cawgijoe
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"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
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Post by cawgijoe on Jan 27, 2015 13:42:09 GMT -5
Well, I just did another Dirac run, and it's the best one yet. Music now sound much better, than without Dirac. It doesn't seem as bright as previous runs. The deep bass still seems weak, but I'm going to work on evening out the room response with treatments first. I've discovered it's important to keep checking the AGC; something keeps turning it back on. And Tony's recommendation to reduce Mic gain, and increase test signal gain, also helped. Just think, most owners of the XMC probably aren't on this list and don't get all this great advice about Dirac. A bunch of people, not quite pleased with Dirac, and don't know why. I certainly would have abandoned it, with my initial results. It was all the advice here that helped me get it better. Sincerely, /b Good advice. Double-check to make sure the AGC is off when you re-run. I don't know if people are unhappy who don't peruse these forums, but they certainly can get better results with some of the suggestions here. I was happy with the results even though I had AGC on! Didn't really know any better and it was better than my previous room correction system. |
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robcs
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Post by robcs on Jan 27, 2015 17:05:00 GMT -5
Gary, It would depend on how quiet your room is. For my room, I need to set the mic gain below the scale, and then set the output gain as normal. The quieter the room, the lower the SPL for the test sweeps, the lower the spl for the test sweeps, the more the noise floor can impact the results. Lately I have been setting the output volume of the test sweeps to 75db on the RS meter then setting the mic gain until the output volume is in the green. Tony Completely agree Tony, no XMC-1 so I haven't played with DIRAC as yet, but I've found that test sweeps at normal listening levels work best for me. Too low and the ambient noise can be an issue whereas too loud and clipping becomes a problem. Cheers Gary Gazza, I have an absolutely horrible rooms set-up. You can see some of the problem in my pic on the left <<. I have to have the speakers up off the floor to avoid the grand kids doing damage. The room is 8 metres wide (26 ft for you others) and initially 5 metres deep extending a further 4 metres around a glassed atrium on the left side. My AV kit is set-up in the top left 4 metres of this open space, with the left speakers near a raked skillion roof/ceiling that goes up from 2.7 to 4 metres at it's peak. There are lots of other problems with the space also, (e.g, an opening into a hallway in the right front and a further extension in the back that takes the room a further 5 metres again. I wont go into furnishing, floor materials (slate), a slight humming from another appliance in a distant corner, etc etc. etc. Anyway, before Dirac my set-up required much EQ work and the results were, well as good as I could get. With Dirac, I have been blown away. I can not believe what I now can hear. It is difficult to describe the improvement. It is simply astonishing !!!!!. Don't care about all the graphs, and all the hokey pokey (no, I am NOT a luddite, I am a techno fiend of sorts with my name in a book by Billl Gates). All I know is that it all works and works brilliantly. My Vinyl, CDs and DSD collection have never sounded so good. Brilliantly done fellas, Dan, Lonnie, Keith and all the others at Emo. |
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Post by Gary Cook on Jan 27, 2015 18:51:28 GMT -5
Your's is a prime example of what good room correction equalisation can do, but I forgot all about that when I read your signature  KEF Concerto's (old but still working - I built them !!! - in 1975) I have 5 x KEF Concertos, 2 of which I built in the mid 70's and completely refurbished about 10 years ago, cabinets drivers and cross overs. The second pair were added about the mid 80's and subsequently had a couple of drivers replaced, also about 10 years ago. While searching the world for replacement drivers I ended up with enough to make a 5th which became the centre in a 5.1 set up. I retired them from the lounge room system a couple of years ago due to space issues, 5 x Concertos do have a rather large footprint. Cheers Gary |
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Post by Priapulus on Jan 27, 2015 19:54:16 GMT -5
Well, I just did another Dirac run, and it's the best one yet. Music now sound much better, than without Dirac. It doesn't seem as bright as previous runs. The deep bass still seems weak, but I'm going to work on evening out the room response with treatments first. Sincerely, /b
I've got my bass back! First time since I started fooling with Dirac.
I was fooling around with Dirac tonight, trying different mikes. Then I quit, and reloaded my most recent version, and I've got my bass back. I didn't do any changes, I just took my saved results and made and downloaded to the XMC, new filters (see above, which I liked except for lack of bass).
I'm not aware of any changes that I might have made. Perhaps something previously went wrong with the filter construction or loading, or something wonky in the XMC. But all is well now.
So, if you're Dirac seems off, try building and loading the same filters again. A factory reset and reboot of the XMC might be a good idea too!
Sincerely /b
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Post by ansat on Jan 27, 2015 20:10:29 GMT -5
Because the XMC sets the XO does it really matter what Dirac see's and adjusts outside of those frequencies? It can correct my LFE all the way up to 20khz, but my subs won't pass anything higher the 100hz or whatever I set it to, so why should I care if Dirac looked at it? I am asking because I want to know if there are adverse side effects from Dirac making adjustments outside of the speakers XO parameters. I can't think of any, but I'm new to this stuff. Cheers Mark It does matter because Dirac is applied to the signal before bass management and pays no regard to what will later be filtered out. It will apply all the Dirac filters it calculated and then make the necessary adjustments to volume to prevent clipping BEFORE bass management as the next step.
Every signal boost within Dirac, like those seen on the subwoofer channel graph I commented on, results in the overall volume having to be attenuated to prevent clipping. Users have noticed this volume attenuation by Dirac/XMC. This includes all boosts including the desired ones as well as the unnecessary boosts for the frequencies which will be above or below a crossover and so don't need to be filtered.
This doesn't affect the noise shaping that you get within your non crossed over range but WILL affect the overall all-channels volume resulting in a lower overall volume which you then compensate for by turning up system volume as well as possibly the volume on the subwoofer.
Two other and probably unimportant thoughts are: I don't know how many filters Dirac has access to for each channel. If it is like the two Parametric EQ banks then there is a limited number. Why use them many of them making corrections to audio which will be discarded by a crossover limiting the ones available for the parts you do want?
From Flavio (Dirac) and Keith's posts, Dirac also make "decisions" and "judgements" on what it thinks represents room variations and positional variations (which is why it used the 8 other microphone positions to compare to the all important first position to "decide" what is a true variance) so it makes sense to get it to discard the unimportant information and focus on the bit you need.
Hello markc, Dirac does not operate off of filter banks like PEQ would. Think of it as one giant filter that spans the entire frequency range. I would agree that this is wasted processing for items below the xover. However check out this link I don't know much about the order of operations electronically and I have nothing to dispute the claim in that thread with. Tony |
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Post by geebo on Jan 27, 2015 20:18:17 GMT -5
Well, I just did another Dirac run, and it's the best one yet. Music now sound much better, than without Dirac. It doesn't seem as bright as previous runs. The deep bass still seems weak, but I'm going to work on evening out the room response with treatments first. Sincerely, /b
I've got my bass back! First time since I started fooling with Dirac.
I was fooling around with Dirac tonight, trying different mikes. Then I quit, and reloaded my most recent version, and I've got my bass back. I didn't do any changes, I just took my saved results and made and downloaded to the XMC, new filters (see above, which I liked except for lack of bass).
I'm not aware of any changes that I might have made. Perhaps something previously went wrong with the filter construction or loading, or something wonky in the XMC. But all is well now.
So, if you're Dirac seems off, try building and loading the same filters again. A factory reset and reboot of the XMC might be a good idea too!
Sincerely /b
You were trying different mics with Dirac LE? How? |
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robcs
Minor Hero
Posts: 45
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Post by robcs on Jan 27, 2015 20:26:16 GMT -5
Your's is a prime example of what good room correction equalisation can do, but I forgot all about that when I read your signature KEF Concerto's (old but still working - I built them !!! - in 1975) I have 5 x KEF Concertos, 2 of which I built in the mid 70's and completely refurbished about 10 years ago, cabinets drivers and cross overs. The second pair were added about the mid 80's and subsequently had a couple of drivers replaced, also about 10 years ago. While searching the world for replacement drivers I ended up with enough to make a 5th which became the centre in a 5.1 set up. I retired them from the lounge room system a couple of years ago due to space issues, 5 x Concertos do have a rather large footprint. Cheers Gary Gazza, I had one of the original KEF B139A woofers rebuilt by Falk Elctrosound who were located at the end of George Street, Waterloo in Sydney in 1992 who also did some re-wiring on the B110A squarker (now that's old terminology) as well as the T27 tweeter. I think I also updated the crossovers to a type DN26 from KEF. I fully rebuilt the boxes more recently and finally handed the Concertos off to one of my sons recently ( I should change my signature). I think he just sold them to a rebuilder in Canberra. The amazing thing is how good they still sound. Rob |
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Post by Gary Cook on Jan 27, 2015 20:44:05 GMT -5
Your's is a prime example of what good room correction equalisation can do, but I forgot all about that when I read your signature I have 5 x KEF Concertos, 2 of which I built in the mid 70's and completely refurbished about 10 years ago, cabinets drivers and cross overs. The second pair were added about the mid 80's and subsequently had a couple of drivers replaced, also about 10 years ago. While searching the world for replacement drivers I ended up with enough to make a 5th which became the centre in a 5.1 set up. I retired them from the lounge room system a couple of years ago due to space issues, 5 x Concertos do have a rather large footprint. Gazza, I had one of the original KEF B139A woofers rebuilt by Falk Elctrosound who were located at the end of George Street, Waterloo in Sydney in 1992 who also did some re-wiring on the B110A squarker (now that's old terminology) as well as the T27 tweeter. I think I also updated the crossovers to a type DN26 from KEF. I fully rebuilt the boxes more recently and finally handed the Concertos off to one of my sons recently ( I should change my signature). I think he just sold them to a rebuilder in Canberra. The amazing thing is how good they still sound. Rob Hi Rob, we could start a new thread with Concerto stories  In my box of spares I have a dead B139A, most likely voice coil, but otherwise in perfect condition. A good T27 plus an original untouched 3 way cross over in mint condition. Finding good B110A's proved difficult, they were and still are an amazing mid range speaker much sought after. Fortunately all of my 5 worked and sounded great. Cheers Gary |
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Post by markc on Jan 28, 2015 2:06:15 GMT -5
My thought for the day:
If Audyssey and other "automatic" room correction algorithms and systems produced Dirac-like visible graphs to demonstrate what is being measured, at what level it's detected and at what frequency, would it's advocates be more or less satisfied than they are or than the people on here?
The difficulty with simply saying that you like a modified sound over the unmodified is that even something simple like turning up a volume by 0.5dB affects our sound perception and if you do A/B testing with two identical sources at VolumeX and VolumeX+0.5dB, most people will prefer the "quality" of the sound at the louder volume.
Our problem (us nerds) is that because Dirac provided graphs we don't simply want to believe/perceive that the sound is better, we want evidential proof that it should sound better.
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robcs
Minor Hero
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Post by robcs on Jan 28, 2015 9:02:52 GMT -5
Hi Rob, we could start a new thread with Concerto stories In my box of spares I have a dead B139A, most likely voice coil, but otherwise in perfect condition. A good T27 plus an original untouched 3 way cross over in mint condition. Finding good B110A's proved difficult, they were and still are an amazing mid range speaker much sought after. Fortunately all of my 5 worked and sounded great. Cheers Gary Garry Sorry, I know it's not the right thread but thanks for the comments. It good to know there are people out there who still have some of this great old gear and it's still working. I miss my old Goodmans 18" that could get down to 45Hz. Nowadays I have a Velodyne DD18 that does all that and more. Rob |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Jan 30, 2015 22:36:03 GMT -5
My thought for the day: If Audyssey and other "automatic" room correction algorithms and systems produced Dirac-like visible graphs to demonstrate what is being measured, at what level it's detected and at what frequency, would it's advocates be more or less satisfied than they are or than the people on here? The difficulty with simply saying that you like a modified sound over the unmodified is that even something simple like turning up a volume by 0.5dB affects our sound perception and if you do A/B testing with two identical sources at VolumeX and VolumeX+0.5dB, most people will prefer the "quality" of the sound at the louder volume. Our problem (us nerds) is that because Dirac provided graphs we don't simply want to believe/perceive that the sound is better, we want evidential proof that it should sound better. The graphs say one thing but it's more along the lines of, "where is my bass?" The change was not so subtle. My Dirac setup eventually was calibrated well, but not everyone's system is dialed as well yet. |
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Post by ansat on Feb 2, 2015 17:56:34 GMT -5
All information is in the hands of Dirac. Now we wait. My stance has not changed, but the data behind my claim has become more solid. Hope to post more soon.
Tony
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Post by tunatamer on Feb 2, 2015 18:28:11 GMT -5
Thanks for the update Tony. I'm quite interested to see how this all plays out....
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Feb 2, 2015 18:34:16 GMT -5
All information is in the hands of Dirac. Now we wait. My stance has not changed, but the data behind my claim has become more solid. Hope to post more soon. Tony I spoke to Emotiva. They said they were looking into the "Case of the Missing Bass". Yes! I'm a poet and I don't even know it  . |
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Post by socketman on Feb 2, 2015 20:52:18 GMT -5
I can say now that Emotiva has all pertinent information so hopefully "Emogate" will soon be solved.  |
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klinemj
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Official Emofest Scribe
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Post by klinemj on Feb 2, 2015 20:59:21 GMT -5
Let me guess...Emo is using under inflated mics...and it's the fault of the Patriots waterboy. Right?!?!?
Mark
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hemster
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Particle Manufacturer
...still listening... still watching
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Post by hemster on Feb 2, 2015 22:05:30 GMT -5
Let me guess...Emo is using under inflated mics...and it's the fault of the Patriots waterboy. Right?!?!? Mark Doesn't matter if Emotiva win the (AV vendor) Superbowl.... you know... like the Patriots did! The waterboy will be forgiven and it'll all be "water under the bridge" (over the Charles river).  |
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Post by snafujg on Feb 2, 2015 23:19:19 GMT -5
Can't wait to see what happens. I ran full Dirac yesterday using the 14 day trial and I will say the emotiva version behaves very differently. I will make a sep thread for those findings, though.
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Post by daleaherman on Feb 3, 2015 9:51:00 GMT -5
I ran Dirac for the first time last night to disappointing results. All of my speakers showed a 10dB drop from 7K to 15K. Using REW, I see no such issues. Plus, it added so much below 100Hz to my fronts that they suffered excessive movement. Hopefully they were not damaged.
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Post by geebo on Feb 3, 2015 10:50:34 GMT -5
I ran Dirac for the first time last night to disappointing results. All of my speakers showed a 10dB drop from 7K to 15K. Using REW, I see no such issues. Plus, it added so much below 100Hz to my fronts that they suffered excessive movement. Hopefully they were not damaged. Most people say the bass seems weak but your reporting the opposite. Can you post some Dirac screen shots? And did you verify that AGC is turned off? |
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