# Dirac Live RCS - pc software



## kemist

Anybody on here using the dirac live room correction suite or played around with it?

I have been using the 2 week trial and from the limited testing that i have done it seems very impressive, it uses mixed phase filters for correction and runs as a virtual soundcard that can be used to optimize the output of most programs (TMT5 would block it from working). 

As a caveat its very expensive ~$650 but as i use HTPC's extensively the value prop is slightly better.


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## AudiocRaver

kemist said:


> Anybody on here using the dirac live room correction suite or played around with it?
> 
> I have been using the 2 week trial and from the limited testing that i have done it seems very impressive, it uses mixed phase filters for correction and runs as a virtual soundcard that can be used to optimize the output of most programs (TMT5 would block it from working).
> 
> As a caveat its very expensive ~$650 but as i use HTPC's extensively the value prop is slightly better.


I have not seen any discussion of the dirac technology around here. The majority of seem to be using implementations of

Audyssey
miniDSP
Room EQ Wizard (minimum phase filters generated by REW, implemented in hardware- or software-based equalizer or in AVR)

I like the sound of their Impulse Response Correction approach. It does sound a little expensive, but a lot of these of limitations run into the hundreds of dollars when you get into their more serious versions. As you suggest, compatibility with desired media types is an important consideration. $650 does not sound horribly expensive to me, for what seems to do.

Best of luck!


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## kemist

Figured as much. I will say checking the impulse response before and after it was impressive the difference it made. The room i am testing in has no treatments at all so its not at all ideal and while its not a cure all it did a decent job of cleaning things up.


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## AudiocRaver

Two other room correction software offerings I have looked at and like things about:

Home acoustics Acoustics now shares both their analysis and filter generation software packages free online. I have looked at their analysis package and like it, have yet to look at the filter generation package. I read their approach involves first a close-up analysis of each speaker, then analysis from the listener position. Anyway it is free, and is the exact same software used with their hardware DSP product for room correction.

DRC is a freeware offering that does time correction, and the documentation includes many views of corrected impulse impulses, so impulse response correction is addressed at some level. It is all command line operated, so it is very tedious and requires a lot of study, but I have used it a few times and liked the results. The minimalist amount of correction was the setting that I thought worked best.

I do not know how much you like to roll up your sleeves and get into technical details, but these offerings might be worth playing with. The price is right.

For straightforward analysis tools, Room EQ Wizard is terrific.

Best of luck.


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## kemist

AudiocRaver said:


> Two other room correction software offerings I have looked at and like things about:
> 
> Home acoustics Acoustics now shares both their analysis and filter generation software packages free online. I have looked at their analysis package and like it, have yet to look at the filter generation package. I read their approach involves first a close-up analysis of each speaker, then analysis from the listener position. Anyway it is free, and is the exact same software used with their hardware DSP product for room correction.
> 
> DRC is a freeware offering that does time correction, and the documentation includes many views of corrected impulse impulses, so impulse response correction is addressed at some level. It is all command line operated, so it is very tedious and requires a lot of study, but I have used it a few times and liked the results. The minimalist amount of correction was the setting that I thought worked best.
> 
> I do not know how much you like to roll up your sleeves and get into technical details, but these offerings might be worth playing with. The price is right.
> 
> For straightforward analysis tools, Room EQ Wizard is terrific.
> 
> Best of luck.


Do you have a link for the first one? I tried googling but couldnt find anything. I would like to look into it a bit. I had actually heard of DRC but like you mention, it seemed to be not so user friendly. One good thing about Dirac is I've found its super easy to use.

I also looked into Acourate and Audiolense a bit, but they are also fairly expensive ($382 and $334 respectively) and only work as a VST plugin as best i can tell. Dirac has the benefit of acting as a virtual soundcard so all programs including games etc. can benefit from it. Additionally it seems Acourate and Audiolense are a bit harder to use as well. 

If i go forward with Dirac i may be losing some ability to tweak but it seems to do a pretty good job and i dont have to worry about too many knobs to turn.


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## AudiocRaver

You don't hear so much about Holm Acoustics, I ran across them by accident awhile back. Here are links to their analysis and filter generation packages on their site.

The dirac virtual sound card idea does sound intriguing, I may download the dirac demo and try it out.

Cheers.


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## kemist

Interesting. A lot of compelling solutions out there, and I'm sure there are some good inexpensive (free!) ones but they always seem to be more complicated to use or set up (time is hard to come by). Appreciate the info on these though.

I know there was talk of making REW correction filters importable into JRiver's DSP. Did anything ever come of that or is it still an ongoing wish list type thing?


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## AudiocRaver

Room EQ Wizard already has the capability of exporting the EQ/correction impulse to be used in any convolution capable program. I am not aware of any immediate plans to implement the export of its filter parameters directly to JRiver. You might post that question in the REW forum. Also, REW correction uses minimum phase filters, no time domain correction, which seems to be of interest to you.


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## AudiocRaver

Upon further study, I see that the Holm Acoustics correction involves only minimum phase filters, no time correction.


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## MJE

Hi, first post...yay!!

Yup, I've tested the free tailored version for Apple's supplied iPhone earbuds and personally I think Dirac does a good job of improving the sound in those fairly "bassless" earbuds.
The good and bad with Dirac is that it is real time software-based processing and it is a commercial company behind it meaning the following:
a.) free versions are only tailored for specific and premeasured items, i.e. Apple's iPhone earbuds
b.) real time software based processing means also that you either have it running on a PC and the output is processed or you have a piece of hardware that is supported by Dirac, sofar what I've seen it's more expensive stuff or car audio systems that are using Dirac but it is becoming more widely spread.

But at the end it does a very good job of what it is doing. I live in Sweden not far from Uppsala where the Dirac team sits and I've been thinking of maybe paying them a visit when time finds it's way into my calendar. 

You can find some more about Dirac at another swedish company called XTZ, as they have tailored equipments for Dirac for some time, subwoofers and active PC-multimedia speakers and such.


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## DisTreSs

Hi all, I would love to be able to switch to a solution where room correction is not tied in with the receiver, however I think we' re not there yet both in functional aspect as well as price-wise.

From a functional viewpoint, if you compare a traditional reciever (equipped with let's say Audyssey XT32) to a HTPC based solution, then the HTPC solution (even with something such as Dirac Live) will not give you the option go up to 11.2 channels. At least, I haven't found any hardware that would support this but I would like to be proven wrong. I agree that, since 9.2 and 11.2 can only be achieved through matrixed solutions (such as DPLIIz and DTS Neo:X) the necessity for this HW to exist merits its own separate discussion, but if we want to compare apples to apples, we have to find that this type of solution is currently and unfortunately not possible with an HTPC.

More importantly though, the second part is price. If you add up the cost of the Dirac Live suite 650€ + the XTZ mic (the Dirac-specific version) 110€, the cost of a soundcard supporting 11.2 (should it ever see the light of day), ... then you can see that for the price you can end up with a nice reciever (Onkyo 818 for example) that already includes the amps... and that's without counting the HTPC hardware since for this scenario I'm working under the assumption it's already in place anyway 

Therefore, for the Dirac software to be interesting to me personally, I would like to see a reduction in price to where adding the needed HW and amps still might cost more than buying a receiver, but not by too much...
A seperates solution will always be more expensive, but too much of a gap and potential buyers such as myself quickly start looking towards the all-in-one packages again


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## kemist

Yeah for a very high end setup a receiver is going to be required for the advanced decoding functionality and dirac obv. doesn't cover that type of requirement.

For more low to mid range setups i think the value proposition is better as you get higher end EQ functionality and its portable if you upgrade receivers. For me I have a number of HTPC's as hand me down builds so there is no incremental cost there, and I also had an omnimic so thats another expense that is removed. 

It should be noted that the base dirac license only includes rights for 2 PCs, however, they may be willing to negotiate on that. I know for my situation i would not have been interested had they not been flexible on that portion of the terms.


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## jheoaustin

Sorry to bother with this question, but Dirac doesn't seem to like questions from potential customers... So, Does Dirac Live RCS have a capability to export the correction filter? I don't see any mention of it on their website, and don't see a contact point to just ask technical questions without buying it. Can any user here clarify?


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## AudiocRaver

It is my understanding from discussions (I have not worked with it) that DIRAC only works with its own "virtual sound card," that there is no way to export filter values or impulse.


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## jheoaustin

Thank you for your kind confirmation. That's what I was thinking.


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## Chester

it wouldn't be difficult to play an impulse through the system (or a recorded sweep) and then deconvolve that to figure out what dirac is changing...


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## charles_b

I decided to test the DIRAC RCS. After the download I could run the first half of the software - the analysis tool. More details on the pro and con later.

After that you have to run the processor programm, which uses the filter made by the analysis part in real time.

However: AVIRA told me that the program contains a virus. The dealer in Germany who sent me the link claims that this is a FALSE alarm. I believe him but I do not have a good feeling. Anybody else testet dirac on a system with avira?


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## Flak

charles_b said:


> I decided to test the DIRAC RCS. After the download I could run the first half of the software - the analysis tool. More details on the pro and con later.
> 
> After that you have to run the processor programm, which uses the filter made by the analysis part in real time.
> 
> However: AVIRA told me that the program contains a virus. The dealer in Germany who sent me the link claims that this is a FALSE alarm. I believe him but I do not have a good feeling. Anybody else testet dirac on a system with avira?


Hello,

it IS a false alarm, the Dirac software does have some embedded encrypted data which indeed might trigger Avira... so it is a false positive from Avira:
(i.e. http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&postID=782501)

The two weeks trial can be quite safely downloaded here:
http://www.dirac.se/en/consumer-products/dirac-rcs.aspx

 Flavio


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## Flak

jheoaustin said:


> Sorry to bother with this question, but Dirac doesn't seem to like questions from potential customers.....
> I don't see any mention of it on their website, and don't see a contact point to just ask technical questions without buying it


Hello,

we do like questions from potential customers, you will find a page dedicated to technical support here:
http://helpdesk.dirac.se/index.php
and of course you do not have to buy anything to ask questions 

Ciao, Flavio


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## charles_b

Flak said:


> Hello,
> 
> it IS a false alarm, the Dirac software does have some embedded encrypted data which indeed might trigger Avira... so it is a false positive from Avira:
> (i.e. http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&postID=782501)
> 
> The two weeks trial can be quite safely downloaded here:
> http://www.dirac.se/en/consumer-products/dirac-rcs.aspx
> 
> Flavio


Hi Flavio,
thank you very much for the download-link. I got my version from the german distributors site. The process was a little bit complicated, as you have to give them your adress and they send you an activation key and so on.

Doing the test I noticed the following: With the small stereo-system (bookshelf speakers with size of approx. 50 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm) there was a clear advantage WITH the dirac. However, as I tested the dirac on the older IBM machine, I could not test the 5.1-features. After the problems with the false-alarm I decided to test it only on the older system - to keep one system virus-free running for everyday work.

On the newer pc with HDMI I would be able to do the 5.1-testing.

After the experience with the small stereo-system I switched over to the big system with two ADAM Tensor Alpha´s and an audiolab 8200 DQ preamp. 

With this setup the resonance curves were pretty much the same as with the REQ-Wizzard. Coming to the sound I always had the feeling that switching from FilterON to FilterOFF there WAS an improvement. However. switching from FilterOFF to the regular USB-Output I heard the music clearly more free and spacious than with the dirac turned OFF. The ranking in quality overall was: USB directly to the system => DiracON => DiracOFF.

The salesperson whom I reported my observation mentioned that the dirac has to cut down on the volume first in order to enhance some of the frequencies later on after the calculation process. Having only 16 bit some bit would probably be LOST within the volume reduction. And, due to this reduction the FilterOFF sound will always be not as loud as the original sound and therefore the listener would consider the louder music as better music.

To be true, I think it was not only the volume effect which left the impression of inferior sound. The sound was less impulsive, more confined and tamed somehow. 

My question now would be if this is really true: volume reduction by bit-cancelling. I guess that would be a very poor technical solution. But I am not an expert on computers enough to claim that I have any idea how volume control works with media players. Are they all down-calculating the bits? 

Concerning your link I will try to download the dirac once more to test it on the other computer - now knowing that the virus alarm is false. 

From the idea, I still like the dirac, but from my experience I was not too happy with the overall gain in sound. I do not want to say that maybe I oversaw some of the options or features thus minoring my sound experience.

Beside from that, the sales people in Germany are very helpfull and friendly and supportive! As I learn from your download link, the programm will run on only one pc in the stereo version and the 2 pc-version is about just twice the price, but also with 5.1-features. I planned to run dirac in one room with the large speakers, but also improve on the sound of the 5.1-system in another room. The idea of having to carry the pc back and forth is not really motivating and miss-using the dirac by listening to both systems at the same time should not happen anyway.

If there are further comments or hints on the dirac - I would like to learn more about it. I also hope that some dirac-people will be at the next High-End fair in Munich (around May, I assume).

Best regards

charles_b


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## Flak

charles_b said:


> ........................................
> From the idea, I still like the dirac, but from my experience I was not too happy with the overall gain in sound. I do not want to say that maybe I oversaw some of the options or features thus minoring my sound experience.
> ........................................


Yes Charles,

as you imagined I think that you probably missed one important feature... but also I have to admit that we have cleverly "hidden" it so that it's not easy to realize it is there unless you carefully read the manual.

I'm talking about the DSP gain control which by default is set in a conservative way to stay on the safe side. 
DSP gain has then to be adjusted by the user because it is widely variable depending on the specific correction required by each individual room but also by the different recordings... we want to avoid digital clipping and if the music is mixed with a very high output level, which is the case for a lot of modern productions (Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), we are more likely to saturate during processing.
(good quality and "old school" recordings do not generally have problems)

So it is important to adjust it in accordance of your room correction and music library 

Good listenings
Flavio


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