Is Dirac useful for music?

[klinemj]

Feb 2, 2016 9:29:49 GMT -5 Boomzilla said:

What's the cost difference between running DIRAC on a PC / Mac as a stand-alone solution vs. buying a processor (such as the XMC-1) that has the hardware built in?

To do the stand-alone, one would have to buy the program, the mic, and a hardware box to Implement the signal modification, yes? The XMC-1 would come with its own DSP-hardware & mic?

Is there any sonic advantage in going one way vs. the other? Any price advantage?

Boom, there are 2 versions of DIRAC Live you can buy for a computer...the 2 channel version costs $423 and the multichannel version costs $706 at current exchange rates.

To use it, you need a computer, the mic, a software to play the music from your storage device on your computer. The software outputs its data to Dirac in digital form. Dirac is essentially seen by the player as a soundcard/device to output to...at that point, Dirac's filters are applied. From there, the filtered data goes to a DAC of your choice and off you go to listen to it now in room-corrected analog form.

So, relative to the XMC-1 with Dirac live (which retails for $2499 w/Dirac LE or +$99 for full dirac), you can save a lot ($2499 or $2598 minus $423 or $706) with the computer version if you already have a computer and a player software to use. If not, add the cost for those to the standalone version. For either approach (standalone or XMC-1), you need a mic. With the XMC-1, you could use Emotiva's mic or do what many of us have done...buy an individually calibrated mic for $109 from CS Labs. If you do that, then mic cost is a wash between the options. jRiver and many other softwares are available, as you well know, to use as a player to play back your digitally stored music files.

As talley notes, the stand alone version is theoretically capable of (as Dirac says) "up to 24 but/192...". But, as I recall when I talked with Dirac about it there are some "yeah, but" situations. It has been too long since I had those conversations, so I can't remember what the exceptions were. (I seem to recall someone saying that even though the PC version could accept 24/192 as an input, then filters were still down-sampled...but I may be wrong.)

Aside from cost and potential differences in bit rate/sampling frequency possible, if you use the standalone software - you can store as many filters on your computer as you like and select different ones to use easily. So, want one with the target curve having only the bass corrected? Make it. What one to have the full range corrected? Make it. Want one with bass more enchanced or more subdued? make them. Then, you can select which one you want from your list of filters you have stored under different file names. With the XMC-1, you can use your computer to create as many different filters as you like and keep all of them stored on your computer. But it takes more effort to load these filters onto the XMC-1 (which can only have 1 on it at a time), so there is more convenience to switching between filters on the standalone version.

I hope that helps.

Mark

[Talley]

Also another audyssey vs dirac... this was just me playing around with some curves and verifying them with REW on my Umik-1.

I had boosted the 17hz range and dropped off the highs and you can see the results as I had them inserted when using the Dirac software.  Didn't sound great but was nice to see I can adjust things myself.

I'll see if I can remember to bring my laptop home and do some retests showing where I'm at now.  

Attachments:

[KeithL]

Good summary - except that you missed one major thing....

The software version of Dirac Live runs on your computer, and inserts itself in the signal path between the computer and its sound card.....
therefore, YOU CAN ONLY USE IT WITH AUDIO THAT YOU PLAY ON OR THROUGH YOUR COMPUTER.

The PC would be "the hardware processor box". This would work fine for a HTPC, or for an audio-only setup that was used to play digital audio files,
but you wouldn't have things like multiple switched inputs and, if you wanted to play any analog sources through it, you would have to add a
high-quality analog-to-digital converter and appropriate software. You can add things like multiple-HDMI-input-switches to a computer,
but you're talking about some serious customization, and getting it all to work well together.

Another way of looking at it is that you're talking about building your own XMC-1.... and it's going to be up to you to works out the little details,
like making sure you have enough CPU power to switch inputs, decode your audio, AND run the Dirac filters...

Feb 2, 2016 14:49:10 GMT -5 klinemj said:

Feb 2, 2016 9:29:49 GMT -5 Boomzilla said:

What's the cost difference between running DIRAC on a PC / Mac as a stand-alone solution vs. buying a processor (such as the XMC-1) that has the hardware built in?

To do the stand-alone, one would have to buy the program, the mic, and a hardware box to Implement the signal modification, yes? The XMC-1 would come with its own DSP-hardware & mic?

Is there any sonic advantage in going one way vs. the other? Any price advantage?

Boom, there are 2 versions of DIRAC Live you can buy for a computer...the 2 channel version costs $423 and the multichannel version costs $706 at current exchange rates.

To use it, you need a computer, the mic, a software to play the music from your storage device on your computer. The software outputs its data to Dirac in digital form. Dirac is essentially seen by the player as a soundcard/device to output to...at that point, Dirac's filters are applied. From there, the filtered data goes to a DAC of your choice and off you go to listen to it now in room-corrected analog form.

So, relative to the XMC-1 with Dirac live (which retails for $2499 w/Dirac LE or +$99 for full dirac), you can save a lot ($2499 or $2598 minus $423 or $706) with the computer version if you already have a computer and a player software to use. If not, add the cost for those to the standalone version. For either approach (standalone or XMC-1), you need a mic. With the XMC-1, you could use Emotiva's mic or do what many of us have done...buy an individually calibrated mic for $109 from CS Labs. If you do that, then mic cost is a wash between the options. jRiver and many other softwares are available, as you well know, to use as a player to play back your digitally stored music files.

As talley notes, the stand alone version is theoretically capable of (as Dirac says) "up to 24 but/192...". But, as I recall when I talked with Dirac about it there are some "yeah, but" situations. It has been too long since I had those conversations, so I can't remember what the exceptions were. (I seem to recall someone saying that even though the PC version could accept 24/192 as an input, then filters were still down-sampled...but I may be wrong.)

Aside from cost and potential differences in bit rate/sampling frequency possible, if you use the standalone software - you can store as many filters on your computer as you like and select different ones to use easily. So, want one with the target curve having only the bass corrected? Make it. What one to have the full range corrected? Make it. Want one with bass more enchanced or more subdued? make them. Then, you can select which one you want from your list of filters you have stored under different file names. With the XMC-1, you can use your computer to create as many different filters as you like and keep all of them stored on your computer. But it takes more effect to load these filters onto the XMC-1 (which can only have 1 on it at a time), so there is more convenience to switching between filters on the standalone version.

I hope that helps.

Mark

[sycraft]

The PC version of Dirac is kinda a pain. I tested it prior deciding to buy the XMC-1. It isn't an unrealistic solution for people, but not as easy as having an external device that handles it. I didn't get around to testing CPU load since I decided the issues it had were unacceptable to me and I needed a more stable solution.

The only thing I miss from it is getting data on speaker level and delay settings. You could view those in detail on the PC, you can't see them on the XMC-1. The sample rate issue isn't relevant. Maybe there are people who can hear over 24kHz, though I've never seen it in any scientific literature, I sure can't. My hearing rolls off to zero after about 18kHz.

[509Paul]

I could never get Dirac to work right and if it didn't crash on my Mac before sending the filter to the XMC-1 it would always turn the level of the left front speaker so low it couldn't be heard anymore.

[klinemj]

Feb 2, 2016 16:04:52 GMT -5 KeithL said:

Good summary - except that you missed one major thing....

The software version of Dirac Live runs on your computer, and inserts itself in the signal path between the computer and its sound card.....
therefore, YOU CAN ONLY USE IT WITH AUDIO THAT YOU PLAY ON OR THROUGH YOUR COMPUTER.

The PC would be "the hardware processor box". This would work fine for a HTPC, or for an audio-only setup that was used to play digital audio files,
but you wouldn't have things like multiple switched inputs and, if you wanted to play any analog sources through it, you would have to add a
high-quality analog-to-digital converter and appropriate software.

You are technically correct, but I was answering in context of the thread title and to a post by someone who, to the best of my knowledge, does not use a TT or need multiple hdmi inputs. Were I to elaborate on every other single difference between an xmc-1 and a PC, it make take pages to list all the difference, including the xmc's nice OSD, nice ability to be controlled by a universal remote, etc. So, I stuck to differences in context of the person I was answering.

Mark

[klinemj]

Feb 2, 2016 16:57:27 GMT -5 sycraft said:

The PC version of Dirac is kinda a pain. I tested it prior deciding to buy the XMC-1. It isn't an unrealistic solution for people, but not as easy as having an external device that handles it. I didn't get around to testing CPU load since I decided the issues it had were unacceptable to me and I needed a more stable solution.

Odd that you had issues. Several tried it after Emofest 2013 and it ran fine.

Mark

[Lsc]

Feb 2, 2016 17:04:38 GMT -5 509Paul said:

I could never get Dirac to work right and if it didn't crash on my Mac before sending the filter to the XMC-1 it would always turn the level of the left front speaker so low it couldn't be heard anymore.

Hey my buddy recently had an issue where his left or right level was down 5dB inexplicably.

It used to be fine and all he did was do a hard reset of the XMC-1

[minthral]

I can see a use-case for Dirac PC for stereo music...the PC will be the DSP and feed a DAC via USB or OPT, but I don't think 7.1 channels via PC and Dirac HT is practical. You'd have to use a PC sound card with multi channels out...usually these are low quality compared to even cheaper external DACs and they don't have amps to feed anything but tiny computer speakers. I can't think of a practical way to setup a PC to have 7 optical and 1-2 subwoofer outs, each going to a DAC.

You need an external pre-amp or receiver for a surround sound setup...the DSP has to occur per channel at that point.

I did buy a used miniDSP 22D ($500) for my treadmill setup. It has the same Dirac stereo software and is external (3 digital in and digital out to a DAC). You're best off getting something like this instead of the Dirac PC software for stereo music.

[klinemj]

Feb 6, 2016 11:21:20 GMT -5 minthral said:

I can see a use-case for Dirac PC for stereo music...the PC will be the DSP and feed a DAC via USB or OPT, but I don't think 7.1 channels via PC and Dirac HT is practical. You'd have to use a PC sound card with multi channels out...usually these are low quality compared to even cheaper external DACs and they don't have amps to feed anything but tiny computer speakers. I can't think of a practical way to setup a PC to have 7 optical and 1-2 subwoofer outs, each going to a DAC.

You only need one digital line out, such as optical or coax or HDMI, from a PC to carry multichannel to pro/pro...not one per channel.

Mark