I'm constantly reminded of the trend in the 1980s to get rid of all EQ controls in "high end" audio. For the last 40 years "audiophiles" had us listening to bright, harsh sounding systems (or dull ones) and considered those the holy grail. Well, we all know better now that a little EQ (especially considering the room acoustics and the response curves of speakers) can go a long way to allowing us to enjoy the music better. And now we have DSP that can automatically make micro-EQ adjustments that a human with an old 31-band EQ never could, but we are still supposed to "pooh-pooh" using it. For those of you with perfect, dedicated listening rooms, more power to you. But the rest of us live in the real world. I mean look at all the above $100K systems that sound like crap in the hotel rooms of audio shows. That alone shows you that the room is the 500-pound gorilla that you need to deal with one way or another. DSP is but one way, but it is convenient. Then room treatment (if you can get away with it and you have a compliant spouse) is the other.
The same for loudness buttons or contour controls. High End audio since the 90s has been lead by guys who couldn't describe what the Fletcher - Munson curve is.
@@KallusGarnet yes, or at least don't kid yourself that the room isn't important. Even if you can't treat it completely, mitigating some reflections can go a long way.
It would do so much good for all the audiophiles’ mental well-being if they stopped constantly seeking everyone else’s approval. Do whatever makes you happy, play some tunes, and move on with life!
For most people the cost associated with the return is not worth the 💰💰 Whether it’s with movies or music. That is why laptops, tablets & phones are more popular for music & movies. They all have the latest Codec’s with OLED screens. No need for a TV. Bluetooth or wired headphones and or two small speakers is all that is needed. You can move everything from room to room easy enough or even outside. The big investment is the phone, tablet, laptop & “maybe” the headphones & small speakers. Nothing else is needed for music & movies.
@@georgemartinezza LOL. You don’t need to be a “audiophile” to enjoy movies and music. If there are people feel the need for 💰💰💰 that is their personal preference, nothing wrong with it. Paul is in the business of selling his product line. Nothing wrong with that. People can buy what suits them best. What I find weird is all Paul’s letters and e-mail’s are from people that have problems with their rather expensive systems..LOL. To me that is comical and entertaining because they spent a small to a large fortune on products. I guess misery loves company. LOL.
@@davidfromamerica1871 the only one thing that kicks my imagination is: "audiophile". the word, the ter, the stereotype. When some kid is diagnosed as "indigo kid" then starts a life and a wave of behaviors and complex things around that. without the diagnose, it would be defferent without extra worries. when the Audiophile was invented, the freedom was caught in a box. nobody noticed they were audiophiles without worry till someone said it. :00)
Most people can't even get their car in their garage they have so much crap stuffed in it. I would guess most people have their speakers where space dictates, 12'" from the wall and shoved in amongst entertainment center furniture and end tables, with a big ottoman between them and their speakers. That's the real world. Hence Dirac.
As someone who sold High End audio, the vast majority of audiophile systems are set up in untreated rooms. A large percentage of dedicated home theaters are acoustically treated. There is consensus in the dedicated Home Theater crowd that room correction systems like Dirac Live make a positive difference in their system for 2 channel listening. I'm more likely to listen to those guys, than someone selling gear to people to use in untreated rooms.
I'm with you. In any untreated or lightly treated room, I'll take a basic receiver with room correction over a high end setup with no digital intervention especially if there is a subwoofer involved. I've spent too much on high end amps and preamps only for my theater in a garage and a basic receiver in my bedroom blow them away on how it actually sounds in room. I quit buying "high end" audio almost exclusively for that reason two years ago. High end speakers can make sense because build and driver quality will directly effect sound, but 1000's on amps and preamps that are more expensive for the lack of digital intervention is a complete rip off.
Dirac works EXACTLY as good on stereo as it does in a home theater. There is NO difference. Well except for Paul that want's to sell his book full of even more nonsense tips.
I have a dedicated fairly large room that is acoustically treated. I just purchased a pre/pro with Dirac Live. My system is in the 10k range all in, 2 speakers and sub. The difference Dirac made was incredible. It's a shame many audiophiles will turn up their nose to such an amazing product. These are probably the same folks who were devastated over the MoFi scandel..lol
I have a setup of similar cost but the speakers are diy so the ultimate value is higher but the room is most important as such i have put in a lot more diy money and effort into treatment(lots of diffusers). You can setup a hifi system to be flat +/- 2 db without using digital dsp except in the lows. Since I own a minidsp shd(dirac in a box), I set it up in my system . The sound quality died hard. I remeasured it about a handful of times and followed best prectices for making the curves but the clarity and soundtage suffered. All the music was playing closer to me. I'm sure it works in your system but it definitely doesn't work in mine. Dirac used to do great things in my system when I had a less treated room( only absorbers), worse quality electronics but of similar price, and less experience in speaker setup.
the fact is hi end audio and living room are mutually exclusive, so fixing crappy audiophile speakers in a acoustically crappy room by any means is a good idea and Dirac does it very well
Hi Paul, I've been involved with audio equipment going back to the mid-70s, so I don't come at this with a limited background. I've owned countless preamps, power amps, and speaker systems and after about 9 months I would end up flipping that gear for something new because the sound just wasn't quite right. Then at one point about 15+ years ago I picked up Yamaha's top of the line receiver with YPAO (room correction). At the time, I had a set of Paradigm Studio 20s, which in my buddy's hi-fi store sounded great, but in my music room didn't. So, I took the time to understand what YPAO was doing and learned how to tweak it. Once done, magically the Studio 20s sounded fantastic. Fast forward to today, I'm in a new location with a Rotel amp and a pair of KEF LS50 Metas. In my room, they are all but unlistenable due to room gain. Paradigm still sells their PW Link room correction module that runs Anthem Room Correction software. With ARC, almost magically the KEFs were transformed. While I appreciate your perspective and experience on the issue, I couldn't disagree with you more regarding room correction for a two-channel system. Why go through all the guesswork when in five minutes a software program like ARC can sweep the room and get rid of room-related anomalies in a two-channel system.
I recently started treating my room, slowly adding absorption and diffusion panels. I use REW to measure the before and after effects. The largest improvements I made was just positioning the speakers perperly before I hung the first panel. The panels helped alot with the RT60 times but the basic response changes were small.
Hi Paul, With all due respect, you probably didn’t have the time to actually play and fine tune Dirac Live in order to say that. Dirac doesn’t work like a magic button that will automatically solve all sound issues, and I’d argue that if you leave it on its default settings, most people won’t like the sound (a flat in-room response is not what we like as humans, because we’re not listening on anechoic chambers - Thank God!). Even those analog recordings that you likely (also) use while making demos were most likely than not mastered with very expensive room EQ, even if it was mainly EQ back in the analogue days, which makes a very strange argument for anyone to expect having a similar experience in a regular room (even if acoustically treated, like mastering studios always were), just by trying to “EQ” with speciality audio cables…😉 The direct sound from any loudspeaker will be the minority of sound that reaches our ears, with all the reflections counting as the majority. Since we’re using our hifi systems in regular rooms (mostly), the off-axis behavior of any loudspeaker and what the room does it is extremely important on what we actually hear. I don’t have a hard time believing that your huge Infinity loudspeakers may sound amazing on your room, but that’s not a realistic setup for most people (even serious audiophiles). You still need a good source, a good amplification, and good loudspeakers (no question about it). On some (relatively) rare occasions, just by the correct placement of a “good sounding” room it may happen that the systems sounds better without any EQ at all (you still have to deal with all the different mastering choices if you don’t want to be stuck to the recordings that sound great on a particular system, and this is where removing tone controls was a huge mistake in the audio business, as a tone defeat button would keep the purists - or those lucky enough to reach the right equipment/room pairing happy). But on most living rooms, Dirac Live can make a night and day difference for the better, _if_ the end user is able to put the effort on learning how to tune it, or pay someone experienced to tune it for them. It’s not by accident that most of the high-end professional monitor manufacturers have built in DSP to fine tune the response of the monitors to the very specific acoustics of every studio (they all have different acoustical properties, as clearly proven some decades ago). IMHO, being able to fine tune a good sound system to the room that they’re in is the ultimate audio achievement that any audiophile should aim for. Just don’t expect it to guess what’s the sound you love the most by pressing one button and leaving the automated process giving you the best results. I’d argue that by leaving it on full auto calibration mode, you’re probably set for a disaster…🙂 Cheers.
There's a fundamental misunderstanding here of what Dirac Live is, and who it is meant for. It is not meant as a replacement for speaker placement and room treatments, but as either an alternative where the aforementioned is not possible or practical or is cost-prohibitive. It is not aimed at people with the flexibility of being able to move their speakers and listening positions will-nilly, or necessarily have the budget for extensive room treatments for a dedicated musiclistening room IN ADDITION to a home theater space. It's also not aimed exclusively at 2ch enthusiasts (although it does make many 2ch claims). Rather, it is PRIMARILY aimed at correction for multichannel systems in medium to large spaces that involve multiple seating positions where some positions could easily get overwhelmed by certain speakers over others, which only DSP can effectively resolve.
Nice old Moog Modular! I used to be their QM. Was a great company with very dedicated folks building amazing synthesizers with devotion to that classic Moog sound.
Dirac is, as Paul says, great for everything you *can’t* change in your setup. For me, I use marks on the floor to pull out my standmount speakers for listening, but my sub is too big and ugly to move from its hidey hole. So I just use Dirac for everything below 200Hz to minimize “room boom.” Maybe not ideal, but the damage to the audio is minimal. I suppose that is the point: minimize damage.
@@Harald_Reindl OPs initial comment definitely do not indicate nearfield listening, and even though nearfield listening takes away a lot of the room factor, you will be surprised how much room you would still hear, not as much as mid or far field but still a surprising amount.
@@AbsoluteFidelity don't change the fact that bringing speaks 50 centimeters nearer reduces the room impact - only idiots would move them back after found a perfect positioning
I agree with you Paul. I recently upgraded my home theatre with KEF Reference + REL and tried two top tier receivers with Dirac live + their base control module, and also tried an Anthem MRX1140, Denon 8500 and Marantz 8015. While all of the room correction systems did a great job, I still preferred my system with careful manual speaker positioning and setup with a sound level meter and dialing in the subs (manually).
Happily using Dirac Live (miniDSP DDRC-24) on 2 systems, including my primary (expensive) system, for both sub integration and room correction and they are simply superb in what they can do, esp lower frequencies. Most of us simply don't have ideal symmetric dedicated rooms that can be treated away easily and room treatments can get expensive very fast. I would recommend Dirac Live for beginners so that they can gain an understanding of what a flatter response sounds like and then work they way up to room treatment once they have identified their preferred sound profiles. The biggest drawback of DSP is that it works best for a small sweet spot while room treatments works for larger listening positions. DSP (at least to my understanding) only fixes frequency and time of arrival issues and cannot fix some fundamental room issues like echos. Also it takes a while to master taking the measurements. Against all recommendations, I use DSP at the very last stage (Analog-in/Analog-out) for my amplifier and speaker combinations instead of correcting things in the digital domain. This way, the tonality of the DAC and pre-amp is not impacted by DSP. I tried doing DSP before the DAC and found it to negatively affect the DAC's sound signature. End of the day, its all about enjoying music and I don't really worry about being a purist. Whatever works to entertain!
@@Harald_Reindl Exactly - which is why I stated "Against all recommendations..." but that is what sounds best in my setup after extensive A/B testing of doing DSP pre-dac vs. just before amp. To further improve the A2D/D2A performance I am using an iFi Power Elite 12v power supply that improved the soundstage noticeably. This is mainly entertainment for me and hence the "I don't really worry about being a purist" comment.
@@Harald_Reindl The miniDSP DDRC-22D is a pure digital box that sits BEFORE the DAC. It goes Digital Source -> DDRC-24D (DSP) -> DAC -> PRE/POWER AMP -> Speakers.
@@mrenlightened when you hear the soundstage changing because of a different power supply you have some brain damage and A/B testing only works if you don't know what is what
I do agree with Paul’s comment on room correction. It is much better to tune the sound by positioning the speakers and changing mechanical decoupling material.
The best use of digital correction is using it very subtly in a already properly placed system within a lightly treated room. The correction must happen as early in the signal path as possible, any conversion of analog to digital, back to analog will introduce noticeable degradation. All of this said just a little correction in a proper setup can really take a system to the next level.
Actually, Paul has admitted, in his videos, that he can't get a good bass response from his FR 30s and has had to supplement his $30,000 speakers with another manufacturer's subwoofers, which he has stated still don't give him good-sounding bass. This after spending literally thousands of dollars building special listening rooms and doing expensive room treatments.
@@JonAnderhub Probably because Paul's become accustomed to the effects of the Infinity IRS's bass array. The same occurs to people who install infinite baffle subs in their rooms.
Dear Paul, Most „normal“ music-hifi-lovers have not the possibility to create their perfect audio-envirement because they hear it in the living room. I use Dirac for my stereo-set and it delivers a very njce performance. Not only in the bass response but also in time-alignement. People with dedicated listening rooms may have no problems. But this is the minority. Room Correction is ot the holy gral but a very usefull tool.
If you think about it logically a speaker does not know the difference between music and a movie sound track it just plays the signal it’s being fed. That busts the whole notion that Dirac Live is only suitable for home theatre when you think about logically. If it improves home cinema it will improve HiFi the same, how can it not? Dirac Live helps you manage the sound of any audio system in any room, use it correctly and it will give far greater benefits than any losses which are always minor. No head in a vice needed either Paul no idea where that notion comes from it’s totally not true because that is not what is happening.
I think you're missing the point. In a 2 channel system you're only driving two speakers (or two speakers and a sub) so you don't need Dirac to do room correction. In a home theatre system you're dealing with 7,8,9,10 etc speakers, so the logistics of having each of those moved about, toed-in, is just not feasible. I use Dirac for surround sound films and gaming, and firmly off when I'm listening to 2 channel stereo as Dirac is simply not very good when it comes to 2-channel presentation.
@@richardt3371 "in a 2 channel system you're only driving two speakers (or two speakers and a sub) so you don't need Dirac to do room correction" is nonsense easily to prove when i dsiable room correction in stereo mode (and my room acoustics is damend good)
@@richardt3371 why? In reality listening to more speakers makes you less sensitive to the sound of each individual speaker and room acoustical problems are the same regardless of how many speakers you are using. So it’s easier to make a case that’s it’s more important for 2 speakers than more speakers.
@@PursuitPerfectSystem Precisely because listening to more speakers makes you less sensitive - that's where Dirac can happily do its thing and you'll only notice improvements. If you have a good 2-channel stereo and use Dirac then you'll hear the artificiality of it and it will not sound as good as making the room and the speaker placement optimal. That you think room acoustics are the same for 2 channel as for multi-speaker sound kind of undermines your argument.
The next upgrade will NOT be available for those already having Dirac via older Receiver models, because it was planned that on March 2023, they'd be using a different DSP - hence, software included. For Bass control, it will need a firmware upgrade. After such upgrade, Denon and Marantz customers will be able to BUY A LICENSE in order to effectively use the software! Even though they've already paid for the technology by buying their specific Receiver... More over, one offering is around 230$, but with a limited bandwidth (the lower and higher ends of the bandwidth isn't accounted for, and a big chunk of it)! The second offering at 350$ for the full bandwidth!... IMHO this technology is a scam to milk their customers. _Source: an interview with a DIRAC representative by Audioholics, titled "Dirac Roadmap for 2022 Denon & Marantz AV Products", by Gene DellaSala - October 12, 2022._
I have yet to hear any room equalization tool so I cannot judge either way but what always baffles me is how people look down upon DSP but happily accept the extreme equalization of the RIAA curve.
@@Wizardofgosz I hardly need to be an expert to know not to put DSP in one sentence with RIAA correction. And I don't need to enlighten you. There is enough reading material on that subject to keep you occupied for years. Cheers.
@@Evertb1 I fully understand what the RIAA curve does (plus other non-standard equalisation curves, i.e. 78 rpm, Decca, etc.) and have a general grasp of different room corrections. What's your point?
@@Wizardofgosz I can't recall that I have said anything against DSP. So what is that bias I have? I use it myself in my home theater system. Nothing wrong with that. But the purpose of the RIAA correction on a phono stage in an amplifier is completely different. Enough said from my part.
@@volpedo2000 Sorry my English is not stellar but I try to explain why I think that RIAA should not be compared with things like DSP. RIAA is developed to mitigate some problems that had to do with cutting the records (mainly reducing the width of the grooves). I wont bother with the why's and how's here. Just let it be know that they changed the balance of the music by lowering the bass and uplifting the highs. To restore the balance you need to correct that when playing a record. RIAA was mainly intended to deal with a mechanical problem when producing vinyl records. Not a musical problem. I think that DSP is a whole other thing.
Dirac has its limitations….but as long as you understand what it can do, it can be a great addition to your 2-channel system. A great feature is, you can usually turn in on or off with the press of a button….sometimes even on a remote. I used to have Dirac for a couple years….but I have a dedicated room, and found that placement and setup resulted in a much better sound. But if you can’t do that, absolutely use Dirac….it can really transform your sound.
With all due respect for Paul, I think he is simply wrong about Dirac Live in audiophile systems. Fact is that most of us audiophiles do not have dedicated listening rooms, and hence big limitations for speaker placement and all. Room correction can then make a day and night difference. With regards to Dirac Live, this improvement is confirmed by series reviewers (for instance Stereophile). The Danish company Lyngdorf have their own, built-in room correction in their fully digital amplifiers, and receive much praise from the most serious magazines out there. Room correction makes a huge improvement not only in the bass, but also improved staging and clarity. In all normal rooms, that is. Dedicated, well-damped listening rooms is another story. BUT, such correction should be done fully in the "digital domain" only, to avoid any degradation of the signal. Taking an analogue signal and convert it for a DSP to do the job, is not ideal.
My system already sounds pretty good due to speakers and listening chair positioning, and also due to extensive room treatment. But using room correction DSP cleans it up further. The bass is noticeably cleaner and tighter.
I guess it depends on your needs, I love music and film. I want a great picture and excellent sound with both music and film. Using 2 channels of my home Cinema for music is actually very good (I have a separate 2 channel set up with valves and vinyl so an audiophile at heart). Although it hasn't been an easy journey with both. I do think DSP is necessary for good bass, especially if you are using a number of subs and want a wide seating area. Well thought through room treatment is enough in my view above 100 Hz, usually. I dont particularly like auto EQ, much better to understand what is going on and make the adjustments yourself. Even functions like auto alignment with REW are often the wrong compromise but easy to adjust listen and measure
Good that you do not like it, you have all the cash and rooms to do it the proper way. I have a resolving system and tested everything and only Dirac is working without a divorce from the esthetics commission. For me Dirac all the way, my speakers never sounded so good. I only have digital formats, no vinyl, and happy camper with Dirac. Best investment so far…
Sound ID is better You're not fixed to a certain spot but ideally mechanically done is the best, with a 31 band graphic equaliser and r e w and a calibrated mic, set it and leave it all of that should be under $250
Fircing yourself to use a graphic EQ for correction is perhaps the stupidest thing I've read this week You're right with REW and a calibrated mic, but a graphic EQ? That's basically being hell bent on making all that measurement effort completely worthless Graphic EQs are literally just Fixed PEQs That means you can't make the bands you need for correction 99.9% of the time Edit: wait, SoundID *and* REW?
I use a DSP for my serious 2 channel set up in the living room. Mostly to correct the bass since I have two REL subs. It's a living room and the subs will go where they need to go for decor reasons, not for audio perfection. The decor and room trump the audio. The DSP(Dspeaker) is limited to
Dirac live is like speakers, its an aquired taste. I tried it on my system and i actually hated it. I prefer the purity of letting components do their thing... afterall thats the fun of audiophile gear, mixing and matching to get the best system synergy to the owners ears... not forgetting room treatment as well
I think some of the points you make paint exactly why I do not want to be associated with audioph*les. The obsession with mythical stuff like gear matching and synergy. That to me is not fun at all and is disrespectful towards all what we know about audio and sound reproduction. It's like you're just in it to spend money on gear and feed your imagination. Speakers and correction are not "acquired tastes". We have decades of psychoacoustics research showing that clearly. It really isn't unless you have such broken hearing (that one can acquire! Usually this is confused with "taste") that it is far beyond comparison to what at least 70% of the populace has. Sound and audio both are fundamentally objective. It's just that decades of audiophile marketing has convinced the masses of the anti-intellectual approach to audio - refuse the likes of actual great minds in audio like Floyd Toole, Earl Geddes, Sean Olive, Bruno Putzeys, embrace TH-cam audio marketing engineers. Let me guess, you tried it once, never tried customizing it beyond its (admittedly questionable and terrible) defaults? Or you were so used to compensating for room mode peaks in your brain that you didn't want to listen to better bass for more than half a minute? Be honest
@@serg2963 Psychoacoustics don't really support your comment. You may think it does, but your experience "seemingly contradicts" what is accepted in the scientific community. It doesn't however. Mainly because chances are very good that Dirac was used improperly in whatever place you tried it at. Very few showrooms bother changing the default settings, which they should. Dirac defaults to full range correction and a bass light target. If you don't limit the full range correction to an appropriate point for the room and distance to speakers, you will experience problems in the upper midrange and treble. I'm sure 99% of audiophiles don't know even how to roughly predict their room's transition frequency.
If you place speakers next to the wall, you will get a lot of negativity in the sound, the sound image will tend to be darker and deeper, which is not always good, the speaker will then not play flat or even flat! You will get a lot of coloration at some frequencies
@@markrowe8824 if you have a speaker that does not have the best sound in brighter frequencies, darker frequencies such as bass can cover this in a way and you no longer feel that the speakers are too bright or sharp. most speakers are not designed this way but are designed where you should preferably have as little contact as possible with other surfaces or NOT put it next to a wall
thats why youve DSP to correct the Peaks. Its Math you can calculate or measure where youve Dips or Cancellaions in the Freq Range on the Listening position. There, where youve the least cancellation problems, there you place your speaker and the rest you correct via software
Speaker setup, room treatment, and finally DSP. If you want to do only bass correction for subs, then look into Multi Sub optimization or Dirac Live bass control. Bass control is not as simple as pumping power into a null. You'll risk damaging speakers. Now, if you bring both phase and amplitude into the picture, then bass control becomes less "dangerous" which is what Dirac bass control is about. On the other hand, full range Dirac live is actually suited for mid bass and mid range...take what Paul is saying with a pinch of salt! 😉 He comes off as an elitist and sometimes unscientific! What can we say? It is a free internet.
I understand where he comes from, but at least here in EU many of us live in apartments, where you can't simply position the speakers 1m from the wall, or have a dedicated music room where you can do as much room conditioning as you want. Most of the times you just have your system in the dining room with the speakers against a white painted wall, and that's it.............. Audiophilia is a sickness, really. I have been listening to music all my life and I find spending 500€ on a speaker cable just pure nonsense. I have even heard about cable break-in period !! 😀...........Long story short, your system, your rules. I have a 1/3 octave stereo eq and I am very happy with it. They have even removed the loudness button from amps, because "it messes with the purity of the sound". Hello ?? Fletcher-Munson curves ??? Did you know that your favorite record that you play through your 30000€ sound system with NO eq and esoteric cable was recorded through an SSL console with 4 parametric EQ's per channel (72-100 channels in total, you do the math !!), using all sort of "impure" outboard gear like tube EQ's (distortion) and -God Forbid- compressors ??. AND worse of it all...........mixed through a pair of REALLY non-audiophile Yamaha NS10M's ????....... Most audophiles would have a heart attack in a recording studio... Sorry for the rant.....bottom line...... spend more time listening to music and less time listening to components :)
Audessy works good. There's a few tricks, if you take a Class 1 measurement mic and use that instead, take the readings. Then use your own pink noise to take an impulse response & spectrogram of the room then use that A weighted spectral data to manually edit the Audessy base curve. I've engineered for years and it's sounds nice to me, of course I A/B on & off where it suits best. SPEAKERS MUST be set up perfectly before measurements and to get the best sound have your listening position 7-8 feet away (but experiment) so you hear the incident sound path first.
My new speakers are a bit bright. With those I also bought an Arcam SA30, which came with Dirac. I found it took care of the top end but really gutted everything else. The base and mids were so flat and lifeless. I thought the same thing, Dirac is crap. But then I took the time to really play with it a bit. Never mind the curve it plots for you. Get in there and fiddle with it. I now have the highs where I want them and the bass and mids, well it’s just sweet! I was worried that my new Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G’s were not the same ones I auditioned but now they sound fantastic. Sure, if I had a massive room and no wife I might have been able to get there without Dirac, but as many have already mentioned we don’t all have the luxury of being able to utilize other forms of room correction. I think Dirac is great.
This is so true. Anyone who knows how real world instruments sound, and has a musical ear, can easily pinpoint problems with digitally corrected audio. This sort of correction simply does not respect the physical nature (mechanical properties) of the loudspeaker drivers and what they are capable of. I had a car with a Dirac branded stereo system recently, the most lifeless, uninspiring sound I've ever heard, seriously a joke.
for once i agree with Paul , dirac or is it ' drac ' enemy mine with lizard aliens . drac sent me no activation key after spending out on stromaudio elite mkIII 32 , that supports drac eq and even setting up was hassle , even getting it to handshake with elite mkIII , hassle , even the slow boring of auto eq was starting to vex me , i get easily vexed at hi fi rubbish like , drac live eq . i will never use drac eq in my complex home THX cinema , b-chain i never use it
What I know about any aspect of life which is casually inspected is that keeping track the "ifs-&-buts" is all-important and that there are people out there who base their whole professional lives on doing so. It all reminds me of a currently prominent politician who claimed that he was no longer going to use or pay attention to experts. I want the media to point his claim out to him in asking him whether he is going to do his own dentistry, and do so every time he calls a press conference. If he responded, I am sure that "ifs and buts" would flow like a river.
Paul you really do a great job in answering tough questions and I like your opinions. But I disagree about using Dirac Live in just a two channel setup. Dirac Live might have a sweet spot, yes but it also can compensate for a wide seating arrangement to where I don't feel I'm missing out anywhere in the room. So I'm not sure your locked into as you said, in a vice position. It can overcome that ideal environment as he mentioned and as is in my case also. Dirac Live made a night and day difference for me. But to each his own as you said. But, please keep up the good work. Your a smart man. Cheers, Dave😁
Your right i used room correction for my dolby atmos setup works well for surround sound but does not work for stereo audio and things like cd tape or stereo inputs
You spend a substantial portion of your hard earned cash on a decent, premium hifi system, then feel the need to alter it’s sonic reproduction by employing some form of DSP. Admittedly, it’s taken me years of experimentation and trial and error, and it’s been a learning curve, establishin just what I’m looking for from my system. But, once all that has fallen into place, the need, or, imagined need for DSP is negated. Like Paul often says, ‘for every action, there are compromises’ or, consequences. DSP can augment certain aspects of the audio spectrum, but often at the expense of detriment to other areas. I only have a 2 channel system. I don’t have any type of multi channel home theatre system. Paul says DSP works in that environment. I’m unable to dispute that. A classic example:- a well renowned and highly respected TH-cam hifi reviewer, recently seriously upgraded his ‘high end’ reference system. He now confidently claims that DSP does nothing to enhance his upgraded system. He did find it an advantage in his previous system. That speaks volumes and backs up my experience that, you get the sound your looking for by putting together the right combination of electronics and speakers and DSP becomes superfluous. All that having been said. We are all individuals. We all have our own personal taste and preferences and listening environment restrictions and limitations. You should not be afraid, or ashamed of using whatever vest works for you. Most of all, enjoy the music!
@@Harald_Reindl if you want to eliminate the room? Use headphones. No? Thought not, headphones are great, but lack the ambiance created by speakers in a room.
Lyngdorf has a better implementation as it measures the whole room, not just the listening position. Also, some high end speakers now also use dsp...look at the linkwitz system for example. It's improving all the time and the vast majority dont have dedicated listening rooms so dsp is the best way to extract the best out of you system in those circumstances.
The guys who overwhelming poo poo digital room correction are the ones primarily listening in untreated, and shared-space listening environments, while the home theater crowd, who are more likely to listen in a treated dedicated space are saying they can't live without digital room corrections. Its hilarious to think about.
@@ronharms8214 depends on person likings probably and room, equipment etc. etc. But from my experience RP seems to be much preferred versus Dirac. But it could be the other way ofcourse. Cheers
Actually I am a huge fan of fully active systems, but Paul ain't wrong, in respects to set up the system as best you can first and then, if you want, tune it with DSP fully after to get the best of both worlds; but always initial set up is vital to get the most out of 2 channel. Also I am a big fan of analog too though, because some of them have just this pure mind blowing magic in them too! A shrink might say I suffer from split personality disorder if the Dr. was an audiophile too, while knowing we all are a bit. 🤪 Another great video Paul, keep them coming!
I think most people do have all digital systems tho... most people do nowadays, theres more DSP available than ever from your phone to your headphones, soundbars, etc... Not to mention theres so many new spatial algorithms built for spatial audio~
I agree. My setup already measurses fairly flat except in lows where I use filters. Since I own a minidsp shd(dirac in a box), I set it up in my system . The sound quality died hard. I remeasured it about a handful of times and followed best prectices for making the curves but the clarity and soundstage suffered. All the music was playing closer to me. Dirac used to do great things in my system when I had a less treated room( only absorbers), worse quality electronics but of similar price, and less experience in speaker setup.
With all due respect, I think all speakers need room correction. Even best hi-end speakers still can sound lousy in some room. Even in treated room, you still have reflections and room interaction. That beeing said, I do not think that just running some room correction without later measurements and tweaking will do the job 100% great. But using room correction, getting results to REW, measuring and understanding results you will get better results then without doing anything to high frequencies.
I think it is really hard to find a pre-amp/receiver (most likely a home theather processor) that comes with room correction (such as Dirac Live), which sounds better than a "traditional" component, that was made purely for listening to stereo music. What brands could you seriously consider? Trinnov, Storm Audio, Emotiva? But still, a pure stereo component just blows them away
The arcam range! I've gone through my fareshare of equipment and it's only when I got to the arcam HDA range that not only was I satisfied with HT but I was actually more satisfied with it's stereo. Btw it also has dirac.
Heutzutage doch nicht mehr. Kein Mensch braucht mehr große Monoblöcke. Bezüglich ,,klingt besser,, hast du eine DSP basiertes System im Blindtest gegen ein normales Stereo Setup getestet ? Wette 99% der Leute würden eine korrigierte Anlage vorziehen wo für die Elektronik weniger Geld reingeflossen ist, als wenn vorne eine große Endstufe steht. Ein mit zB ConeQ, Dirac, Genelec SAM, Neumann MA1 basiertes, korrigiertes System hat immer bessere Chancen. Außer man steht auf seine Raummoden aber dann brauchste halt auch keine Geld für teure Endstufen oder Lautsprecher ausgeben
@@totalplonker824I’m looking at Arcam as well. How does it sound without Dirac, for both HT and 2ch listening? I’m on the fence about Dirac, and feel like I just want a great sounding AVR that I can set up manually and have great sound.
I used the audiophile’s guide for my music/ht system which is also in the living room. I don’t have a lot of room to fully implement the guide but even the minor adjustments I was able to make in terms of toe-in and slight positioning adjustments have made a significant improvement to the overall sound. While not everyone can set up their gear in ideal conditions, you can get the best positioning possible within your limitations and improve overall performance.
Dirac Live??? Nah. Back in the 70's we did this by moving our speakers away from the wall, making the sound stage expand by having a couple strong people angle the speakers slowly and slightly towards each other until the person sitting in the sound chair smiled and we hit the sweet spot. I still use this technique, although without the weed of the 70's and still have found an amazing sweet spot with an expanding (phantom) middle stage. Works every time.
I agree with Paul. Dirac inverses RIR of spk-room-omni-mic, but then feeds the signal into ear which is not omni. From a mathematical perspective, it's utterly meaningless.
dirac did not do good things for my stereo system. i have all digital sources and adding my own parametric eq by dsp made a world of difference. i have a tiny room but it is acoustically treated. i only expect my dsp settings to adjust for volume, dirac can do more than that. and i do my adjustment with my ears, dirac needs a mic. with bass, dirac and i disagreed that 20hz and 100hz was at same volume, i heard that and also had mic measurement to show it. anyone can do a frequency sweep and listen for themself and tell if that system with the hearing they have if the frequency band is evenly reproduced.
I bought Pauls book on speaker placement and used that to dial in my system and it helped imaging, I also have a decent amount of acoustic panels in my room, 15 panels anywhere from 5 to 18in thick, and those helped a lot, then I got Dirac Live and it was big improvement that built on top of those other improvements and my system sounds so much better, room modes were greatly reduced, detailed bass, etc. I'd recommend doing all three if you can.
Alot of people say avr are terrible with music, i have the new flagship denon avr and i went into a store and demoed a aethos and supernait3 with a naim streamer connected to them, it was no better than my denon, so i think alot of people are just jumping on the bandwagon and saying this without actually listening to it, im no expert in audio, but in a way im glad of that as all i care about is what it sounds like not what the figures are that everyone goes on about
There's nothing wrong with Dirac Live or any other room correction software. It's dumb that anyone wouldn't want to use the sweep ability in room correction software to analyze what's going on with the sound and audio system in their room setup.
All this from a guy that spent thousands of dollars building special listening rooms, and thousands of dollars on room treatments, for a pair of $30,000 speakers that he can't get to give him a good bass response in these specially built rooms, so he has to add subwoofers from another company and still can't get a good bass response that sounds good, by his own admission. However, he wants you to buy his book on speaker setup rather than use DIRAC?
What is it with subs in 2 channel. If you have great kit you shouldn’t need one. I just bought a pair of Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G’s and I have all the low end I need.
Damn! I really thought the gloves were coming off when he removed his glasses. My wife heard the question and ran in to see the reaction of the calmest audiophile on the internet . 💀😆
Paul, try RoomPerfect DSP from Lyngdorf , even in a treated room it does wonders, let alone normal living rooms. P.S. Dirac makes the sound lifeless, for 2 channel you are completely right, not worth it also from my experience. RoomPerfect is another league, and this is the future even if we want it or not.
I have always done the best I can with speaker placement. In practical terms, that means they go in the only spots where they they will fit and I live with it.
So after all that,the only real reason i heard was dirac is great if your in the digital domain but not in the anologue. So really simply put hes stating not to add additional a/d d/a conversion in the signal chain. Trouble with that statement, is that all the digital content he mentioned started its life as anologue content 😂, it just got convertwd to digital before broadcast. So really it just depends on how much your willing to spend on the seperate a/d and d/a converters on an all digital ins outs dsp and ofcourse the dsp. If you want as close to perfection i would argue the ability to tune a response with fir filters in a 2 ch set up is criticaly required
Digital room correction is great if you are paying attention to the TV and not the audio. It changes the sound too much and adds some unnatural sound signature of its own. For purely music I agree better with it off.
Dirac Live rules. Nothing above Schroeder gets touched, just because my system now is as good as it will get in my MLP. But Dirac works wonders for less than perfect systems and rooms. Show us a measurement of what you are getting in your MLP with the 30s, we all would like to know what kind of response you are getting with all the good ol tips and trick.
Increasingly systems are using online streaming only as it allows lossless master high quality audio to be played. DSP room correction can do well in such systems of the future but of course you start with getting the room acoustics right as per Paul’s recipe and then you DSP compensate only a tiny amount for what is needed (perhaps up to +3dB/-6dB). Too much and Paul is right. Well, that is to get the response flat, but flat is not ideal for low level listening due to the Fletcher Munson psychoacoustics. I should also add the fact that personally I add 5dB at 12kHz to rejuvenate age related loss in the treble. That does wonders. Being against DSP for other than bass is not meaningful anymore to me.
When I sold High End audio in the early 2000s, even back then, turntables were in less than 40% of the customers systems that cost $20k+. Turntables are a niche within the audiophile hobby.
Come on guys you haven’t understood the basics of life and the Mind. Listening is subjective and personal. Just because Paul is the boss of a high end company means nothing . If it sounds good to you then it’s good. What’s true for you is all that matters
Paul you are true , dirac is not accurate by harman ,and I hate it too why volume is not balanced . Who is dirac actually .They can't do it , only Kipple audio systems , b&k much better than dirac or rew can determine own no need auto correction tool just for analog is the best of all .
Same setup: tv in the middle, L & R the speakers, sounds ok. But when tv gets broken and taken away…whow what sounds the music good! So it seems that also the tv can cause sound problems.
@Douglas Blake Nope, they were always lined up with the back of the speaker and tv, so baffle is about 30cm in front of tv. Hope the room correction of my new Lyngdorf amp can solve this.
@@markwillems4826 when my TV got taken away for repair I also had the same experience as yourself! Fortunately for me the TV got written off, which of course gave me the opportunity to purchase one of those no-gap wall mount TVs (LG OLED gallery series) even though there was a slight audio improvement compared to the previous cabinet mounted TV... it was only when I moved the stereos forward another foot did I really notice the best improvement. But to be honest I think thats more down to Boundary interference from the front wall rather than anything to do with the TV. Even though I've got dirac live with my arcam avr/amps there's nothing like getting ones stereo speaker placement correct in the beginning! Even though I practically fall over my right stereo speaker every time I go to the kitchen. It's so well worth it 😁 If interested here's a 3-minute video of what it looks and sounds like... th-cam.com/video/e-B3kjyLvwA/w-d-xo.html
DSP should only be used if you do not have speakers with good sound quality or if you have a difficult room. Many newer Denon cinema receivers have a microphone and DSD!
nonsense. thats the complete opposite why you should use a Correction. DSP is not there to make bad Speaker great. Or why Genelec or Neumann have / uses their own correction ? because theyre bad... not realy
Agree 100%! Dirac for two channel is just pointless - I'd even go so far as to say it has a negative impact on the quality of sound in a stereo system. Now, for home cinema, Dirac, or Audyssey or whatever calibration system the amp uses, is a no-brainer. The idea of having to find the sweet spot for every speaker in a 7.1 channel system is just not happening - let the software deal with that, and it does it brilliantly in my set-up.
I absolutey loathe room correction. I get it in live music venues, but it completely and utterly removes any musicality and natural timbre from the music. I heard one pair of speakers that has built in DSP's that performs well, the Kii Three. But other than that, every room correction, or even any active correction, even MFB, to me just makes the music sound like it comes from an artifically sweetened can, not from instruments. Yes, I do hear the upsides and it's amazing how it makes the room disappear, and when you switch, in a badly treated room, from correction to no correction it sounds like an absolue hollow, echo-ey mess at first. But then at some point you start hearing the musicality again and I'm sorry, but it's just not a good way to fix a problem.
LOL!!! That's funny how you talk about removing musicality and the natural timbre of the music while listening to speakers with harmonic distortions and phase shifts caused by electronic cross-over networks. Talk about music that is artificially sweetened what is your choice of "sweetening" in drivers? Planars, ribbons, beryllium domes, paper, carbon fiber, aluminum, kevlar? None of this exists in the "natural instruments". While everybody would love to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building the ultimate sound room, the truth of the matter is that very few people have that luxury. While room construction and treatment is the most desirable way to deal with room issues, today digital DSP can not only analyze room issues but can compensate for room anomalies and speaker anomalies and in turn take the room out of the equation creating a better listening experience.
@@richardt3371 moron my walls and ceiling are concrete / cement and so bass needs a lot of membrane-absorber to get the fullrange reverb time below 300 ms - that's physics and can be measured
100% agree: stick to the frequencies below 500hz or even better Schroeder frequency. Everything else is speaker correction The rest is easy to handle by diffusors and absorbers in room friendly sizes.
Dirac did not work for me with my higher end two channel system for music listening. Waste of money and set up by a pro. Made the sound thin and took away the soundstage and magic. Paradigm 100F, JL sub, Nad C-658, Nad C-298 digital system. I do not use Dirac for my room.
i had same experience, i think that happens for a lot of people using dirac, its when you let a microphone measurement do the adjustment. if you do it by your own ears then it can only get better. especially lowering the bright spots and increasing the bass extension.
The reason why Tommy, and countless others, are in favor of Digital Sound Processing (DSP) for acoustical room corrections, is because he never heard a professionally set-up, high-end stereo. Few people have -- including viewers of this channel. Most people have low-end or modest systems, where the DSP makes their music sound better. It also makes it sound worse, in some respects. But most people do not hear the bad part, because they never heard a professionally set-up, high-end stereo. If all you have ever eaten are frozen TV dinners, then you do not recognize the less than stellar quality. And so it is with music. Most people think that Bose is the best that $$ can buy. They cannot imagine that anything could sound better. So for such modest quality systems, being listened to by people that never heard the good stuff, DSP works for them. They are not lying when they say it sounds better with DSP. Folks that own or have heard professionally set-up, high-end systems will immediately hear the sound degradation if they added a DSP box to their signal chain. So why does a DSP box kill the sound quality on such stereos? It is because those stereos are highly revealing, and they reveal the lackluster sound quality of the DSP box. No DSP boxes are on par with a high-end pre-amp. And when you introduce a DSP box to your signal chain, you are inserting another pre-amp (and an active one, which is even worse). If you have a stereo where well recorded songs sound like the band is really there (not just sound really good, but sound like they are actually there), then a DSP box will make that sound image vanish. The sound image will go from "I can reach out and touch them", to "It sounds like a reproduction; a good recording". There is nothing wrong with DSP for stereos that are between low end and mid-fidelity (depending on the quality of the DSP box). But for high-end gear, steer clear of DSP boxes. Steer clear of adding anything non-essential to the signal chain.
I’ve listened to countless high-end systems and you are perhaps right that most people have not. However, I can also assure you that those systems very often can sound better with some slight DSP compensation when used properly and when the music is digital from source such that you don’t end up with multiple conversions in the path. Also, even the most expensive high-end system can not defy the psychoacoustics of Fletcher Munson and most people listen to music at less than the intended volume level for what enables ideal tonal balance. Thus, even loudness compensation is a real deal for the highest performing system. So many times I’ve been listening to a system that sounded awesome at higher volume levels but lost the excitement when playing at lower volumes. As professional in audio R&D I’ve done countless listening test sessions and you can easily find that people will praise the system with some slight DSP compensation even in a US$200,000 system, if done right.
@@ThinkingBetter "I’ve listened to countless high-end systems and you are perhaps right that most people have not. However, I can also assure you that those systems very often can sound better with some slight DSP compensation when used properly and when the music is digital from source such that you don’t end up with multiple conversions in the path." Introducing that extra box will degrade the signal. Even if you left every control on neutral, you are sending the signal through that box's active processors. The best way to have a virtually pure signal is to not have any boxes that are not 100% necessary for playing music. "Thus, even loudness compensation is a real deal for the highest performing system." Not a single high-end pre-amp includes a loudness control. I could be mistaken. There are many high-end pre-amps. I know of none that include a loudness control. Since you assert that the highest performing systems benefit from a loudness control, you should be able to name two high-end pre-amps that have a loudness control. As to the Fletcher Munson effect: If you were in the studio, with the band, and they were playing very softly, you would hear what you would hear. Their bass guitar's strings will generate the tones that they generate. When I listen at home, I want to hear the same thing. If I boost the bass, then I am not hearing the band as they are. I am, instead, hearing a box in my room. You are in favor of artificially enhancing the sound of instruments. I am not. High end systems enhance nothing. Please list the name of the manufacturers and models of each box in the high-end system you listened to that benefited by a loudness control. Include every component (turntable, tone-arm, cartridge, DAC, transport, pre-amp, amps, speakers, interconnects, power cords, power conditioning, and room treatments).
@@Wizardofgosz Well, you are right. You can get super audiophile performance for a few Dollars nowadays. Right now I’m sitting at work in an office building listening to some 7Hz Timeless AE planar earbuds ($260) with a simple DAC (EarStudio ES100 MK2, $90), and even at work I can assure you this can sound better than some US$200,000 systems that I’ve listened to. I also own some Hifiman Sundara that I can highly recommend for cheap entry into audiophile qualities. I don’t even use my expensive Stax electrostatics anymore cause they lost in the bass. My home office setup is with a pair of KEF LSX II and a Velodyne servo subwoofer they run directly connected to my iMac. In my other rooms I’ve wasted too much money on audio gear and realize 90% of my listening is now while doing work or other things and not while just sitting in front of my audio system in a couch. I don’t have time for that these days.
@@georgemartinezza "what music or genre of music do you listen?" I listen to virtually everything, except opera and music with lyrics that have non-stop cursing. I listen mostly to music from the 1960s - 1980s. After that, I find that hit songs are a rarity. And many songs, after the year 2000, that are touted as hits, to me, are not. I also find that after the 1980s, the sound quality went down hill, too. What about you? What music or genre of music to you listen?
I'm constantly reminded of the trend in the 1980s to get rid of all EQ controls in "high end" audio. For the last 40 years "audiophiles" had us listening to bright, harsh sounding systems (or dull ones) and considered those the holy grail. Well, we all know better now that a little EQ (especially considering the room acoustics and the response curves of speakers) can go a long way to allowing us to enjoy the music better. And now we have DSP that can automatically make micro-EQ adjustments that a human with an old 31-band EQ never could, but we are still supposed to "pooh-pooh" using it. For those of you with perfect, dedicated listening rooms, more power to you. But the rest of us live in the real world. I mean look at all the above $100K systems that sound like crap in the hotel rooms of audio shows.
That alone shows you that the room is the 500-pound gorilla that you need to deal with one way or another. DSP is but one way, but it is convenient. Then room treatment (if you can get away with it and you have a compliant spouse) is the other.
Thats some good points, particularly hotel rooms. Im lucky as its just me and the cat, who incidentally loves Pink Floyd !
The same for loudness buttons or contour controls. High End audio since the 90s has been lead by guys who couldn't describe what the Fletcher - Munson curve is.
What i would say is get the best room you can then get the best speaks you can and work that way. 😂😂😂
@@KallusGarnet yes, or at least don't kid yourself that the room isn't important. Even if you can't treat it completely, mitigating some reflections can go a long way.
It would do so much good for all the audiophiles’ mental well-being if they stopped constantly seeking everyone else’s approval. Do whatever makes you happy, play some tunes, and move on with life!
For most people the cost associated with the return is not worth the 💰💰
Whether it’s with movies or music.
That is why laptops, tablets & phones are more popular for music & movies.
They all have the latest Codec’s with OLED screens. No need for a TV.
Bluetooth or wired headphones and or two small speakers is all that is needed. You can move everything from room to room easy enough or even outside. The big investment is the phone, tablet, laptop & “maybe”
the headphones & small speakers.
Nothing else is needed for music & movies.
everything starts since the "invented term" audiophile imposing the _you are, you aren't, you have, you don't have_
@@georgemartinezza
LOL. You don’t need to be a “audiophile” to enjoy movies and music. If there are people feel the need for 💰💰💰 that is their personal preference, nothing wrong with it. Paul is in the business of selling his product line. Nothing wrong with that.
People can buy what suits them best.
What I find weird is all Paul’s letters and e-mail’s are from people that have problems with their rather expensive systems..LOL.
To me that is comical and entertaining because they spent a small to a large fortune on products. I guess misery loves company. LOL.
@@davidfromamerica1871 the only one thing that kicks my imagination is:
"audiophile". the word, the ter, the stereotype.
When some kid is diagnosed as "indigo kid"
then starts a life and a wave of behaviors and complex things around that. without the diagnose, it would be defferent without extra worries.
when the Audiophile was invented, the freedom was caught in a box. nobody noticed they were audiophiles without worry till someone said it. :00)
Most people can't even get their car in their garage they have so much crap stuffed in it. I would guess most people have their speakers where space dictates, 12'" from the wall and shoved in amongst entertainment center furniture and end tables, with a big ottoman between them and their speakers. That's the real world. Hence Dirac.
As someone who sold High End audio, the vast majority of audiophile systems are set up in untreated rooms. A large percentage of dedicated home theaters are acoustically treated. There is consensus in the dedicated Home Theater crowd that room correction systems like Dirac Live make a positive difference in their system for 2 channel listening. I'm more likely to listen to those guys, than someone selling gear to people to use in untreated rooms.
I'm with you. In any untreated or lightly treated room, I'll take a basic receiver with room correction over a high end setup with no digital intervention especially if there is a subwoofer involved. I've spent too much on high end amps and preamps only for my theater in a garage and a basic receiver in my bedroom blow them away on how it actually sounds in room. I quit buying "high end" audio almost exclusively for that reason two years ago. High end speakers can make sense because build and driver quality will directly effect sound, but 1000's on amps and preamps that are more expensive for the lack of digital intervention is a complete rip off.
Here here 🎉🎉🎉
Dirac works EXACTLY as good on stereo as it does in a home theater. There is NO difference. Well except for Paul that want's to sell his book full of even more nonsense tips.
Absolute bollocks talk. Dirac is a fantastic tool in the fight against room issues. Night and day if done correctly.
You don't need Dirac. All you need is perfect speakers in a perfect room. Easy peasy.
I have a dedicated fairly large room that is acoustically treated. I just purchased a pre/pro with Dirac Live. My system is in the 10k range all in, 2 speakers and sub.
The difference Dirac made was incredible. It's a shame many audiophiles will turn up their nose to such an amazing product. These are probably the same folks who were devastated over the MoFi scandel..lol
I have a setup of similar cost but the speakers are diy so the ultimate value is higher but the room is most important as such i have put in a lot more diy money and effort into treatment(lots of diffusers). You can setup a hifi system to be flat +/- 2 db without using digital dsp except in the lows.
Since I own a minidsp shd(dirac in a box), I set it up in my system . The sound quality died hard. I remeasured it about a handful of times and followed best prectices for making the curves but the clarity and soundtage suffered. All the music was playing closer to me.
I'm sure it works in your system but it definitely doesn't work in mine.
Dirac used to do great things in my system when I had a less treated room( only absorbers), worse quality electronics but of similar price, and less experience in speaker setup.
the fact is hi end audio and living room are mutually exclusive, so fixing crappy audiophile speakers in a acoustically crappy room by any means is a good idea and Dirac does it very well
Hi Paul, I've been involved with audio equipment going back to the mid-70s, so I don't come at this with a limited background. I've owned countless preamps, power amps, and speaker systems and after about 9 months I would end up flipping that gear for something new because the sound just wasn't quite right. Then at one point about 15+ years ago I picked up Yamaha's top of the line receiver with YPAO (room correction). At the time, I had a set of Paradigm Studio 20s, which in my buddy's hi-fi store sounded great, but in my music room didn't. So, I took the time to understand what YPAO was doing and learned how to tweak it. Once done, magically the Studio 20s sounded fantastic. Fast forward to today, I'm in a new location with a Rotel amp and a pair of KEF LS50 Metas. In my room, they are all but unlistenable due to room gain. Paradigm still sells their PW Link room correction module that runs Anthem Room Correction software. With ARC, almost magically the KEFs were transformed. While I appreciate your perspective and experience on the issue, I couldn't disagree with you more regarding room correction for a two-channel system. Why go through all the guesswork when in five minutes a software program like ARC can sweep the room and get rid of room-related anomalies in a two-channel system.
plus if you look at the graph you can see the abnormalities and can see the difference when moving speakers around
I recently started treating my room, slowly adding absorption and diffusion panels. I use REW to measure the before and after effects. The largest improvements I made was just positioning the speakers perperly before I hung the first panel. The panels helped alot with the RT60 times but the basic response changes were small.
very constructive idea, thanks
Hi Paul,
With all due respect, you probably didn’t have the time to actually play and fine tune Dirac Live in order to say that.
Dirac doesn’t work like a magic button that will automatically solve all sound issues, and I’d argue that if you leave it on its default settings, most people won’t like the sound (a flat in-room response is not what we like as humans, because we’re not listening on anechoic chambers - Thank God!).
Even those analog recordings that you likely (also) use while making demos were most likely than not mastered with very expensive room EQ, even if it was mainly EQ back in the analogue days, which makes a very strange argument for anyone to expect having a similar experience in a regular room (even if acoustically treated, like mastering studios always were), just by trying to “EQ” with speciality audio cables…😉
The direct sound from any loudspeaker will be the minority of sound that reaches our ears, with all the reflections counting as the majority.
Since we’re using our hifi systems in regular rooms (mostly), the off-axis behavior of any loudspeaker and what the room does it is extremely important on what we actually hear.
I don’t have a hard time believing that your huge Infinity loudspeakers may sound amazing on your room, but that’s not a realistic setup for most people (even serious audiophiles).
You still need a good source, a good amplification, and good loudspeakers (no question about it).
On some (relatively) rare occasions, just by the correct placement of a “good sounding” room it may happen that the systems sounds better without any EQ at all (you still have to deal with all the different mastering choices if you don’t want to be stuck to the recordings that sound great on a particular system, and this is where removing tone controls was a huge mistake in the audio business, as a tone defeat button would keep the purists - or those lucky enough to reach the right equipment/room pairing happy).
But on most living rooms, Dirac Live can make a night and day difference for the better, _if_ the end user is able to put the effort on learning how to tune it, or pay someone experienced to tune it for them.
It’s not by accident that most of the high-end professional monitor manufacturers have built in DSP to fine tune the response of the monitors to the very specific acoustics of every studio (they all have different acoustical properties, as clearly proven some decades ago).
IMHO, being able to fine tune a good sound system to the room that they’re in is the ultimate audio achievement that any audiophile should aim for.
Just don’t expect it to guess what’s the sound you love the most by pressing one button and leaving the automated process giving you the best results.
I’d argue that by leaving it on full auto calibration mode, you’re probably set for a disaster…🙂
Cheers.
There's a fundamental misunderstanding here of what Dirac Live is, and who it is meant for. It is not meant as a replacement for speaker placement and room treatments, but as either an alternative where the aforementioned is not possible or practical or is cost-prohibitive.
It is not aimed at people with the flexibility of being able to move their speakers and listening positions will-nilly, or necessarily have the budget for extensive room treatments for a dedicated musiclistening room IN ADDITION to a home theater space.
It's also not aimed exclusively at 2ch enthusiasts (although it does make many 2ch claims). Rather, it is PRIMARILY aimed at correction for multichannel systems in medium to large spaces that involve multiple seating positions where some positions could easily get overwhelmed by certain speakers over others, which only DSP can effectively resolve.
Nice old Moog Modular! I used to be their QM. Was a great company with very dedicated folks building amazing synthesizers with devotion to that classic Moog sound.
Dirac is, as Paul says, great for everything you *can’t* change in your setup. For me, I use marks on the floor to pull out my standmount speakers for listening, but my sub is too big and ugly to move from its hidey hole. So I just use Dirac for everything below 200Hz to minimize “room boom.” Maybe not ideal, but the damage to the audio is minimal. I suppose that is the point: minimize damage.
Pulling out your speakers wont do what Dirac can do, even above Schoeder
Try RoomPerfect 🤓
@@AbsoluteFidelity nearfield listening takes large parts of the room put of the game - but it's laughable constantly moving speakers around
@@Harald_Reindl OPs initial comment definitely do not indicate nearfield listening, and even though nearfield listening takes away a lot of the room factor, you will be surprised how much room you would still hear, not as much as mid or far field but still a surprising amount.
@@AbsoluteFidelity don't change the fact that bringing speaks 50 centimeters nearer reduces the room impact - only idiots would move them back after found a perfect positioning
I agree with you Paul. I recently upgraded my home theatre with KEF Reference + REL and tried two top tier receivers with Dirac live + their base control module, and also tried an Anthem MRX1140, Denon 8500 and Marantz 8015. While all of the room correction systems did a great job, I still preferred my system with careful manual speaker positioning and setup with a sound level meter and dialing in the subs (manually).
Happily using Dirac Live (miniDSP DDRC-24) on 2 systems, including my primary (expensive) system, for both sub integration and room correction and they are simply superb in what they can do, esp lower frequencies. Most of us simply don't have ideal symmetric dedicated rooms that can be treated away easily and room treatments can get expensive very fast. I would recommend Dirac Live for beginners so that they can gain an understanding of what a flatter response sounds like and then work they way up to room treatment once they have identified their preferred sound profiles.
The biggest drawback of DSP is that it works best for a small sweet spot while room treatments works for larger listening positions. DSP (at least to my understanding) only fixes frequency and time of arrival issues and cannot fix some fundamental room issues like echos. Also it takes a while to master taking the measurements.
Against all recommendations, I use DSP at the very last stage (Analog-in/Analog-out) for my amplifier and speaker combinations instead of correcting things in the digital domain. This way, the tonality of the DAC and pre-amp is not impacted by DSP. I tried doing DSP before the DAC and found it to negatively affect the DAC's sound signature. End of the day, its all about enjoying music and I don't really worry about being a purist. Whatever works to entertain!
Doing DSP after the DAC is idiotic - the D stands for digital - you have than AD-DA-AD
@@Harald_Reindl Exactly - which is why I stated "Against all recommendations..." but that is what sounds best in my setup after extensive A/B testing of doing DSP pre-dac vs. just before amp. To further improve the A2D/D2A performance I am using an iFi Power Elite 12v power supply that improved the soundstage noticeably.
This is mainly entertainment for me and hence the "I don't really worry about being a purist" comment.
@@Harald_Reindl The miniDSP DDRC-22D is a pure digital box that sits BEFORE the DAC. It goes Digital Source -> DDRC-24D (DSP) -> DAC -> PRE/POWER AMP -> Speakers.
@@rustygates3367 tell me something i don't know - but the audiofools are using external DAC to let them hear the grass growing
@@mrenlightened when you hear the soundstage changing because of a different power supply you have some brain damage and A/B testing only works if you don't know what is what
I do agree with Paul’s comment on room correction. It is much better to tune the sound by positioning the speakers and changing mechanical decoupling material.
The best use of digital correction is using it very subtly in a already properly placed system within a lightly treated room. The correction must happen as early in the signal path as possible, any conversion of analog to digital, back to analog will introduce noticeable degradation. All of this said just a little correction in a proper setup can really take a system to the next level.
Paul's got his own analog room-correction system - it's in his head. it was developed decades ago, so stereo-only.
Actually, Paul has admitted, in his videos, that he can't get a good bass response from his FR 30s and has had to supplement his $30,000 speakers with another manufacturer's subwoofers, which he has stated still don't give him good-sounding bass.
This after spending literally thousands of dollars building special listening rooms and doing expensive room treatments.
@@JonAnderhub Probably because Paul's become accustomed to the effects of the Infinity IRS's bass array. The same occurs to people who install infinite baffle subs in their rooms.
Dear Paul,
Most „normal“ music-hifi-lovers have not the possibility to create their perfect audio-envirement because they hear it in the living room.
I use Dirac for my stereo-set and it delivers a very njce performance. Not only in the bass response but also in time-alignement.
People with dedicated listening rooms may have no problems. But this is the minority. Room Correction is ot the holy gral but a very usefull tool.
If you think about it logically a speaker does not know the difference between music and a movie sound track it just plays the signal it’s being fed. That busts the whole notion that Dirac Live is only suitable for home theatre when you think about logically. If it improves home cinema it will improve HiFi the same, how can it not?
Dirac Live helps you manage the sound of any audio system in any room, use it correctly and it will give far greater benefits than any losses which are always minor.
No head in a vice needed either Paul no idea where that notion comes from it’s totally not true because that is not what is happening.
Audiophiles have no logic
I think you're missing the point. In a 2 channel system you're only driving two speakers (or two speakers and a sub) so you don't need Dirac to do room correction. In a home theatre system you're dealing with 7,8,9,10 etc speakers, so the logistics of having each of those moved about, toed-in, is just not feasible. I use Dirac for surround sound films and gaming, and firmly off when I'm listening to 2 channel stereo as Dirac is simply not very good when it comes to 2-channel presentation.
@@richardt3371 "in a 2 channel system you're only driving two speakers (or two speakers and a sub) so you don't need Dirac to do room correction" is nonsense easily to prove when i dsiable room correction in stereo mode (and my room acoustics is damend good)
@@richardt3371 why? In reality listening to more speakers makes you less sensitive to the sound of each individual speaker and room acoustical problems are the same regardless of how many speakers you are using. So it’s easier to make a case that’s it’s more important for 2 speakers than more speakers.
@@PursuitPerfectSystem Precisely because listening to more speakers makes you less sensitive - that's where Dirac can happily do its thing and you'll only notice improvements. If you have a good 2-channel stereo and use Dirac then you'll hear the artificiality of it and it will not sound as good as making the room and the speaker placement optimal. That you think room acoustics are the same for 2 channel as for multi-speaker sound kind of undermines your argument.
The next upgrade will NOT be available for those already having Dirac via older Receiver models, because it was planned that on March 2023, they'd be using a different DSP - hence, software included. For Bass control, it will need a firmware upgrade. After such upgrade, Denon and Marantz customers will be able to BUY A LICENSE in order to effectively use the software! Even though they've already paid for the technology by buying their specific Receiver... More over, one offering is around 230$, but with a limited bandwidth (the lower and higher ends of the bandwidth isn't accounted for, and a big chunk of it)! The second offering at 350$ for the full bandwidth!... IMHO this technology is a scam to milk their customers.
_Source: an interview with a DIRAC representative by Audioholics, titled "Dirac Roadmap for 2022 Denon & Marantz AV Products", by Gene DellaSala - October 12, 2022._
I have yet to hear any room equalization tool so I cannot judge either way but what always baffles me is how people look down upon DSP but happily accept the extreme equalization of the RIAA curve.
I don't think you fully understand what RIAA correction does and why it's needed.
@@Wizardofgosz I hardly need to be an expert to know not to put DSP in one sentence with RIAA correction. And I don't need to enlighten you. There is enough reading material on that subject to keep you occupied for years. Cheers.
@@Evertb1 I fully understand what the RIAA curve does (plus other non-standard equalisation curves, i.e. 78 rpm, Decca, etc.) and have a general grasp of different room corrections. What's your point?
@@Wizardofgosz I can't recall that I have said anything against DSP. So what is that bias I have? I use it myself in my home theater system. Nothing wrong with that. But the purpose of the RIAA correction on a phono stage in an amplifier is completely different. Enough said from my part.
@@volpedo2000 Sorry my English is not stellar but I try to explain why I think that RIAA should not be compared with things like DSP. RIAA is developed to mitigate some problems that had to do with cutting the records (mainly reducing the width of the grooves). I wont bother with the why's and how's here. Just let it be know that they changed the balance of the music by lowering the bass and uplifting the highs. To restore the balance you need to correct that when playing a record. RIAA was mainly intended to deal with a mechanical problem when producing vinyl records. Not a musical problem. I think that DSP is a whole other thing.
For as much knowledge Paul has in Electronics and Speakers I continually question his knowledge of Room Acoustics and Frequency response topics.
Dirac has its limitations….but as long as you understand what it can do, it can be a great addition to your 2-channel system. A great feature is, you can usually turn in on or off with the press of a button….sometimes even on a remote.
I used to have Dirac for a couple years….but I have a dedicated room, and found that placement and setup resulted in a much better sound. But if you can’t do that, absolutely use Dirac….it can really transform your sound.
With all due respect for Paul, I think he is simply wrong about Dirac Live in audiophile systems. Fact is that most of us audiophiles do not have dedicated listening rooms, and hence big limitations for speaker placement and all. Room correction can then make a day and night difference. With regards to Dirac Live, this improvement is confirmed by series reviewers (for instance Stereophile). The Danish company Lyngdorf have their own, built-in room correction in their fully digital amplifiers, and receive much praise from the most serious magazines out there. Room correction makes a huge improvement not only in the bass, but also improved staging and clarity. In all normal rooms, that is. Dedicated, well-damped listening rooms is another story. BUT, such correction should be done fully in the "digital domain" only, to avoid any degradation of the signal. Taking an analogue signal and convert it for a DSP to do the job, is not ideal.
My system already sounds pretty good due to speakers and listening chair positioning, and also due to extensive room treatment. But using room correction DSP cleans it up further. The bass is noticeably cleaner and tighter.
I guess it depends on your needs, I love music and film. I want a great picture and excellent sound with both music and film. Using 2 channels of my home Cinema for music is actually very good (I have a separate 2 channel set up with valves and vinyl so an audiophile at heart). Although it hasn't been an easy journey with both. I do think DSP is necessary for good bass, especially if you are using a number of subs and want a wide seating area. Well thought through room treatment is enough in my view above 100 Hz, usually. I dont particularly like auto EQ, much better to understand what is going on and make the adjustments yourself. Even functions like auto alignment with REW are often the wrong compromise but easy to adjust listen and measure
Good that you do not like it, you have all the cash and rooms to do it the proper way. I have a resolving system and tested everything and only Dirac is working without a divorce from the esthetics commission. For me Dirac all the way, my speakers never sounded so good. I only have digital formats, no vinyl, and happy camper with Dirac. Best investment so far…
Sound ID is better You're not fixed to a certain spot but ideally mechanically done is the best, with a 31 band graphic equaliser and r e w and a calibrated mic, set it and leave it all of that should be under $250
Fircing yourself to use a graphic EQ for correction is perhaps the stupidest thing I've read this week
You're right with REW and a calibrated mic, but a graphic EQ? That's basically being hell bent on making all that measurement effort completely worthless
Graphic EQs are literally just Fixed PEQs
That means you can't make the bands you need for correction 99.9% of the time
Edit: wait, SoundID *and* REW?
I use a DSP for my serious 2 channel set up in the living room. Mostly to correct the bass since I have two REL subs. It's a living room and the subs will go where they need to go for decor reasons, not for audio perfection. The decor and room trump the audio. The DSP(Dspeaker) is limited to
So I Google why does DIRAC crash? and i get no positive answers
Dirac live is like speakers, its an aquired taste. I tried it on my system and i actually hated it. I prefer the purity of letting components do their thing... afterall thats the fun of audiophile gear, mixing and matching to get the best system synergy to the owners ears... not forgetting room treatment as well
I think some of the points you make paint exactly why I do not want to be associated with audioph*les. The obsession with mythical stuff like gear matching and synergy. That to me is not fun at all and is disrespectful towards all what we know about audio and sound reproduction. It's like you're just in it to spend money on gear and feed your imagination.
Speakers and correction are not "acquired tastes". We have decades of psychoacoustics research showing that clearly.
It really isn't unless you have such broken hearing (that one can acquire! Usually this is confused with "taste") that it is far beyond comparison to what at least 70% of the populace has. Sound and audio both are fundamentally objective. It's just that decades of audiophile marketing has convinced the masses of the anti-intellectual approach to audio - refuse the likes of actual great minds in audio like Floyd Toole, Earl Geddes, Sean Olive, Bruno Putzeys, embrace TH-cam audio marketing engineers.
Let me guess, you tried it once, never tried customizing it beyond its (admittedly questionable and terrible) defaults? Or you were so used to compensating for room mode peaks in your brain that you didn't want to listen to better bass for more than half a minute? Be honest
@SantanKGhey1234 And this, gentlemen, is what we call psychoacoustics! To each their own man... I was there too.
@@serg2963 Psychoacoustics don't really support your comment. You may think it does, but your experience "seemingly contradicts" what is accepted in the scientific community.
It doesn't however. Mainly because chances are very good that Dirac was used improperly in whatever place you tried it at. Very few showrooms bother changing the default settings, which they should.
Dirac defaults to full range correction and a bass light target. If you don't limit the full range correction to an appropriate point for the room and distance to speakers, you will experience problems in the upper midrange and treble. I'm sure 99% of audiophiles don't know even how to roughly predict their room's transition frequency.
@@Gamez4eveR That comment was aimed in response to the OP...
@@serg2963 sure
If you place speakers next to the wall, you will get a lot of negativity in the sound, the sound image will tend to be darker and deeper, which is not always good, the speaker will then not play flat or even flat! You will get a lot of coloration at some frequencies
Negativity... are my speakers angry? Lol
Audio Note speakers are designed to work best right up against walls and when I've heard them like this at show's the sound was anything but negative.
@@markrowe8824 if you have a speaker that does not have the best sound in brighter frequencies, darker frequencies such as bass can cover this in a way and you no longer feel that the speakers are too bright or sharp.
most speakers are not designed this way but are designed where you should preferably have as little contact as possible with other surfaces or NOT put it next to a wall
thats why youve DSP to correct the Peaks. Its Math you can calculate or measure where youve Dips or Cancellaions in the Freq Range on the Listening position. There, where youve the least cancellation problems, there you place your speaker and the rest you correct via software
Speaker setup, room treatment, and finally DSP. If you want to do only bass correction for subs, then look into Multi Sub optimization or Dirac Live bass control. Bass control is not as simple as pumping power into a null. You'll risk damaging speakers. Now, if you bring both phase and amplitude into the picture, then bass control becomes less "dangerous" which is what Dirac bass control is about. On the other hand, full range Dirac live is actually suited for mid bass and mid range...take what Paul is saying with a pinch of salt! 😉
He comes off as an elitist and sometimes unscientific! What can we say? It is a free internet.
Amen to that!
Still the nice Moog behind you. Will you try to make it work and make an awesome SACD (Bach to Moog ...)?
Sony SS-M9ED on the left.
My dream loudspeakers when i was young.
I understand where he comes from, but at least here in EU many of us live in apartments, where you can't simply position the speakers 1m from the wall, or have a dedicated music room where you can do as much room conditioning as you want. Most of the times you just have your system in the dining room with the speakers against a white painted wall, and that's it..............
Audiophilia is a sickness, really. I have been listening to music all my life and I find spending 500€ on a speaker cable just pure nonsense. I have even heard about cable break-in period !! 😀...........Long story short, your system, your rules. I have a 1/3 octave stereo eq and I am very happy with it.
They have even removed the loudness button from amps, because "it messes with the purity of the sound". Hello ?? Fletcher-Munson curves ??? Did you know that your favorite record that you play through your 30000€ sound system with NO eq and esoteric cable was recorded through an SSL console with 4 parametric EQ's per channel (72-100 channels in total, you do the math !!), using all sort of "impure" outboard gear like tube EQ's (distortion) and -God Forbid- compressors ??. AND worse of it all...........mixed through a pair of REALLY non-audiophile Yamaha NS10M's ????....... Most audophiles would have a heart attack in a recording studio...
Sorry for the rant.....bottom line...... spend more time listening to music and less time listening to components :)
Audessy works good. There's a few tricks, if you take a Class 1 measurement mic and use that instead, take the readings. Then use your own pink noise to take an impulse response & spectrogram of the room then use that A weighted spectral data to manually edit the Audessy base curve. I've engineered for years and it's sounds nice to me, of course I A/B on & off where it suits best.
SPEAKERS MUST be set up perfectly before measurements and to get the best sound have your listening position 7-8 feet away (but experiment) so you hear the incident sound path first.
My new speakers are a bit bright. With those I also bought an Arcam SA30, which came with Dirac. I found it took care of the top end but really gutted everything else. The base and mids were so flat and lifeless. I thought the same thing, Dirac is crap. But then I took the time to really play with it a bit. Never mind the curve it plots for you. Get in there and fiddle with it. I now have the highs where I want them and the bass and mids, well it’s just sweet! I was worried that my new Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G’s were not the same ones I auditioned but now they sound fantastic.
Sure, if I had a massive room and no wife I might have been able to get there without Dirac, but as many have already mentioned we don’t all have the luxury of being able to utilize other forms of room correction.
I think Dirac is great.
我曾经想要买一款nad m 33，因为它有dirac live，当时听说它的声场很窄，我就果断放弃了，因为我需要一款又能在迪拉克live的功放，而且它的声音又是暖的，我有什么别的选择吗？
This is so true. Anyone who knows how real world instruments sound, and has a musical ear, can easily pinpoint problems with digitally corrected audio. This sort of correction simply does not respect the physical nature (mechanical properties) of the loudspeaker drivers and what they are capable of. I had a car with a Dirac branded stereo system recently, the most lifeless, uninspiring sound I've ever heard, seriously a joke.
for once i agree with Paul , dirac or is it ' drac ' enemy mine with lizard aliens . drac sent me no activation key after spending out on stromaudio elite mkIII 32 , that supports drac eq and even setting up was hassle , even getting it to handshake with elite mkIII , hassle , even the slow boring of auto eq was starting to vex me , i get easily vexed at hi fi rubbish like , drac live eq . i will never use drac eq in my complex home THX cinema , b-chain i never use it
Why the refusal to elaborate on why it wouldn't work on "analog only" chains?
What I know about any aspect of life which is casually inspected is that keeping track the "ifs-&-buts" is all-important and that there are people out there who base their whole professional lives on doing so. It all reminds me of a currently prominent politician who claimed that he was no longer going to use or pay attention to experts. I want the media to point his claim out to him in asking him whether he is going to do his own dentistry, and do so every time he calls a press conference. If he responded, I am sure that "ifs and buts" would flow like a river.
Paul you really do a great job in answering tough questions and I like your opinions. But I disagree about using Dirac Live in just a two channel setup. Dirac Live might have a sweet spot, yes but it also can compensate for a wide seating arrangement to where I don't feel I'm missing out anywhere in the room. So I'm not sure your locked into as you said, in a vice position. It can overcome that ideal environment as he mentioned and as is in my case also. Dirac Live made a night and day difference for me. But to each his own as you said. But, please keep up the good work. Your a smart man.
Cheers,
Dave😁
Your right i used room correction for my dolby atmos setup works well for surround sound but does not work for stereo audio and things like cd tape or stereo inputs
It works perfect for PCM stereo input
Unfortunately at my place I can't really move the speakers but adjusting the distance from the wall and toe in adjustment has mad a big difference.
You spend a substantial portion of your hard earned cash on a decent, premium hifi system, then feel the need to alter it’s sonic reproduction by employing some form of DSP. Admittedly, it’s taken me years of experimentation and trial and error, and it’s been a learning curve, establishin just what I’m looking for from my system. But, once all that has fallen into place, the need, or, imagined need for DSP is negated. Like Paul often says, ‘for every action, there are compromises’ or, consequences. DSP can augment certain aspects of the audio spectrum, but often at the expense of detriment to other areas. I only have a 2 channel system. I don’t have any type of multi channel home theatre system. Paul says DSP works in that environment. I’m unable to dispute that.
A classic example:- a well renowned and highly respected TH-cam hifi reviewer, recently seriously upgraded his ‘high end’ reference system. He now confidently claims that DSP does nothing to enhance his upgraded system. He did find it an advantage in his previous system. That speaks volumes and backs up my experience that, you get the sound your looking for by putting together the right combination of electronics and speakers and DSP becomes superfluous.
All that having been said. We are all individuals. We all have our own personal taste and preferences and listening environment restrictions and limitations. You should not be afraid, or ashamed of using whatever vest works for you.
Most of all, enjoy the music!
Spend your money in room acoustics - speakers and amplifiers shouldn't have a sounding at all because they are no instruments
@@Harald_Reindl if you want to eliminate the room? Use headphones. No? Thought not, headphones are great, but lack the ambiance created by speakers in a room.
@@howardskeivys4184 I hate it to wear headphones and I don't need them because my living room has a full-range reverb time below 300 ms
Lyngdorf has a better implementation as it measures the whole room, not just the listening position.
Also, some high end speakers now also use dsp...look at the linkwitz system for example.
It's improving all the time and the vast majority dont have dedicated listening rooms so dsp is the best way to extract the best out of you system in those circumstances.
Lyngdorf is in a another league regarding DSP
The guys who overwhelming poo poo digital room correction are the ones primarily listening in untreated, and shared-space listening environments, while the home theater crowd, who are more likely to listen in a treated dedicated space are saying they can't live without digital room corrections. Its hilarious to think about.
@@MrVanuvanu It's good DSP, just as Dirac is. But I did not like the sound of my Lyngdorf amplifier, so dry, so I switched to Dirac with Accuphase.
@@ronharms8214 depends on person likings probably and room, equipment etc. etc. But from my experience RP seems to be much preferred versus Dirac. But it could be the other way ofcourse. Cheers
Actually I am a huge fan of fully active systems, but Paul ain't wrong, in respects to set up the system as best you can first and then, if you want, tune it with DSP fully after to get the best of both worlds; but always initial set up is vital to get the most out of 2 channel.
Also I am a big fan of analog too though, because some of them have just this pure mind blowing magic in them too!
A shrink might say I suffer from split personality disorder if the Dr. was an audiophile too, while knowing we all are a bit. 🤪
Another great video Paul, keep them coming!
When I first glimpsed the title I wondered about PS Audio's views on Paul Dirac, the physicist 🙃
I think most people do have all digital systems tho... most people do nowadays, theres more DSP available than ever from your phone to your headphones, soundbars, etc... Not to mention theres so many new spatial algorithms built for spatial audio~
I agree.
My setup already measurses fairly flat except in lows where I use filters.
Since I own a minidsp shd(dirac in a box), I set it up in my system . The sound quality died hard. I remeasured it about a handful of times and followed best prectices for making the curves but the clarity and soundstage suffered. All the music was playing closer to me.
Dirac used to do great things in my system when I had a less treated room( only absorbers), worse quality electronics but of similar price, and less experience in speaker setup.
With all due respect, I think all speakers need room correction.
Even best hi-end speakers still can sound lousy in some room.
Even in treated room, you still have reflections and room interaction.
That beeing said, I do not think that just running some room correction without later measurements and tweaking will do the job 100% great.
But using room correction, getting results to REW, measuring and understanding results you will get better results then without doing anything to high frequencies.
I think it is really hard to find a pre-amp/receiver (most likely a home theather processor) that comes with room correction (such as Dirac Live), which sounds better than a "traditional" component, that was made purely for listening to stereo music. What brands could you seriously consider? Trinnov, Storm Audio, Emotiva? But still, a pure stereo component just blows them away
The arcam range!
I've gone through my fareshare of equipment and it's only when I got to the arcam HDA range that not only was I satisfied with HT but I was actually more satisfied with it's stereo. Btw it also has dirac.
Your pure stereo component sounds like shit when you don't correct your room with treatment AND room-eq
Heutzutage doch nicht mehr. Kein Mensch braucht mehr große Monoblöcke. Bezüglich ,,klingt besser,, hast du eine DSP basiertes System im Blindtest gegen ein normales Stereo Setup getestet ? Wette 99% der Leute würden eine korrigierte Anlage vorziehen wo für die Elektronik weniger Geld reingeflossen ist, als wenn vorne eine große Endstufe steht. Ein mit zB ConeQ, Dirac, Genelec SAM, Neumann MA1 basiertes, korrigiertes System hat immer bessere Chancen. Außer man steht auf seine Raummoden aber dann brauchste halt auch keine Geld für teure Endstufen oder Lautsprecher ausgeben
I run Dirac on a PC, which is my source for everything, and from there to an Accuphase DAC. Wonderful!
@@totalplonker824I’m looking at Arcam as well. How does it sound without Dirac, for both HT and 2ch listening? I’m on the fence about Dirac, and feel like I just want a great sounding AVR that I can set up manually and have great sound.
I used the audiophile’s guide for my music/ht system which is also in the living room. I don’t have a lot of room to fully implement the guide but even the minor adjustments I was able to make in terms of toe-in and slight positioning adjustments have made a significant improvement to the overall sound. While not everyone can set up their gear in ideal conditions, you can get the best positioning possible within your limitations and improve overall performance.
Paul trashes everything he is not involved with. He is an ego maniac.
Dirac Live??? Nah. Back in the 70's we did this by moving our speakers away from the wall, making the sound stage expand by having a couple strong people angle the speakers slowly and slightly towards each other until the person sitting in the sound chair smiled and we hit the sweet spot. I still use this technique, although without the weed of the 70's and still have found an amazing sweet spot with an expanding (phantom) middle stage. Works every time.
You need to read up on what Dirac Live does. There are plenty of videos explaining it on youtube.
I agree with Paul. Dirac inverses RIR of spk-room-omni-mic, but then feeds the signal into ear which is not omni. From a mathematical perspective, it's utterly meaningless.
dirac did not do good things for my stereo system.
i have all digital sources and adding my own parametric eq by dsp made a world of difference. i have a tiny room but it is acoustically treated.
i only expect my dsp settings to adjust for volume, dirac can do more than that.
and i do my adjustment with my ears, dirac needs a mic.
with bass, dirac and i disagreed that 20hz and 100hz was at same volume, i heard that and also had mic measurement to show it.
anyone can do a frequency sweep and listen for themself and tell if that system with the hearing they have if the frequency band is evenly reproduced.
Don't lean on the keyboard! ;-)
I bought Pauls book on speaker placement and used that to dial in my system and it helped imaging, I also have a decent amount of acoustic panels in my room, 15 panels anywhere from 5 to 18in thick, and those helped a lot, then I got Dirac Live and it was big improvement that built on top of those other improvements and my system sounds so much better, room modes were greatly reduced, detailed bass, etc. I'd recommend doing all three if you can.
Dirac on a mac mini m1 makes my two horns sound spooky real. Turn if off and the sonos might sound better. Been using this software for 10years now.
THANKS FOR THE CLARIFICATION PAUL 🧐🤗💚💚💚
I agree for 2 channel.
Alot of people say avr are terrible with music, i have the new flagship denon avr and i went into a store and demoed a aethos and supernait3 with a naim streamer connected to them, it was no better than my denon, so i think alot of people are just jumping on the bandwagon and saying this without actually listening to it, im no expert in audio, but in a way im glad of that as all i care about is what it sounds like not what the figures are that everyone goes on about
What speakers are the ones with the angled top baffle? Are they Wilsons?
I think Sony
There's nothing wrong with Dirac Live or any other room correction software. It's dumb that anyone wouldn't want to use the sweep ability in room correction software to analyze what's going on with the sound and audio system in their room setup.
Cool looking synth, Paul!
All this from a guy that spent thousands of dollars building special listening rooms, and thousands of dollars on room treatments, for a pair of $30,000 speakers that he can't get to give him a good bass response in these specially built rooms, so he has to add subwoofers from another company and still can't get a good bass response that sounds good, by his own admission.
However, he wants you to buy his book on speaker setup rather than use DIRAC?
the logic of audiofools - good entertainment
What is it with subs in 2 channel. If you have great kit you shouldn’t need one. I just bought a pair of Monitor Audio Gold 300 5G’s and I have all the low end I need.
So Dirac live only to be used if we can’t get the system to sound good with room treatment and setup first. It’s a last resort.
where can I get your book?
Hi Paul, where can we find the audiophile's guide ?
www.amazon.com/Audiophiles-Guide-Stereo-Paul-McGowan/dp/B08STSRW49/
Direct Translation: Paul doesn’t understand the fundamentals of how Dirac Live works so he makes poorly informed statements regarding DSP.
Damn! I really thought the gloves were coming off when he removed his glasses. My wife heard the question and ran in to see the reaction of the calmest audiophile on the internet . 💀😆
Did she hear a vast improvement from the other room?
@@richardt3371lol... !
Might have to grab myself a copy :)
I'm with ya
Paul, try RoomPerfect DSP from Lyngdorf , even in a treated room it does wonders, let alone normal living rooms.
P.S. Dirac makes the sound lifeless, for 2 channel you are completely right, not worth it also from my experience. RoomPerfect is another league, and this is the future even if we want it or not.
I have always done the best I can with speaker placement. In practical terms,
that means they go in the only spots where they they will fit and I live with it.
So after all that,the only real reason i heard was dirac is great if your in the digital domain but not in the anologue.
So really simply put hes stating not to add additional a/d d/a conversion in the signal chain.
Trouble with that statement, is that all the digital content he mentioned started its life as anologue content 😂, it just got convertwd to digital before broadcast.
So really it just depends on how much your willing to spend on the seperate a/d and d/a converters on an all digital ins outs dsp and ofcourse the dsp.
If you want as close to perfection i would argue the ability to tune a response with fir filters in a 2 ch set up is criticaly required
Digital room correction is great if you are paying attention to the TV and not the audio. It changes the sound too much and adds some unnatural sound signature of its own. For purely music I agree better with it off.
No - you don't need to mix DSP correction with DSP effects
Unnatural ? Your uncorrected Room Modes / Peaks are unnantural. The DSP Correction is just an step closer to an even, flat Freq Response
Dirac Live rules. Nothing above Schroeder gets touched, just because my system now is as good as it will get in my MLP. But Dirac works wonders for less than perfect systems and rooms. Show us a measurement of what you are getting in your MLP with the 30s, we all would like to know what kind of response you are getting with all the good ol tips and trick.
Increasingly systems are using online streaming only as it allows lossless master high quality audio to be played. DSP room correction can do well in such systems of the future but of course you start with getting the room acoustics right as per Paul’s recipe and then you DSP compensate only a tiny amount for what is needed (perhaps up to +3dB/-6dB). Too much and Paul is right. Well, that is to get the response flat, but flat is not ideal for low level listening due to the Fletcher Munson psychoacoustics. I should also add the fact that personally I add 5dB at 12kHz to rejuvenate age related loss in the treble. That does wonders. Being against DSP for other than bass is not meaningful anymore to me.
Flat is ideal and systems with room-eq support dynamic loudness - so you hear a flat curve no matter what volume level
@@clickbeetle2720 in a measurement yes
When I sold High End audio in the early 2000s, even back then, turntables were in less than 40% of the customers systems that cost $20k+. Turntables are a niche within the audiophile hobby.
This bloke is such a, how can I put it? A gentleman, yeah. And also a mensch. A great combination. Thank you Mr. P.S.Audio.
I don't know why this guy continuously trashes good audio technologies... First MQA... Now Dirac Live
Yeah!, you tell them grampa Paul!
Come on guys you haven’t understood the basics of life and the Mind. Listening is subjective and personal. Just because Paul is the boss of a high end company means nothing . If it sounds good to you then it’s good. What’s true for you is all that matters
What about your speakers in your home theater. Are they digital?😊
Paul you are true , dirac is not accurate by harman ,and I hate it too why volume is not balanced . Who is dirac actually .They can't do it , only Kipple audio systems , b&k much better than dirac or rew can determine own no need auto correction tool just for analog is the best of all .
Agree
Same setup: tv in the middle, L & R the speakers, sounds ok. But when tv gets broken and taken away…whow what sounds the music good! So it seems that also the tv can cause sound problems.
The question is... now the TV has been fixed does it get back to between the stereo speakers.
@@totalplonker824 yeah, I hope its gets broke again soon
@Douglas Blake Nope, they were always lined up with the back of the speaker and tv, so baffle is about 30cm in front of tv. Hope the room correction of my new Lyngdorf amp can solve this.
@@markwillems4826 when my TV got taken away for repair I also had the same experience as yourself! Fortunately for me the TV got written off, which of course gave me the opportunity to purchase one of those no-gap wall mount TVs (LG OLED gallery series) even though there was a slight audio improvement compared to the previous cabinet mounted TV... it was only when I moved the stereos forward another foot did I really notice the best improvement. But to be honest I think thats more down to Boundary interference from the front wall rather than anything to do with the TV.
Even though I've got dirac live with my arcam avr/amps there's nothing like getting ones stereo speaker placement correct in the beginning! Even though I practically fall over my right stereo speaker every time I go to the kitchen. It's so well worth it 😁
If interested here's a 3-minute video of what it looks and sounds like...
th-cam.com/video/e-B3kjyLvwA/w-d-xo.html
Common sense - your TV reflects and when you are too dumb for room treatment that reflections bounce between TV and back wall with you in the middle
DSP should only be used if you do not have speakers with good sound quality or if you have a difficult room. Many newer Denon cinema receivers have a microphone and DSD!
nonsense. thats the complete opposite why you should use a Correction. DSP is not there to make bad Speaker great. Or why Genelec or Neumann have / uses their own correction ? because theyre bad... not realy
I love Dirac. YMMV
Agree 100%! Dirac for two channel is just pointless - I'd even go so far as to say it has a negative impact on the quality of sound in a stereo system. Now, for home cinema, Dirac, or Audyssey or whatever calibration system the amp uses, is a no-brainer. The idea of having to find the sweet spot for every speaker in a 7.1 channel system is just not happening - let the software deal with that, and it does it brilliantly in my set-up.
I absolutey loathe room correction. I get it in live music venues, but it completely and utterly removes any musicality and natural timbre from the music.
I heard one pair of speakers that has built in DSP's that performs well, the Kii Three. But other than that, every room correction, or even any active correction, even MFB, to me just makes the music sound like it comes from an artifically sweetened can, not from instruments. Yes, I do hear the upsides and it's amazing how it makes the room disappear, and when you switch, in a badly treated room, from correction to no correction it sounds like an absolue hollow, echo-ey mess at first. But then at some point you start hearing the musicality again and I'm sorry, but it's just not a good way to fix a problem.
LOL!!!
That's funny how you talk about removing musicality and the natural timbre of the music while listening to speakers with harmonic distortions and phase shifts caused by electronic cross-over networks.
Talk about music that is artificially sweetened what is your choice of "sweetening" in drivers?
Planars, ribbons, beryllium domes, paper, carbon fiber, aluminum, kevlar?
None of this exists in the "natural instruments".
While everybody would love to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building the ultimate sound room, the truth of the matter is that very few people have that luxury.
While room construction and treatment is the most desirable way to deal with room issues, today digital DSP can not only analyze room issues but can compensate for room anomalies and speaker anomalies and in turn take the room out of the equation creating a better listening experience.
@@JonAnderhub audiophiles have opinions but no clue
@@Harald_Reindl ... says the man claiming to have spent 10,00 dollars on room correction lol.
@@richardt3371 moron my walls and ceiling are concrete / cement and so bass needs a lot of membrane-absorber to get the fullrange reverb time below 300 ms - that's physics and can be measured
100% agree: stick to the frequencies below 500hz or even better Schroeder frequency. Everything else is speaker correction The rest is easy to handle by diffusors and absorbers in room friendly sizes.
Dirac did not work for me with my higher end two channel system for music listening. Waste of money and set up by a pro. Made the sound thin and took away the soundstage and magic. Paradigm 100F, JL sub, Nad C-658, Nad C-298 digital system. I do not use Dirac for my room.
i had same experience, i think that happens for a lot of people using dirac, its when you let a microphone measurement do the adjustment. if you do it by your own ears then it can only get better. especially lowering the bright spots and increasing the bass extension.
You need weeks when you are used to to your modes and distortion over years
@@Harald_Reindl Just Listened to another two channel set-up with sub. DIRAC sounded terrible. Ruins the speakers. Pure garbage
@@paulhunter6652 what exatcly did you not understand in "you need weeks"? too much time for you to realize clean sound? so be it
@@Harald_Reindl I don’t need weeks but seconds…and it was clean. In fact Dirac cleaned up the sound so much nothing was left.
if you buy Dirac ..you won't buy or spend money for no real improvement try trust you ears no wind
The reason why Tommy, and countless others, are in favor of Digital Sound Processing (DSP) for acoustical room corrections, is because he never heard a professionally set-up, high-end stereo. Few people have -- including viewers of this channel.
Most people have low-end or modest systems, where the DSP makes their music sound better. It also makes it sound worse, in some respects. But most people do not hear the bad part, because they never heard a professionally set-up, high-end stereo.
If all you have ever eaten are frozen TV dinners, then you do not recognize the less than stellar quality. And so it is with music. Most people think that Bose is the best that $$ can buy. They cannot imagine that anything could sound better.
So for such modest quality systems, being listened to by people that never heard the good stuff, DSP works for them. They are not lying when they say it sounds better with DSP.
Folks that own or have heard professionally set-up, high-end systems will immediately hear the sound degradation if they added a DSP box to their signal chain.
So why does a DSP box kill the sound quality on such stereos?
It is because those stereos are highly revealing, and they reveal the lackluster sound quality of the DSP box. No DSP boxes are on par with a high-end pre-amp. And when you introduce a DSP box to your signal chain, you are inserting another pre-amp (and an active one, which is even worse).
If you have a stereo where well recorded songs sound like the band is really there (not just sound really good, but sound like they are actually there), then a DSP box will make that sound image vanish. The sound image will go from "I can reach out and touch them", to "It sounds like a reproduction; a good recording".
There is nothing wrong with DSP for stereos that are between low end and mid-fidelity (depending on the quality of the DSP box).
But for high-end gear, steer clear of DSP boxes. Steer clear of adding anything non-essential to the signal chain.
I’ve listened to countless high-end systems and you are perhaps right that most people have not. However, I can also assure you that those systems very often can sound better with some slight DSP compensation when used properly and when the music is digital from source such that you don’t end up with multiple conversions in the path. Also, even the most expensive high-end system can not defy the psychoacoustics of Fletcher Munson and most people listen to music at less than the intended volume level for what enables ideal tonal balance. Thus, even loudness compensation is a real deal for the highest performing system. So many times I’ve been listening to a system that sounded awesome at higher volume levels but lost the excitement when playing at lower volumes. As professional in audio R&D I’ve done countless listening test sessions and you can easily find that people will praise the system with some slight DSP compensation even in a US$200,000 system, if done right.
what music or genre of music do you listen?
@@ThinkingBetter "I’ve listened to countless high-end systems and you are perhaps right that most people have not. However, I can also assure you that those systems very often can sound better with some slight DSP compensation when used properly and when the music is digital from source such that you don’t end up with multiple conversions in the path."
Introducing that extra box will degrade the signal. Even if you left every control on neutral, you are sending the signal through that box's active processors.
The best way to have a virtually pure signal is to not have any boxes that are not 100% necessary for playing music.
"Thus, even loudness compensation is a real deal for the highest performing system."
Not a single high-end pre-amp includes a loudness control. I could be mistaken. There are many high-end pre-amps. I know of none that include a loudness control.
Since you assert that the highest performing systems benefit from a loudness control, you should be able to name two high-end pre-amps that have a loudness control.
As to the Fletcher Munson effect:
If you were in the studio, with the band, and they were playing very softly, you would hear what you would hear. Their bass guitar's strings will generate the tones that they generate.
When I listen at home, I want to hear the same thing. If I boost the bass, then I am not hearing the band as they are. I am, instead, hearing a box in my room.
You are in favor of artificially enhancing the sound of instruments. I am not. High end systems enhance nothing.
Please list the name of the manufacturers and models of each box in the high-end system you listened to that benefited by a loudness control.
Include every component (turntable, tone-arm, cartridge, DAC, transport, pre-amp, amps, speakers, interconnects, power cords, power conditioning, and room treatments).
@@Wizardofgosz Well, you are right. You can get super audiophile performance for a few Dollars nowadays. Right now I’m sitting at work in an office building listening to some 7Hz Timeless AE planar earbuds ($260) with a simple DAC (EarStudio ES100 MK2, $90), and even at work I can assure you this can sound better than some US$200,000 systems that I’ve listened to. I also own some Hifiman Sundara that I can highly recommend for cheap entry into audiophile qualities. I don’t even use my expensive Stax electrostatics anymore cause they lost in the bass. My home office setup is with a pair of KEF LSX II and a Velodyne servo subwoofer they run directly connected to my iMac. In my other rooms I’ve wasted too much money on audio gear and realize 90% of my listening is now while doing work or other things and not while just sitting in front of my audio system in a couch. I don’t have time for that these days.
@@georgemartinezza "what music or genre of music do you listen?"
I listen to virtually everything, except opera and music with lyrics that have non-stop cursing.
I listen mostly to music from the 1960s - 1980s.
After that, I find that hit songs are a rarity. And many songs, after the year 2000, that are touted as hits, to me, are not.
I also find that after the 1980s, the sound quality went down hill, too.
What about you? What music or genre of music to you listen?