Author Topic: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1  (Read 7438 times)

OldiesButGoodies

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Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« on: February 14, 2016, 05:10:37 PM »
A few screen shots to give you a sense of how the Dirac Live software works on the Emotiva XMC-1.   The preamp ships with a version of Dirac called "Dirac LE"  which is essentially the same as what I am showing here without the ability to add other calibrated microphones or setting target curves (will explain what that means shortly).   Dirac Live costs an extra $99 and is worth it, IMO. 

The first thing you do is set levels on the microphone - I did not take a screen shot on that (and it is not really an exciting aspect of the process to be honest); then you measure the room.  Nine measurements are taken,  and you can choose between auditorium, sofa, and chair layouts depending on your listening room situation.   Since I listen mostly by myself in the cave,  I chose the chair and the software tells me roughly where to place the microphone relative to the chair for the nine measurements. At the bottom of the screen you see the voice graph of the 7.2 measurements.  If one or more of the measurements clips (too hot), a red line shows where it happened and I have to repeat the test after adjusting levels (you may notice that when I took this screen shot I had a bad measurement to the middle-left of the chair,  I repeated it later.


Because measuring is a pain and I do not want to it too often (only if I change crossover points or speaker size settings,  or speaker position),  the next thing I do before moving on is save the measurements to the laptop's hard drive:

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Then you get to the filter creation screen.  Target curves can be set for each speaker individually. The target curve is what I am asking the computer to create filters for relative to the actual measurements. I placed orange arrows next to three "handles" I can adjust on this particular curve for the L and R speakers (I can set L and R individually but chose to do them together).  I can add as many handles as I want and play around with the shape of the curve if that is what I want.  I can also close or open the correction "curtains" - adjust the range over which the speakers will be corrected.  I placed green arrows to indicate where the curtains where set in this case (I use what the software recommends).

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Once it is done creating filters (about 40 seconds on my laptop) the software loads them into the preamp over the wifi network (the pre is hard-wired into my wifi router LAN, the laptop talks to it via wifi into the router):


This is the Dirac process.   This preamp also works with Room Eq Wizard and has two separate memory banks for two sets of filters created with REW,  will take screen shots of that some time in the future when I use it next.  I have one set in loaded right now for some types of music,  but I use teh Dirac profile most of the time.

Regards,

OBG
« Last Edit: February 14, 2016, 05:18:09 PM by OldiesButGoodies »

bmwr75

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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2016, 06:54:04 PM »
Nice tutorial OBG.  Is using a laptop a must?  How does it sound?

OldiesButGoodies

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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2016, 08:27:32 PM »
Hi Scott!

A big advantage of using Dirac is that the calculations can be done on a stand alone computer so no hardware compromises need be made to account for the limitations of the internal CPU chips the receiver manufacturer could (or could not) afford.  The filter calculations can be more complex and allow for different target curves - all of which is enabled by delegating the calculations to an outboard computer.  So,  yes, a separate laptop is required. There is no automated stand-alone set up routine with this pre.

As to the sound, watching movies is a thrill above and beyond what I could pull off with the Denon (just finished watching The Martian for the third time).   Music sounds better (by a long shot) than the Denon, but I have to compare the sound of 2 channel against what I had with the XSP-1 and the Amazings.  I also compare against what Rev gets from his tube-based system with VMPS RM-40.   That is tougher.  The Amazings had this line source thing going for them (which the RM40s have as well),   and a fully analog signal path has a purity of its own.  All in all,  net I prefer this combo,  in that I like video media as much as I like 2 channel and this is a more even spread.   

A separate question is whether I miss Atmos.  So far I don't.  The immersive-ness of a good 7.2 system (as I feel this is) makes me wonder what else Atmos could add. 

Regards,

OBG

Offline MacGeek

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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2016, 06:37:01 AM »
OBG-if that curve is your room, there are serious issues between 40hz and 70hz.  How does the curve look after EQ?
Mac stuff, Sony HDR-F1HD AM/FM/HD tuner, Denon DRS 810 cassette, Denon CDR-W1500 CD recorder, Music Hall MMF-9 w/B&O MMC2, B & O 4002 w/B & O 20 CL, Revox A-77

OldiesButGoodies

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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2016, 10:06:15 AM »
Yes MacG,  there is something going on there.  Probably the natural suckout of this room in combination with the new speaker position in combination with sub-integration issues.  It all translates into a few hours of fun.   O0

OldiesButGoodies

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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2016, 12:08:11 PM »
I have a happy family of room nodes between 40 and 65 hz,  that is what is going on I think.   Need to optimize furnishings and speaker locations for that.  Can't invest in a Helmholtz resonator type of approach because I plan to move out of this house in the not too distant future and those things are tuned to the needs of the room.  First thing is to replace the Ikea chairs with a big fabric sofa that will trap some of that bass harmonics. 


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Re: Dirac Room Correction on the Emotiva XMC-1
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2016, 04:25:44 PM »
Doesn't the EQ pull down the humps?
Mac stuff, Sony HDR-F1HD AM/FM/HD tuner, Denon DRS 810 cassette, Denon CDR-W1500 CD recorder, Music Hall MMF-9 w/B&O MMC2, B & O 4002 w/B & O 20 CL, Revox A-77