TOPIC:

Hey folks, I am interested in the SHD to use for room correction and to actively bi amp my 2 way speakers. I will need to add additional outputs for my sub. What is the best way to go about this or is this not recommended? I currently have a minidsp 2x4 and I am wondering if I can use the SHD to process my speakers and utilze the 2x4 to connect to the l/r on my sub. The SHD would be fed by my dac via xlr and the 2x4 would be fed from the same dac via the RCA outputs. If this would work I am wondering how I would calibrate this setup with dirac. I apologize if this is a silly question but I am new to DSP which is why I am interested in dirac. A followup question if I may... In reading the manual I notice "protecting capacitors" in line between inputs to the speakers. What would I need to buy for this? Thanks for any light you can shed on this for me.
Brent

is it just biamping that is the goal, or do you want to replace the passive filter with an active filter in the SHD's DSP?

The passive crossovers will be removed. Is that what you are referring to? My speakers are open baffle and the crossovers are housed in a box that attaches to she speaker so taking them out is trivial. Right now I am using the 2x4 to bi amp and the passive crossovers have been removed. I have a few things I am trying to accomplish with the SHD. 1) I have some "white noise" type sound that comes from the speakers when nothing is playing. It has been suggested to me that moving from unbalanced to balanced connections may help with that. So, since my amps and dac are balanced I thought why not see if going balanced will help. 2) My system is confined at this point to my bedroom. As a result, there is not much I can do in the way of room treatments. That is why I am interested in Dirac live. As it stands sound quality is pretty good but I suspect that I may have some upper frequencies running a bit "loud" as I get some "bite" in the high end at upper frequencies. I am hoping that implementing DSP will help tame this. Thanks for your help.
Brent

With the SHD being 4channel, you would need an additional dsp for the sub integration. So cascade another dsp for the mid/sub after the SHD. In this way you'll have Dirac for the subs also (which is where you want it most)

Or (that's what I would do) keep the passive filter for the mid/high and use the SHD for the sub integration

Euphonite wrote:

2) My system is confined at this point to my bedroom. As a result, there is not much I can do in the way of room treatments. That is why I am interested in Dirac live. As it stands sound quality is pretty good but I suspect that I may have some upper frequencies running a bit "loud" as I get some "bite" in the high end at upper frequencies. I am hoping that implementing DSP will help tame this.

I'm a little confused by this comment since you can do this with your 2x4 HD. You don't need Dirac.

Your white noise problem could be the result of a gain structure issue. What volume level do you run the miniDSP at? If it's too low you'd reduce the SNR, and this could be improved by attenuators on the inputs to your power amps (or reducing their gain if you have that option).