TOPIC:

I would like to have digital room correction - and in parallel also headphone correction - as part of my home studio setup. Preferably all in the digital domain, so that I can continue using the D/As of my RME.

Looking at the manual of 88D, I assume I could set up two "Zones" - one for speakers (digital I/O 1), one for headphones (digital I/O 2).

Question: Is it possible to have Dirac filters on zone 1, but only PEQ on zone 2? The manual gives me the impression that I need the BM version to get PEQ..

Yes, U can configure as you suggest with two caveats;
1. You will need the BM option
2. You will also need a "Dummy Head", namely the Mini-DSP EARs Headphone jig. to do proper measurements of your phones for either PEQ or Dirac...or both.

I have the setup you suggest but with the 88A/BM unit instead of the 88D and I apply Dirac to the 'phones as well as my Multi Speaker setup.

It does work well and has made my vintage STAX MK III Earspeakers sound closer to my Speaker/Room setup.
Not laboratory grade but pretty good at correcting headphone anomalies.
Good Luck

Hi,

Thanks for your insights. Do I need BM just for PEQ? Or would I need it also for pure Dirac? (I recall reading somewhere that EARS and Dirac needs to be run in mono mode, so I'm guessing BM would be needed to provide the mono mix?)

Another question / reflection.. this setup gets quite expensive. I guess there would be cheaper combos such as:
- DDRC-22D for speakers plus HA-DSP for phones
- OpenDRC-DI for speakers plus a HA-DSP
- MiniDSP 4x10 HD for speakers over AES and phones as analog out

In all of these the headphone D/A would be provided by the MiniDSP - would I be happy with MiniDSP D/A quality? (I know, hard to answer that question..)

Also, in two of these scenarios, I would have to go with REW or acourate instead of Dirac for speaker correction.. would I be happy with that?

BM plugin is not required for Dirac use but my personal experience, (I have been using Dirac with the 88A platform since its release in 2015), is that the BM app allows for much more flexibility and control of how Dirac is leveraged for speaker/room correction.

Because the EARs platform uses separate mics for each ear and Dirac based on a single mic the BM plugin is needed to “manipulate” the Dirac app so that it “sees” both ears as individual “speakers” when going through its measurement process.

You are correct that there is an increased cost to use the MiniDSP 88(A)(D) platform to provide correction for Headphones, the largest of which is the EARs unit.
However, without it or something similar any sonic correction to ‘phones would IMO not provide any confirmable improvements as it would be a “by ear” and as such Dirac’s use in that scenario would be moot. You might as well just use a PEQ to make changes you think might be useful but would only reflect your personal choices and not necessarily the most optimum for Headphone sonic improvement.

I decided to use Dirac/88BM for my STAX MK IIIs because I had two empty channels available on my #3 88BM unit and the EARs unit wasn’t a budget buster for me.

Regarding your musing on using alternate MiniDSP devices as a solution, if you have not already purchased an 88(D), or similar, then I guess a straight comparison for cost/features between them would provide a decision tree for purchase of same.

I use REW sparingly with my setup to calculate the delays between my 3 88BMs (my main system consists of 22 speaker channels, leaving the 2 I use for Headphone), so I am really not qualified to rate REW used with PEQ bi-quads, etc. as superior or inferior to the Dirac solution.
However, my personal belief is that while what Dirac accomplishes might be equaled or surpassed (in theory), by the REW/PEQ process, the complexity and drudgery of the non Dirac process is comparable to using a 1950s era automobile for a non stop cross country trip instead of fully loaded 2020 luxury vehicle…both would get you to the other coast but only one has you arriving feeling like a human being.

I can’t guarantee you would find the MIniDSP D/As equal to what you currently use but I have had no reason to feel they are inferior, (although I am not a devotee of the super sample rate DAC holy grail school of thought).

I suggest you search for further information regarding Dirac Room Correction use in a Pro environment. From what I have seen it is universally regarded as the most cost effective and useful of the various solutions out there.
While Trinnov, and Meyer Sound are without doubt the benchmarks in the PRO space, Dirac is certainly within reach sonically and at a much much more cost effective tier, especially when deployed on a MiniDSP hardware platform.
JFB