TOPIC:

Sorry for sounding so dumb , but I purchased an SHD studio, and after using it, I can't understand what its purpose is...

I have a full McIntosh separates vacuum tube system with large floor standing speakers and although I was satisfied with the overall sound quality, I got an SHD to see if it could do something more to improve the sound.
So I put the SHD to the DAC input of my preamp, did the Dirac calibration procedure, chose the default filter and when active, it makes the sound flat, empty and boring, killing all the liveliness of tubes.

So is "making the sound flat" the prime objective of this product ? When I try to bump up the bass by tweaking the filter response, it just distorts the sound so badly I feel like listening to an old cassette tape with recording volumes saturated...
So what I am I doing wrong ? Or at the contrary am I doing exactly what this product is meant to be ?
Thank You for any input...

Did you possibly have the SHD Studio volume set to 0 dB when you tried boosting the bass? If so you were probably experiencing distortion caused by digital clipping. I'd suggest reducing the SHD Studio volume to -10 dB and trying again.

I’ve a DDRC24. I started using it between streamer and solid state integrated amp before swapping the solid state for valve mono blocks and using the DDRC24 as a pre. From my experience, Dirac continued to correct the same room problems and did nothing, as far as I could tell, to alter the things that makes a valve sound like a valve.

Check your settings - don’t give up on it too soon.

Most likely a misconfiguration on the setup as already suggested by above.

Make sure to follow the default setup and make sure that you don't clip the input of your DAC if doing too much EQ.

Creating a support ticket with our team (support.minidsp.com) is your next step if you can't figure out further..

DevTeam