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Hello All!

I am a newbie to this forum and have some questions on the SHD Studio. I currently use a Bluesound Node 2i streamer connected to a Benchmark DAC3 / LA4 / AHB2. Most of my music is streamed from Tidal. The Node 2i is nothing fancy, but works well and I have got used to the BlueOS App. 

I am thinking of buying the SHD Studio for another system mainly to experiment with room correction. It would replace the Node 2i with the rest of the pieces remaining the same. 

Can someone kindly give me an assessment of the whole measurement process associated with Dirac and whether someone with limited knowledge can implement it by just following a detailed procedure? 

Also, would I need to use the Volumio App to stream from Tidal with this setup? 

Thanks in advance, Mahesh

Hi, I just bought a second SHD after being very happy with the first one. When trying to connect to the second SHD (pre-owned) via USB and using miniDSP device control I get no connection, however, it works well with my first SHD. Could it be that I need an old usd driver to connect to the pre-owned SHD?

Can you reproduce audio on the second one ? Just plug your computer and send audio via USB to check. Your computer should detect it has a USB audio device. If that works most probably it has older firmware so you'll need the older plugin.

MaheshK wrote:

Can someone kindly give me an assessment of the whole measurement process associated with Dirac and whether someone with limited knowledge can implement it by just following a detailed procedure? 

Also, would I need to use the Volumio App to stream from Tidal with this setup? 


 

Dirac measurement is pretty straightforward, the software instructs what you have to do.

You can use the Volumio app or Tidal Connect (in Tidal app) to stream from Tidal with the SHD.

Thank you for the clarifications. I am planning to set up a system using the Bluesound Node (used purely as a digital streamer for Tidal), a Benchmark DAC3 / LA4 preamp / AHB2 power amp. I haven't decided on the speakers yet. 

i assume the SHD studio will be placed between the Node and the DAC3. One question I have is this: will using Dirac mess with the MQA tracks streamed from Tidal? I assume it will not, because the Node will just do the first unfold and pass the digital bit stream to the SHD Studio. 

A comment on this would be most helpful. Thanks. 

Not only Dirac but the whole SHD would mess up MQA because the SHD converts everything to 96 kHz / 24 bit PCM format. Anyway, MQA is just a scam, a lossy format, it was originally developed to reduce internet bandwidth usage, nowadays it's pretty useless, the company is also bankrupt and probably MQA-less hi-res files on Tidal will coming. I would only use the Node if I wanted to use BluOS, otherwise Tdal Connect does it for me and I'm happy with my SHD Studio as a streamer.

Have you updated the FW to support the current DC control scheme on the older SHD? Look in the download section for the latest FW and tools required to do it.