a. I am setting all of the crossover points in the AVP at 80 db for the fronts, sides and rears. Should any be set higher or lower?

2. The Dirac manual talks about how the system pairs channels and how to separate them but doesn't indicate whether they should be paired or separated. As I understand it, if paired some sort of composite correction curve is generated for each pair as opposed to a separate curve for each speaker??? Which is the better approach and how do you separate the channels if you can't use a mouse?

(I told you this was a Dirac Dummy thread )

3. The Outlaw AVP has a speaker separation setup where you measure the distance from each speaker to the listening area and enter that number. However, doesn't the Dirac do this in which case should I just set every number to zero?

4. When getting read to run curves you have to set master sound sliders for volume and microphone gain at the top of the page. The book says to set the microphone at -12db however the microphone file for perpendicular use of the microphone seems to lock the microphone gain setting at +18 db. Moving the slider does not change the microphone gain figure shown next to the slider. Is this OK?

5. Going back to the setup before running curves, I am told under no circumstance to vary the sliders for each channel, just leave them all at maximum. Then I am told to adjust the volume until all channels are around -12db with the test tone running and to make sure the subwoofer setting is as close to the -12db figure as you can get. This makes the others just a hair lower. Should I use the individual channel sliders or not to get them all right at the -12db setting?

6. Now when it is running the test tones, each channel seems to peak out around the -12db setting except for the subwoofer which peaks out considerably less. Is this OK? If not I don't see how to correct it and still set the subwoofer on the -12db setting before beginning the calibration.

7. At least from my first run I am finding the system gives the audio a bit of a hollow sound. I think that is at least partly a room problem that I got the Dirac to get rid of. Without getting too technical, is there a way to improve on this?

Thank you for your patience and input here!

Hi, two questions -

Did you run your calibration in 7.1 or Custom? For an AVP, Custom is most likely the correct choice.
Did you do all nine measurement locations? Were the locations well spread out (per the manual)?

Hi John:

No, I used the 7.1 configuration.

Yes, the mike locations were well spread out. And I did all 9.

Mainecoons wrote:

Hi John:

No, I used the 7.1 configuration.

Yes, the mike locations were well spread out. And I did all 9.

You should use the Custom calibration to avoid the 10dB LFE boost, which is normally not needed on most AVR's.

You may find this guide useful: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78476446/AVS...0for%20the%2088A.pdf

1. Most likely you would need to use Custom configuration for the AVP. The only way to really know what it's doing is to measure it with REW or similar. For now, you could just set the subwoofer trim to -10.

1a. Depends on your speakers. 80 Hz is pretty standard.

2. Don't know how to do it without a mouse. By default they are grouped left/right (IIRC). I don't think there' anything really wrong with the default grouping. I usually have my center on a different target curve and have the mains and surrounds grouped.

3. In the AVP set all level trims and delays the same. (See manual)

4. Those two numbers are not related.

5. There used to be a bug related to the individual channel levels. I thought it was fixed although have not really tested it in a while. Regardless, it doesn't sound like you have an issue there. If you sub gain control is not maxed out you could raise it when doing the next calibration.

6. Don't see any issue here.

7. Try the -10 dB sub trim first and set the AVP correctly. Probably not the cause but the obvious things have to be right first. Also, did you turn the Dirac Live filtering on? (It doesn't turn itself on automatically)

Well I used the three page guide from Austin Jerry and it worked perfectly. To have the -12db exactly on both the left channel and the subwoofer channel I had to back the sub's amp off 11 db. If I understood Jerry's instructions correctly both of these had to be as close to -12db as possible and the matching should be done by adjusting the source amplification.

So what I did was set the left channel exact at the -12db first and then started cutting the amplification of the powered subwoofer until it too matched the -12db. Let me know if this was a good approach.

I hope the Dirac folks appreciate the amazing contributions of Austin Jerry to understanding and calibrating this device properly. He is an incredible resource here and at the AVS Forum . If you read this, Jerry, thank you very very much for taking the time to put together that three page guide!

Mainecoons wrote:

Well I used the three page guide from Austin Jerry and it worked perfectly. To have the -12db exactly on both the left channel and the subwoofer channel I had to back the sub's amp off 11 db. If I understood Jerry's instructions correctly both of these had to be as close to -12db as possible and the matching should be done by adjusting the source amplification.

So what I did was set the left channel exact at the -12db first and then started cutting the amplification of the powered subwoofer until it too matched the -12db. Let me know if this was a good approach.

I hope the Dirac folks appreciate the amazing contributions of Austin Jerry to understanding and calibrating this device properly. He is an incredible resource here and at the AVS Forum . If you read this, Jerry, thank you very very much for taking the time to put together that three page guide!

Thank you for the kind words.

I believe your approach matches my recommendations and, based on my experiences, should produce a Dirac calibration with proper output levels.

I think it did, Jerry. The sound is much tighter now, exactly what I was looking for. Your 3 page guide made the calibration a snat.

Thanks again!