TOPIC:

rortmanns wrote:

There’s another option I’m going to try.  I could just run the mains and the subs from the DAC direct and use the crossover built into the D15S subs, the sub has delay (100mS) and 9 PEQ plus phase control.  So I could run the mains full range and adjust the subs with MSO settings for PEQ etc.  I’d only be using the SHD for Roon and Dirac then.


 

You bought a Ferrari and you're just going to use it for grocery store trips??

Dave.

Ultrasonic wrote:

Just making the point that it's perfectly possible for these differences to be totally negligible, not that it's necessary.

yes if I'd thought about it harder before posting I'd have realised as you've both pointed out that the positioning would have to be badly out to make any sort of sizeable difference.

rortmanns wrote:

There’s another option I’m going to try.  I could just run the mains and the subs from the DAC direct and use the crossover built into the D15S subs, the sub has delay (100mS) and 9 PEQ plus phase control.  So I could run the mains full range and adjust the subs with MSO settings for PEQ etc.  I’d only be using the SHD for Roon and Dirac then.

So another option.  I’m going to try that by just turning off the high pass on the mains for now, saves me making more XLR cables.

Having had excellent results using MSO, I wouldn't do that. The more options you can leave MSO with all the better. MSO selects filters for mains as well as subs, adds delays to subs and/or mains etc and creates PEQs specific to each sub. It can't do any of that if everything comes off your DAC. 

asx77 wrote:

rortmanns wrote:

There’s another option I’m going to try.  I could just run the mains and the subs from the DAC direct and use the crossover built into the D15S subs, the sub has delay (100mS) and 9 PEQ plus phase control.  So I could run the mains full range and adjust the subs with MSO settings for PEQ etc.  I’d only be using the SHD for Roon and Dirac then.

So another option.  I’m going to try that by just turning off the high pass on the mains for now, saves me making more XLR cables.

Having had excellent results using MSO, I wouldn't do that. The more options you can leave MSO with all the better. MSO selects filters for mains as well as subs, adds delays to subs and/or mains etc and creates PEQs specific to each sub. It can't do any of that if everything comes off your DAC. 

Thanks for that and Merry Christmas.  The way I understand it from the YouTube videos I’ve watched, MSO doesn’t actually do anything, it provides settings that you apply in MiniDSP or whatever DSP you employ.  I figure I can still employ delays, PEQ and phase in the sub and apply the PEQ settings in SHD for the appropriate frequencies.  

Anyway, there’s lots of things to try and until I’ve done that it’s all academic.  I don’t even know what this room is like when it’s measured.  I can tell by listening that it’s boomy due to the hard surfaces and fixing that is a priority.  

rortmanns wrote:

Thanks for that and Merry Christmas.  The way I understand it from the YouTube videos I’ve watched, MSO doesn’t actually do anything, it provides settings that you apply in MiniDSP or whatever DSP you employ.  I figure I can still employ delays, PEQ and phase in the sub and apply the PEQ settings in SHD for the appropriate frequencies.  

Anyway, there’s lots of things to try and until I’ve done that it’s all academic.  I don’t even know what this room is like when it’s measured.  I can tell by listening that it’s boomy due to the hard surfaces and fixing that is a priority.  

The point of MSO is it's likely to come up with better set of filters and delays than you would yourself.

rortmanns wrote:

There’s another option I’m going to try.  I could just run the mains and the subs from the DAC direct and use the crossover built into the D15S subs, the sub has delay (100mS) and 9 PEQ plus phase control.  So I could run the mains full range and adjust the subs with MSO settings for PEQ etc.  I’d only be using the SHD for Roon and Dirac then.

So another option.  I’m going to try that by just turning off the high pass on the mains for now, saves me making more XLR cables.

If the latency difference between your DAC and the SHD's is as large as we think the above is very unlikely to sound good I'm afraid. 

Ultrasonic wrote:

rortmanns wrote:

Thanks for that and Merry Christmas.  The way I understand it from the YouTube videos I’ve watched, MSO doesn’t actually do anything, it provides settings that you apply in MiniDSP or whatever DSP you employ.  I figure I can still employ delays, PEQ and phase in the sub and apply the PEQ settings in SHD for the appropriate frequencies.  

Anyway, there’s lots of things to try and until I’ve done that it’s all academic.  I don’t even know what this room is like when it’s measured.  I can tell by listening that it’s boomy due to the hard surfaces and fixing that is a priority.  

The point of MSO is it's likely to come up with better set of filters and delays than you would yourself.

Agreed, so I put them in the sub rather than the Minidsp.

 

Ultrasonic wrote:

rortmanns wrote:

There’s another option I’m going to try.  I could just run the mains and the subs from the DAC direct and use the crossover built into the D15S subs, the sub has delay (100mS) and 9 PEQ plus phase control.  So I could run the mains full range and adjust the subs with MSO settings for PEQ etc.  I’d only be using the SHD for Roon and Dirac then.

So another option.  I’m going to try that by just turning off the high pass on the mains for now, saves me making more XLR cables.

If the latency difference between your DAC and the SHD's is as large as we think the above is very unlikely to sound good I'm afraid. 

The latency of the DAC  is irrelevant in this scenario.  I might not be explaining myself well.  I’d take the analogue output of the MSB DAC and feed that into both the mains and the subs.  The subs would then use the settings recommended by MSO.

I’ve just ordered new speakers to replace my WP8s and it’s likely I won’t need a sub with them and I may redeploy the MSB for use with them.  It’s a combined home theatre and stereo listening room as opposed to my dedicated listening area.  I may then be able to just get a suitable DAC for the minidsp or use the internal one.  I’ve been running with just the internal DAC for a week or so now and while not as nice as the MSB it may just have to do.  The benefit of the subs with the smaller ME1s in that room far outweigh the DAC quality and I haven’t even done the MSO yet.  Im still letting the gear settle in before doing all the optimisation. I expect Dirac will improve everything a little more.  

Then I have some room treatment to do.

rortmanns wrote:

The latency of the DAC  is irrelevant in this scenario.  I might not be explaining myself well.  I’d take the analogue output of the MSB DAC and feed that into both the mains and the subs.  The subs would then use the settings recommended by MSO.

Oh right, yes the MSB latency won't matter then. You confused me by referring to applying a 100 ms delay on your subs.

Are your subwoofers the Perlisten Audio D15s model? They look impressive if they are and very unusual to have 10-band PEQ but given they do I can certainly see the merit in using MSO results directly on them if you're only looking to apply the results to your subwoofers rather than including your main speakers in the optimisation process and applying EQ to them too.
 

Ultrasonic wrote:

rortmanns wrote:

The latency of the DAC  is irrelevant in this scenario.  I might not be explaining myself well.  I’d take the analogue output of the MSB DAC and feed that into both the mains and the subs.  The subs would then use the settings recommended by MSO.

Oh right, yes the MSB latency won't matter then. You confused me by referring to applying a 100 ms delay on your subs.

Are your subwoofers the Perlisten Audio D15s model? They look impressive if they are and very unusual to have 10-band PEQ but given they do I can certainly see the merit in using MSO results directly on them if you're only looking to apply the results to your subwoofers rather than including your main speakers in the optimisation process and applying EQ to them too.

 

I should still be able to do some eq and Dirac at an overall level because I’ll still be driving the MSB with the SHD.  I’ll just need to be more cautious with the overlap areas with the sub.  I’ll be using the main speakers full range and then supplementing the natural roll off of the mains with the subs.  Above the crossover area of the mains and subs I should be able to deploy Dirac.  I’m a bit unsure how MSO settings and Dirac work together at this point, I expect I just limit the frequency range above the sub crossover for Dirac?

ultimately I think I’ll redeploy the MSB it’s a lot of stuffing about to accomodate.  If the best spot for the subs are further away from the listening position than the mains then I’m unable to correct the time alignment because I have no way of applying a delay to the mains alone etc.  unfortunately it’s too late for me to return the MSB.

yes, I bought 2 of those PerListen D15s subs.  They are very good but they have some issues that I find just plain annoying - why on earth dint they have speaker grills?  Just crazy for foot level speakers.  I also have 2 x SVS4000 in the home theatre and they come with lovely steel grills that don’t rattle and provide great protection.  I also wish the PerListen came with speaker level inputs so you could integrate them easier into a 2 channel system.

Got me thinking here and I’m starting to think that this will not work at all.  Seems to me that subs are not designed to be used outside of home theatres.  When I pass a signal from a DAC to my main speakers there is no delay.  When I pass that same signal to the sub it will get digitised and processed for EQ and crossover filtering and then converted back to analogue.  None of that DSP is instant.  I will need to measure all this, in a home theatre the AVR would just include the delays in the measurements,  I’m also unclear if there is no delay when the sub crossover etc are turned off or if everything goes through digitisation regardless.

Life was simpler with just a pair of mains…

rortmanns wrote:

Got me thinking here and I’m starting to think that this will not work at all.  Seems to me that subs are not designed to be used outside of home theatres.  When I pass a signal from a DAC to my main speakers there is no delay.  When I pass that same signal to the sub it will get digitised and processed for EQ and crossover filtering and then converted back to analogue.  None of that DSP is instant.  I will need to measure all this, in a home theatre the AVR would just include the delays in the measurements,  I’m also unclear if there is no delay when the sub crossover etc are turned off or if everything goes through digitisation regardless.

Life was simpler with just a pair of mains…

You've already bought the 2 channel solution to this problem in the form of your SHD. You just don't want to use it the way it could address this. 

rortmanns wrote:

 I’m a bit unsure how MSO settings and Dirac work together at this point, I expect I just limit the frequency range above the sub crossover for Dirac?
 

I don't see an obvious reason not to run Dirac Live over the full bass frequency range. The biggest potential problem you may find you have is cancellation between main speakers and subwoofers at the crossover region if you don't also incorporate main speaker data into MSO. From memory I'm fairly sure that MSO is specifically designed to do so.

For info. some (including myself) don't like the effect of Dirac Live run over the full frequency range and prefer it just used for low bass frequencies.

rortmanns wrote:

Got me thinking here and I’m starting to think that this will not work at all.  Seems to me that subs are not designed to be used outside of home theatres.  When I pass a signal from a DAC to my main speakers there is no delay.  When I pass that same signal to the sub it will get digitised and processed for EQ and crossover filtering and then converted back to analogue.  None of that DSP is instant.  I will need to measure all this, in a home theatre the AVR would just include the delays in the measurements,  I’m also unclear if there is no delay when the sub crossover etc are turned off or if everything goes through digitisation regardless.

Life was simpler with just a pair of mains…

seems like you're getting yourself in a twist. The solution was given to you two or three pages back!

Use the SHD as your source and preamp straight to your amps and subs. Use MSO followed by Dirac.

asx77 wrote:

rortmanns wrote:

Got me thinking here and I’m starting to think that this will not work at all.  Seems to me that subs are not designed to be used outside of home theatres.  When I pass a signal from a DAC to my main speakers there is no delay.  When I pass that same signal to the sub it will get digitised and processed for EQ and crossover filtering and then converted back to analogue.  None of that DSP is instant.  I will need to measure all this, in a home theatre the AVR would just include the delays in the measurements,  I’m also unclear if there is no delay when the sub crossover etc are turned off or if everything goes through digitisation regardless.

Life was simpler with just a pair of mains…

seems like you're getting yourself in a twist. The solution was given to you two or three pages back!

Use the SHD as your source and preamp straight to your amps and subs. Use MSO followed by Dirac.

No, a solution wasn’t provided, an alternative to using the MSB was provided.  I’m using it that way at the moment.  

That advice was a bit like the old joke about asking for directions with the response that were you to go there you wouldn’t start here.