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Post by dkaudio on Oct 18, 2016 17:07:26 GMT -5
I ran home and ran Dirac again, I need to figure this out. I tried only using my better of the two sub locations (only 1 sub). What I don't understand is REW says my subs look like this after tuning with the iNuke's DSP...  Dirac says my subs look like this...  Why is there such a difference? Still looks like Dirac is applying 9+db of boost in certain areas. |
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Post by pedrocols on Oct 18, 2016 17:25:20 GMT -5
I have watched 20 movies and have listened to 50 CDs while you still playing with Dirac.....  |
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 18, 2016 18:37:48 GMT -5
I have watched 20 movies and have listened to 50 CDs while you still playing with Dirac..... Tell me about it, this hasn't been a pleasant experience! It is better, sounds really good actually. But, I still can turn it up all the way (is actually +11). The music sounds good though, with an analog source I have it set to auto, usually picks PLIIx music. In Direct it goes louder and using P1 or P2 it can go really loud, doesn't sound as good though. I'm having a big group of people over Saturday for my 8th annual Halloween horror movie night, doing 3 movies with music in between. It is always at my house because I easily have the best system of all my friends. It will be a good day and night long test for this! I sure hope during peaks of the movies I do not hear it limit itself, it is so distracting and disappointing when that happened before! |
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Post by geebo on Oct 18, 2016 18:48:44 GMT -5
I ran home and ran Dirac again, I need to figure this out. I tried only using my better of the two sub locations (only 1 sub). What I don't understand is REW says my subs look like this after tuning with the iNuke's DSP... Dirac says my subs look like this... Why is there such a difference? Still looks like Dirac is applying 9+db of boost in certain areas. First of all try setting to smoothing in REW to none and compare again. Are you using the same mic and cal files with both programs? |
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Post by pedrocols on Oct 18, 2016 18:50:33 GMT -5
I have watched 20 movies and have listened to 50 CDs while you still playing with Dirac..... Tell me about it, this hasn't been a pleasant experience! It is better, sounds really good actually. But, I still can turn it up all the way (is actually +11). The music sounds good though, with an analog source I have it set to auto, usually picks PLIIx music. In Direct it goes louder and using P1 or P2 it can go really loud, doesn't sound as good though. I'm having a big group of people over Saturday for my 8th annual Halloween horror movie night, doing 3 movies with music in between. It is always at my house because I easily have the best system of all my friends. It will be a good day and night long test for this! I sure hope during peaks of the movies I do not hear it limit itself, it is so distracting and disappointing when that happened before! Just give them some boozes before the movie and they won't be too concern about how it sounds.... |
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Post by socketman on Oct 18, 2016 21:24:52 GMT -5
I don't know if anyone has asked this before but I will ask now. Have you done any room treatments and have you done the sub crawl or were they just put where you wanted them. The more you treat the room the less work dirac has to do to correct your room. Since you seem to have a handle on rew I would suggest trying to set up your main speaker positioning and consider some room treatments. You did not really tell us about your room so that would help also. 2 subs in a small room can cause more trouble than it cures. Also as was mentioned measure with REW with less smoothing so we can see the full picture. I recently bought a house and my room is a lot different than my old house and my system sounds so much better now than in the old house , in fact after 3 months I haven't even run dirac yet. Hopefully with some small changes you can stop playing and start enjoying. Also , if at all possible find the 99 bux and get dirac full its worth that and way more imho.
Richard
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Post by millst on Oct 18, 2016 23:05:44 GMT -5
Yes, the subs were exluded from correction because I set them to none before running Dirac...downloaded the new filters then turned subs back to dual mono. No, that won't work (confirmed by Keith). I meant something in the Dirac GUI to tell it to not apply correction to that channel. I found a screenshot and it does not exist. I know you don't want to spend the money, but Dirac full should fix this. The free option is to move your sub(s) and flatten the response. Also, you could try using a Y adapter and hope that your subs combined response is flatter. -tm |
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Post by millst on Oct 18, 2016 23:14:13 GMT -5
First of all try setting to smoothing in REW to none and compare again. Are you using the same mic and cal files with both programs? Yeah, 1/3 octave smoothing makes everyone's room look great  -tm |
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Post by mickseymour on Oct 19, 2016 1:25:29 GMT -5
In Direct it goes louder and using P1 or P2 it can go really loud, doesn't sound as good though. Looking at your FL/R and C, they have peaks at 50, 80 and 100Hz and I'm guessing that is being caused by the room. One of your rears has a 12db peak around 125Hz and the other some 7db peaks between 100 and 175Hz. Something I'm fiddling with at the moment is using Preset 2 PEQ to tame large bass peaks, ignoring troughs and higher frequencies on my FL and FR for vinyl replay using my large speakers without the sub. Not the same situation you are in but follow me... If you brought the FL/R and C peaks down by, say, 10db and the rear peaks down by, say, 10db and 5db respectively using a preset's PEQ , I'd say the system as a whole should sound slightly better and you won't be hitting any internal clipping limits. This isn't a very scientific approach and you would need to experiment a little with the width/Q of the adjustments but that might get you through the halloween-fest. |
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 19, 2016 7:53:04 GMT -5
First of all try setting to smoothing in REW to none and compare again. Are you using the same mic and cal files with both programs? Yes, same mic and cal files in both programs. So Dirac has no smoothing? I see! I can try to measure my subs with no smoothing and see if it looks like what Dirac showed. Just give them some boozes before the movie and they won't be too concern about how it sounds.... Haha, there will definitely be that too! I don't know if anyone has asked this before but I will ask now. Have you done any room treatments and have you done the sub crawl or were they just put where you wanted them. The more you treat the room the less work dirac has to do to correct your room. Since you seem to have a handle on rew I would suggest trying to set up your main speaker positioning and consider some room treatments. You did not really tell us about your room so that would help also. 2 subs in a small room can cause more trouble than it cures. Also as was mentioned measure with REW with less smoothing so we can see the full picture. I recently bought a house and my room is a lot different than my old house and my system sounds so much better now than in the old house , in fact after 3 months I haven't even run dirac yet. Hopefully with some small changes you can stop playing and start enjoying. Also , if at all possible find the 99 bux and get dirac full its worth that and way more imho. Richard I have paid some attention to room treatment but have no traps, diffusers or panels. This is in my somewhat small main upstairs living room, my house doesn't have a theater unfortunately. I did things like place thick shades over my bay window, put a thick wool rug over my hardwood floor between the listening spots and drivers. I also did the mirror trick for first reflections and my second couch is in one spot and my bay window treatments are in the other. That's about the extent of it. If there are any other low cost "tricks" please let me know. I know you don't want to spend the money, but Dirac full should fix this. The free option is to move your sub(s) and flatten the response. Also, you could try using a Y adapter and hope that your subs combined response is flatter. -tm I did use a Y cable this last time and only used the better of my two sub locations. The Y was two male into L&R on the XMC-1 and 1 female to the good sub location. Was hoping this would result in less adjustment by Dirac. Looking at your FL/R and C, they have peaks at 50, 80 and 100Hz and I'm guessing that is being caused by the room. One of your rears has a 12db peak around 125Hz and the other some 7db peaks between 100 and 175Hz. Something I'm fiddling with at the moment is using Preset 2 PEQ to tame large bass peaks, ignoring troughs and higher frequencies on my FL and FR for vinyl replay using my large speakers without the sub. Not the same situation you are in but follow me... If you brought the FL/R and C peaks down by, say, 10db and the rear peaks down by, say, 10db and 5db respectively using a preset's PEQ , I'd say the system as a whole should sound slightly better and you won't be hitting any internal clipping limits. This isn't a very scientific approach and you would need to experiment a little with the width/Q of the adjustments but that might get you through the halloween-fest. So you're saying to learn by reading the Dirac graphs and manually adjust myself in the P1 or P2 modes? |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Oct 19, 2016 8:29:09 GMT -5
Whenever you take room measurements, your results will depend on what method is used: - are they averaged? - are they time windowed? - are you measuring direct or reflected sound - or both? - are you using pink noise or a sweep? - if you're using a sweep, how fast is it, and is it linear or log? - are you using smoothing, and what kind? Each of those will give you different results... (and, yes, they're all "right" - just different) REW offers several options, and I'm not sure exactly what Dirac does internally. First of all try setting to smoothing in REW to none and compare again. Are you using the same mic and cal files with both programs? Yes, same mic and cal files in both programs. So Dirac has no smoothing? I see! I can try to measure my subs with no smoothing and see if it looks like what Dirac showed. Just give them some boozes before the movie and they won't be too concern about how it sounds.... Haha, there will definitely be that too! I don't know if anyone has asked this before but I will ask now. Have you done any room treatments and have you done the sub crawl or were they just put where you wanted them. The more you treat the room the less work dirac has to do to correct your room. Since you seem to have a handle on rew I would suggest trying to set up your main speaker positioning and consider some room treatments. You did not really tell us about your room so that would help also. 2 subs in a small room can cause more trouble than it cures. Also as was mentioned measure with REW with less smoothing so we can see the full picture. I recently bought a house and my room is a lot different than my old house and my system sounds so much better now than in the old house , in fact after 3 months I haven't even run dirac yet. Hopefully with some small changes you can stop playing and start enjoying. Also , if at all possible find the 99 bux and get dirac full its worth that and way more imho. Richard I have paid some attention to room treatment but have no traps, diffusers or panels. This is in my somewhat small main upstairs living room, my house doesn't have a theater unfortunately. I did things like place thick shades over my bay window, put a thick wool rug over my hardwood floor between the listening spots and drivers. I also did the mirror trick for first reflections and my second couch is in one spot and my bay window treatments are in the other. That's about the extent of it. If there are any other low cost "tricks" please let me know. I know you don't want to spend the money, but Dirac full should fix this. The free option is to move your sub(s) and flatten the response. Also, you could try using a Y adapter and hope that your subs combined response is flatter. -tm I did use a Y cable this last time and only used the better of my two sub locations. The Y was two male into L&R on the XMC-1 and 1 female to the good sub location. Was hoping this would result in less adjustment by Dirac. Looking at your FL/R and C, they have peaks at 50, 80 and 100Hz and I'm guessing that is being caused by the room. One of your rears has a 12db peak around 125Hz and the other some 7db peaks between 100 and 175Hz. Something I'm fiddling with at the moment is using Preset 2 PEQ to tame large bass peaks, ignoring troughs and higher frequencies on my FL and FR for vinyl replay using my large speakers without the sub. Not the same situation you are in but follow me... If you brought the FL/R and C peaks down by, say, 10db and the rear peaks down by, say, 10db and 5db respectively using a preset's PEQ , I'd say the system as a whole should sound slightly better and you won't be hitting any internal clipping limits. This isn't a very scientific approach and you would need to experiment a little with the width/Q of the adjustments but that might get you through the halloween-fest. So you're saying to learn by reading the Dirac graphs and manually adjust myself in the P1 or P2 modes? |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Oct 19, 2016 8:37:15 GMT -5
Dirac calibrates every speaker it sees individually. However, there's no way to "mix and match". Dirac also treats each filter individually. So, if you run Dirac, but tell it you only have one sub, it will calibrate the one it "knows about" and use whatever previous filter exists for the other one when you enable it. If you don't want Dirac to calibrate your subs, and it has already done so, then you would need to use one of the manual presets. Another option, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE FULL VERSION, would be to narrow the "curtains" on one or both subs. Dirac simply passes audio outside the range of frequencies you've allowed it to correct unaltered. If you set the curtains for the sub to "200 Hz to 250 Hz" then Dirac will only apply its corrections to that frequency range.... which shouldn't be audible with a sub only being used up to 80 Hz or so. (This is a setting you can make for each speaker individually.) However, Dirac usually does a very good job with room EQ for subs, so, if you have the full version, it probably makes more sense to simply set a Target Curve you like. Another option would be to use any manual controls you have on the individual subs to adjust them manually AFTER Dirac has set them the way it likes them. (For example, our new Airmotiv subs - coming very soon now - have a "LF Boost" control that lets you manually tweak the very low bass.) Ugh, so after all that I am still applying my old sub filters using Dirac?! So now what are my options? What if I just use 1 sub when running Dirac? I believe Tony had threads recommending this and not using both subs if they are in oposite spots of the room anyway. Use the flatter of the two in hopes of little correction? |
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 19, 2016 8:44:35 GMT -5
Another option, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE FULL VERSION, would be to narrow the "curtains" on one or both subs. Dirac simply passes audio outside the range of frequencies you've allowed it to correct unaltered. If you set the curtains for the sub to "200 Hz to 250 Hz" then Dirac will only apply its corrections to that frequency range.... which shouldn't be audible with a sub only being used up to 80 Hz or so. I like this option since I'm adjusting the subs manually using REW and the iNuke's DSP. I am very new to REW so I have no idea how the "master" it, I am just taking basic sweeps and looking at the results. This all begs the question, you guys said 1/3 smoothing makes anything look good. What should I be using when adjusting my subs then? no smoothing or a different fraction? I read online that 1/3 is generally accepted as the norm  |
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Post by geebo on Oct 19, 2016 8:48:08 GMT -5
Another option, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE FULL VERSION, would be to narrow the "curtains" on one or both subs. Dirac simply passes audio outside the range of frequencies you've allowed it to correct unaltered. If you set the curtains for the sub to "200 Hz to 250 Hz" then Dirac will only apply its corrections to that frequency range.... which shouldn't be audible with a sub only being used up to 80 Hz or so. I like this option since I'm adjusting the subs manually using REW and the iNuke's DSP. I am very new to REW so I have no idea how the "master" it, I am just taking basic sweeps and looking at the results. This all begs the question, you guys said 1/3 smoothing makes anything look good. What should I be using when adjusting my subs then? no smoothing or a different fraction? I read online that 1/3 is generally accepted as the norm To compare to Dirac I would guess no smoothing would be the one to try. For general use you might try variable smoothing. |
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Post by mickseymour on Oct 19, 2016 9:51:07 GMT -5
Looking at your FL/R and C, they have peaks at 50, 80 and 100Hz and I'm guessing that is being caused by the room. One of your rears has a 12db peak around 125Hz and the other some 7db peaks between 100 and 175Hz. Something I'm fiddling with at the moment is using Preset 2 PEQ to tame large bass peaks, ignoring troughs and higher frequencies on my FL and FR for vinyl replay using my large speakers without the sub. Not the same situation you are in but follow me... If you brought the FL/R and C peaks down by, say, 10db and the rear peaks down by, say, 10db and 5db respectively using a preset's PEQ , I'd say the system as a whole should sound slightly better and you won't be hitting any internal clipping limits. This isn't a very scientific approach and you would need to experiment a little with the width/Q of the adjustments but that might get you through the halloween-fest. So you're saying to learn by reading the Dirac graphs and manually adjust myself in the P1 or P2 modes? Yes, but only work on bringing peaks down so you don't push the unit into limiting the output. |
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 19, 2016 9:59:42 GMT -5
Here is a quick diagram of my living room if this helps. It is probably ~24' x ~11'  |
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Post by bolle on Oct 19, 2016 10:40:08 GMT -5
I work with 1/24 for most of my EQ-ing. 1/6 is more like "what you hear" but 1/24 helps to precisely set the EQ to narrow peaks. Use 1/6 for gaps, so narrow gaps disappear - they don´t need to be filled.
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Post by millst on Oct 19, 2016 11:15:18 GMT -5
I did use a Y cable this last time and only used the better of my two sub locations. The Y was two male into L&R on the XMC-1 and 1 female to the good sub location. Was hoping this would result in less adjustment by Dirac. I meant a Y cable to split one of the XMC-1 outputs to both subs. This would treat them as a single subwoofer and a single set of Dirac filters would be created. This method requires you to manually time align and level match the subs. Some people have better luck with this method since the combined response is corrected. People have compared Dirac graphs to REW graphs before (spoiler, they are pretty accurate). The Dirac graphs likely have 1/24 octave smoothing. I agree with using 1/12 to 1/24 for EQ work. -tm |
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 19, 2016 14:50:06 GMT -5
Thanks, learning a lot. I will redo my iNuke DSP using 1/12 or 1/24 smoothing in REW.
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Post by dkaudio on Oct 19, 2016 20:33:42 GMT -5
Here's how I got my subs after some fine tuning and using 1/24 smoothing...  |
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