TOPIC:

Hello. After working for many years with other product of yours. Mainly all the 2x4 series even the ddrc24 after upgrade. Finally I buy the dream for many years, the ddrc88a with Dirac. I own the umik mic. 

I have some questions, and I am a bit confused about some things!! So confused that I do not know what to do and which direction to take atm. Please show patience and try to assist me to solve my problems. I have some questions in random order.
on download page I have the ddrc88bm version to use. 

I have activated Dirac with the code that was inside the box, it was brand new. And I use it only to dirac calibrate my 4 subs. Its part of the home cinema system.

- When I use Dirac I do not have access on the LFE ROUTING MIXER and OUTPUTS mode. I mean in start I have the options but when is connected to ddrc88 it’s not available any more. 
Do I need to activate something or but something else? What do I do wrong? 

-Since I already used other dirac products, I did not have any issue about the calibration of my subwoofers with dirac. But the sound after playing the full system is almost not audible. After reading some other topics, I switch from internal all switches to ON, I think I had higher level on calibration, and was happy about it,  it still on system in extremely low, almost not audible.

Please assist me to solve these two BIG questions I have. I am a MiniDsp fun and proud owner (on other accounts) from 2014, you got really great products. 

Please contact miniDSP support to confirm as I'm not personally familiar with the DDRC88 range, but I suspect you may want the following:

www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series/ddrc-88bm

If that applies for full use of the ddrc88bm application then my 1st question should considered answered. I would like an extra confirmation but thank you for your response  .

Now I need to know about the level output issue what I have to do to fix it. It should be something easy but if you do not know the answer it’s getting annoying   .

I've got the 88A amongst other minidsp devices. The BM is an additional purchase and once you've done that you'll have access to the LFE management tab but if you're only using subs you don't need it.

I think the 88A is overkill for four subs. You just need to have each on a separate output channel. Use MSO instead to set gains, delays and PEQs. Then tell dirac all your subs are just one sub and run the calibration. 

Is your HT 5.4? if so I would drop one of the subs and go for 5.3 and use 6 dirac channels, 5 for each of your L,C,R,SL,SR and one for the MSO'd subs. Then you would need the LFE Mgt. 

 

Ty for your response. I do not think it’s overkill for 4 subs, I think it’s perfect. There is nothing else on the MiniDsp range for this purpose. The ddrc 2x4 works differently and if you want to add more, you need the extra slots. 

I manage to work on the volume, I went for the IN signal from balanced to unbalanced and change the jumpers to be on the 0,9volt range. The BM version assisted in a bit more control, now there will be the final stages of tuning my system.

My AV is Dirac but has only 1 subwoofer exit and I want to intergrate effective more subwoofers to the system. I think I will calibrate flat the subs, and I will make my preferred curve on the AV final calibration.

You're right that the 88A gives you future expansion but you could send your sub out to the analogue in of the 2x4HD and acheive the same thing. I've got both a 2x4HD and 88A.

The 88A is for 5.2 (maybe one day 5.3) system. My Blu-ray decodes and outputs 6 channels to the 88A. I then use the bass management and also MSO to make the subs play nice together and with the front three speakers. But i then use the mixer and have one dirac channel seeing all the sub's as one. 

I can't quite understand what you use BM for. The 88A has a lot of features and it took me a while to get my head around the best way to use it. My AV processor doesn't have room correction so the 88A does that for each channel then I use the outputs to go to the AVR's multi-channel input so the AVR can control volume. 

2x4 hd when you activate the Dirac, it gives you 2+2 channels, not all 4 whatever you want. It gives 2 channels each one with 1 hi and 1 low signal. So if you want to calibrate 4 subs the only option with Dirac, is ddrc88. 

Yes I see what you are doing with your system, make sense and it’s working. The BM is not that complicated, if you had previous experience with other MiniDsp products. But still it’s nice to be able to make a bit of tuning on Dirac connected speakers. 

I guess your question regarding the subs is why I want Dirac calibration instead of a normal level, distance, phase, crossover and bandwidth correction with umic1. The answer is simple, Dirac calibration considered from the best solutions on the market, and does a lot more things that what you will do manually. 

I think there are many ways to approach a multi-sub set-up - minidsp themselves seem to have a few differring tutorials and I've tried different approaches now in both two channel and multi-channel systems. I'm not saying your appraoch is wrong or doesnt work but stay open minded and consider the following....

You are right that the 2x4HD is only two dirac channels but tbh if you have a look at the Multi-sub optimzer tutorial even that is too many! You only actually need one Dirac channel for a multi-sub set-up. Dirac can only optimise subs individually via the 88A, it cannot and does not compensate for how they react with each other in the room - thats where MSO comes into its own. MSO does (I think) what Dirac Live Bass Control tries to do but Dirac is much more automated and user friendly. Note that no minidsp products including the 88A have DLBC and following and MSO approach has a learning curve (speaking from bitter experience) and takes some trial and error. But when optimising multiple subs on minidsp products, for me MSO is the ONLY way to go and I base that statement on having achieved amazingly smooth and even bass response across my listening window on my 2 channel system - its what gave me the push to get an 88A and apply the same appraoch to my HT. See first graphs from 2 ch system.



With the 88A, and like I did using the SHD for the above result, I use MSO to identify delays and gains for each sub and to create biquad PEQs. Each sub sits on its own output channel of the 88A and the individual settings defined by MSO sit there. I then put both those sub output channels on the same dirac channel so Dirac doesn't adjust the subs individually but instead sees them as if they were one and the same. See my matrix screenshot. Ignore outputs 1-3 but look how 7 and 8 (my subs) are on the same dirac channel.



Now to explain why the three front mains are there too. Through bass management I HPF the mains at 90Hz. All the info below 90Hz as well as the LFE channel info are summed for channel 9 'Bass management'. When MSO does it's calculation, I let it include the three mains as well since they go down to 35Hz theres no point cutting their playback off at 90Hz so it considers this when optimising the subs. the bass magaged channel is then passed through dirac 8 which in turn plays back through the three mains and the subs. When it comes to everything below 80Hz this plays from all three front speakers and the two subs so bass comes from 5 loacations all of which MSO has told to play nicely together.

You can see each main is also dirac'd but if i wasn't doing these 5 mains as well, I could have done up to 4 subs following the MSO approach with just a 2x4HD.

For some reason i cant edit the above post, Slight correction required: "When it comes to everything below 90Hz this plays from all three front speakers and the two subs so bass comes from 5 loacations all of which MSO has told to play nicely together."

 

That is a really nice set up asx77. In your setup how do you have your zones configured? Maybe a screen shot of your zone configuration would be nice. 

In many ways I have a much simpler setup, my setup is a recording studio so I don't have the multi-speaker video arrangement. Right now there is only one sub and two mains. It has taken me some time to get my head around the correlation between things in the DDRC-88 and DIRAC and how they play together. At the present time, my studio is in disarray so I have it set up in a temporary location to be able to do some recording and continue work. Eventually I'll have the full control room finished, it's going together with full room treatment. At that time I'll probably add another sub so I'll have two subs and two mains. 

Once that happens, the reason for the full 88D, is that I'll also have near field monitors and recording monitors. The purpose of the recording monitors is for recording things like guitars, which are now almost always done in the control room. So a set of live PA speakers that you don't worry about blowing something out when a guitarist plugs in a cord or something is beneficial for those sessions. 

So the minidsp will eventually be set with three different sets of speakers and switchable by changing configs. Each of the configs having it's own separate correction. So config 1 would be the main mixing speakers + subs, config 2 would be the nearfield monitors probably without the subs, and config 3 would be the recording speakers + subs.

Hi @gabo4au - Thanks
I'm not using the zones feature of the 88A as it's on a dedicated 5.2 HT set-up while the SHD is used elsewhere for the 2channel system so afraid there's no zone info to show. 

But the feature is implemented nicely for those that need it. Basically there's a little menu you open and against each channel you mark it as zone 1, 2, 3.... Etc. When Dirac starts up and asks you to select a device, it lists multiple 88As followed by a zone. I'm guessing it allows upto 4 presets for each zone too. All very handy. 

Allows you to have your source(s) go to multiple zones at the same time. Just turn the amps on in the zones wanted at the time. 

Thanks, so I guess if you haven't changed anything in there it's all set to zone 1? I can't see a way to NOT select zones. I think the default was for all the channels to be in zone 1. If I do that, then in DIRAC it wants to measure all 8 channels. So if I don't have 8 speakers connected I have to put whatever subset I have in it's own zone and select that. For my setup, I have channels 1/2 (mains), and 3 (sub) in zone 1 and everything that is not connected to a speaker in zone 2. That seems to get DIRAC to measure the right channels. Another thing I'm also not exactly sure of is in the zone settings you also pick what is connected to each Channel in the zone. Over to the right in the zone setup, there is a pull down for whether it's a full range speaker, subwoofer, etc. 

When you bring up DIRAC, you then select a zone and whatever channels/speakers you have in that zone are measured in DIRAC.

All easy enough to select the correct thing, but I'm not sure how/if selecting a different speaker type there does anything different in DIRAC or if it's just a label.

It's a learning experience but I'll get it figured out eventually. 

Yes I can't remember but as you say you either assign the zone to a speaker or a speaker to a zone. Either way, dirac only measures what you've assigned. 

I'm not sure if there's any difference between selecting large or small as far as dirac is concerned but possibly it treats subs differently. 

It's a great device. Very flexible with loads of uses. I wonder if one day it will be replaced by something you can also plug a hdmi into.

Yes it is a great device, lots of flexibility. A few things I would like to improve, but it's still a nice piece of gear for sure.