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Post by RichGuy on Feb 27, 2017 21:46:42 GMT -5
I noticed that during the Dirac set up there's the image of the sofa. Is that sofa representing the entire listening area or the MLP? For example, my room has an L-sectional. Should I move the mic around the MLP, or middle of the sectional, or should I move the mic around the entire sectional? Also, does the XMC-1 have to be connected to my wifi network? Or can I just run an ethernet cable to my laptop for the Dirac and firmware upgrades? Thanks again! You can vary the positions some to account for different room setups. I think you should start with your prime seating position as number one mic location then keep the basic shown pattern but you can enlarge or shrink the pattern to make a better fit of your listening area. However I would not change the size drastically either. It is actually recommended to use an ethernet cable with Dirac to ensure the best connection
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abd1
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Post by abd1 on Feb 27, 2017 23:28:31 GMT -5
I noticed that during the Dirac set up there's the image of the sofa. Is that sofa representing the entire listening area or the MLP? For example, my room has an L-sectional. Should I move the mic around the MLP, or middle of the sectional, or should I move the mic around the entire sectional? Also, does the XMC-1 have to be connected to my wifi network? Or can I just run an ethernet cable to my laptop for the Dirac and firmware upgrades? Thanks again! You can vary the positions some to account for different room setups. I think you should start with your prime seating position as number one mic location then keep the basic shown pattern but you can enlarge or shrink the pattern to make a better fit of your listening area. However I would not change the size drastically either. It is actually recommended to use an ethernet cable with Dirac to ensure the best connection Great, thanks! I figure I'll just spread the mic pattern out across the sectional, but not throughout the room.
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abd1
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Post by abd1 on Mar 4, 2017 10:53:31 GMT -5
So I received my XMC-1 today and got it hooked up. I haven't really had much time to play around with it but since I'm the second owner I did a factory reset just to get the settings started from scratch. I did set some inputs, triggers, speaker settings, but not distances and I haven't fooled around with Dirac at all - hopefully this weekend I'll get time. Anyway, my initial impressions are very positive as the sound is noticeably clearer and better defined than my old system when listening to 2-channel music which was a big reason I upgraded. However, one issue I'm coming across is that when watching movies/shows from Amazon Prime or Netflix via the FireTV the sound is playing back in Dolby PLIIx Music mode as the default. I set the XMC-1 to auto select the audio mode and it keeps selecting this mode even though it's showing that the signal coming in is 5.1 Dolby Digital, and with my Pioneer receiver it always selected and played Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus. I also noticed that while the XMC-1 is capable of these surround modes, they are not even coming up as options when cycling through the different modes. Is this is a common issue? Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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abd1
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Post by abd1 on Mar 4, 2017 11:02:58 GMT -5
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abd1
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Post by abd1 on Mar 6, 2017 17:39:13 GMT -5
I ran Dirac Live this weekend but didn't get a lot of time to use it. Thanks for the mic stand suggestion too as it made a big difference! My XMC-1 did come with the desktop mic stand, but that pretty much sucked to use. So I took out the mic stand and used the mic clip that came with my XMC-1. I think Emotiva should sell a mic stand on their site. I'm sure they'd sell one with almost every XMC-1.
Anyway, like I said I ran Dirac and sat down for about 20 minutes to listen. Wow! It certainly made a huge difference. I was already really impressed with the performance of the XMC-1 coming from my Pioneer in terms of resolution, imaging and soundstage. We watched Dr. Strange and I listened to some music and it already blew away the Pioneer (SC1323-K), and that was without doing any tuning at all. Now with Dirac engaged it's even more impressive. The soundstage is HUGE and the detail, especially in the midrange, is unreal. There is so much more presence and space in the soundstage it's like I have different speakers. I've struggled getting the speakers to "disappear" into the soundstage, especially the front right channel. It's still not 100% perfect, but to quantify I would say it went from 80%, decent, to 95%, very good - if that makes sense. The only issue is that it seems my sub has been blended so much into the soundstage that at first I didn't think it was on. I tend to run it a touch hot, especially for movies. One of the scenes I always use to demo and check settings is from War of the Worlds when the pod emerges from underground (right around 21 minutes). I'm used to having my couch shake when the ground expands and then collapses and when the pod starts firing whatever it is firing to disintegrate people those blasts usually feel like they're hitting you in the chest. Now, I'm not getting quite that same effect. The detail I'm getting is amazing and it sounds like I have more surround channels since the sound is enveloping the room more than ever, but it's just not quite as guttorally visceral. I had the LFE setting at 0 db in the menu and I could just bump up the sub output on the amp a bit, but I'd rather change it in the XMC-1 if possible. Any thoughts?
Also, I never did any of the manual EQ settings or speaker distances. Does any of this impact Dirac? Should I have set the speaker distances first and then run Dirac? I didn't think that was necessary since it is room correction. However, could I go into the tone controls and bump the bass a touch without impacting Dirac or should I rerun Dirac if I change any of the tones?
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hemster
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Particle Manufacturer
...still listening... still watching
Posts: 51,920
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Post by hemster on Mar 6, 2017 17:46:10 GMT -5
I ran Dirac Live this weekend but didn't get a lot of time to use it. Thanks for the mic stand suggestion too as it made a big difference! My XMC-1 did come with the desktop mic stand, but that pretty much sucked to use. So I took out the mic stand and used the mic clip that came with my XMC-1. I think Emotiva should sell a mic stand on their site. I'm sure they'd sell one with almost every XMC-1. Anyway, like I said I ran Dirac and sat down for about 20 minutes to listen. Wow! It certainly made a huge difference. I was already really impressed with the performance of the XMC-1 coming from my Pioneer in terms of resolution, imaging and soundstage. We watched Dr. Strange and I listened to some music and it already blew away the Pioneer (SC1323-K), and that was without doing any tuning at all. Now with Dirac engaged it's even more impressive. The soundstage is HUGE and the detail, especially in the midrange, is unreal. There is so much more presence and space in the soundstage it's like I have different speakers. I've struggled getting the speakers to "disappear" into the soundstage, especially the front right channel. It's still not 100% perfect, but to quantify I would say it went from 80%, decent, to 95%, very good - if that makes sense. The only issue is that it seems my sub has been blended so much into the soundstage that at first I didn't think it was on. I tend to run it a touch hot, especially for movies. One of the scenes I always use to demo and check settings is from War of the Worlds when the pod emerges from underground (right around 21 minutes). I'm used to having my couch shake when the ground expands and then collapses and when the pod starts firing whatever it is firing to disintegrate people those blasts usually feel like they're hitting you in the chest. Now, I'm not getting quite that same effect. The detail I'm getting is amazing and it sounds like I have more surround channels since the sound is enveloping the room more than ever, but it's just not quite as guttorally visceral. I had the LFE setting at 0 db in the menu and I could just bump up the sub output on the amp a bit, but I'd rather change it in the XMC-1 if possible. Any thoughts? Also, I never did any of the manual EQ settings or speaker distances. Does any of this impact Dirac? Should I have set the speaker distances first and then run Dirac? I didn't think that was necessary since it is room correction. However, could I go into the tone controls and bump the bass a touch without impacting Dirac or should I rerun Dirac if I change any of the tones? Generally speaking I avoid tone controls. That said, there's nothing wrong with using the trim controls to boost up one of the channels or LFE. However if you find that you're not getting as much punch as you like across several sample sound tracks, try entering the speaker distances and rerunning Dirac. First, confirm that something is lacking by using a few different (and familiar) movies. In the end, you may well end up increasing LFE by a bit. Keep at it, the end result is definitely worth the work.
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Post by foggy1956 on Mar 6, 2017 22:05:17 GMT -5
I ran Dirac Live this weekend but didn't get a lot of time to use it. Thanks for the mic stand suggestion too as it made a big difference! My XMC-1 did come with the desktop mic stand, but that pretty much sucked to use. So I took out the mic stand and used the mic clip that came with my XMC-1. I think Emotiva should sell a mic stand on their site. I'm sure they'd sell one with almost every XMC-1. Anyway, like I said I ran Dirac and sat down for about 20 minutes to listen. Wow! It certainly made a huge difference. I was already really impressed with the performance of the XMC-1 coming from my Pioneer in terms of resolution, imaging and soundstage. We watched Dr. Strange and I listened to some music and it already blew away the Pioneer (SC1323-K), and that was without doing any tuning at all. Now with Dirac engaged it's even more impressive. The soundstage is HUGE and the detail, especially in the midrange, is unreal. There is so much more presence and space in the soundstage it's like I have different speakers. I've struggled getting the speakers to "disappear" into the soundstage, especially the front right channel. It's still not 100% perfect, but to quantify I would say it went from 80%, decent, to 95%, very good - if that makes sense. The only issue is that it seems my sub has been blended so much into the soundstage that at first I didn't think it was on. I tend to run it a touch hot, especially for movies. One of the scenes I always use to demo and check settings is from War of the Worlds when the pod emerges from underground (right around 21 minutes). I'm used to having my couch shake when the ground expands and then collapses and when the pod starts firing whatever it is firing to disintegrate people those blasts usually feel like they're hitting you in the chest. Now, I'm not getting quite that same effect. The detail I'm getting is amazing and it sounds like I have more surround channels since the sound is enveloping the room more than ever, but it's just not quite as guttorally visceral. I had the LFE setting at 0 db in the menu and I could just bump up the sub output on the amp a bit, but I'd rather change it in the XMC-1 if possible. Any thoughts? Also, I never did any of the manual EQ settings or speaker distances. Does any of this impact Dirac? Should I have set the speaker distances first and then run Dirac? I didn't think that was necessary since it is room correction. However, could I go into the tone controls and bump the bass a touch without impacting Dirac or should I rerun Dirac if I change any of the tones? Generally speaking I avoid tone controls. That said, there's nothing wrong with using the trim controls to boost up one of the channels or LFE. However if you find that you're not getting as much punch as you like across several sample sound tracks, try entering the speaker distances and rerunning Dirac. First, confirm that something is lacking by using a few different (and familiar) movies. In the end, you may well end up increasing LFE by a bit. Keep at it, the end result is definitely worth the work. You cannot adjust speaker distance in the dirac preset
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