Dirac and room correction software

[Hifi_swlon]

So, I decided to jump on the Room Correction bandwagon, having reached the point where it seemed like my only hope for a nice sound in my current lounge.

Having taken delivery of a UMIK-1 during the week, and borrowed a mic stand from a friends studio yesterday, I had a skip-read the Dirac Live manual today and then got to work.

Apart from what seemed like a conspiracy against me getting decent measurements - howling winds, noisy planes, kids screaming outside, forgetting to turn off Devialet EQ(!) - I finally got a complete and useable set and made my first filter.

I've been playing Roon through the Dirac Audio Processor for a while now, and initially it's impressive.

I pretty much left the output curve as per the Dirac default proposal, and I like what I get.  Toggling it on and off is both subtle and obvious at the same time.  Hard to describe.  Everything just sounds clearer and more balanced, and less 'echoey', with some boomy bass gone, and a few things that were missing back.  Hard to say if its cured my brightness problem as I'm still back with my old speakers - but the current ones sound good.  Better for sure.

Will listen a bit more, and experiment with different curves, and then if all's well and I have time I'll throw the Facts back in and try it with those.

There were a few gotchas along the way, and a few things that could be better with the software (save those for another time), but all-in-all I'm really impressed - its exceeded my expectations by a long way.  The one thing I definitely didn't get using Dirac - which a few people (including dealers for new speakers) suggested I would - is any loss of 'magic', 'sparkle', 'life', or 'musicality'.  Nothing lost in those departments to my ears - nothing at all. The only thing that you do get is quite a drop in sound levels at the same Devialet volume, because Dirac keeps a lot spare for overhead to avoid clipping.  I'm not quite following the logic there, but …...

Perhaps with more critical long-term listening I'll find some faults, but so far all that it seems to do is EQ the sound to something thats really nice!

My room measurements:

   

To be continued…..