# Ideal "Sweet Spot" Measurement Size for Dirac



## fbczar (Apr 2, 2010)

Is there an ideal measurement size, vs room size that should be used with Dirac?


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Sorry but I have no idea what you mean by “measurement size?” I'm guessing no one else does either, else you would have had a reply by now.

Regards, 
Wayne


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Without knowing how Dirac works exactly, I'm gonna guess he means something like the measurement pattern for audyssey in the help guide. I'm also gonna guess he means how does this correlate to room size. EG: if the room size is bigger, should also be bigger the measurement area. 
Ok. Do I win?


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

Sounds like you mean the area over which to take measurements for Dirac Live. It depends mainly on how big a seating area you want the treatment to cover, not room size. The first Mic position should always be left/right centered at center of head for the main Listening Position (LP). The others should be randomly selected to cover an area about 2 to 3 feet wide and 1.5 to 2 feet deep and 0.5 to 1.foot high. That is roughly what I remember from Dirac's recommendations, although I think a little tighter than that works as well.

If 3 seats are to be covered, visualize the above volume for each seat and have the Mic pattern cover that entire area. I personally think it is folly to try stretching beyon that, or all seats just end up with degraded sound.

Does that answer your question ?


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## fbczar (Apr 2, 2010)

AudiocRaver said:


> Sounds like you mean the area over which to take measurements for Dirac Live. It depends mainly on how big a seating area you want the treatment to cover, not room size. The first Mic position should always be left/right centered at center of head for the main Listening Position (LP). The others should be randomly selected to cover an area about 2 to 3 feet wide and 1.5 to 2 feet deep and 0.5 to 1.foot high. That is roughly what I remember from Dirac's recommendations, although I think a little tighter than that works as well.
> 
> If 3 seats are to be covered, visualize the above volume for each seat and have the Mic pattern cover that entire area. I personally think it is folly to try stretching beyon that, or all seats just end up with degraded sound.
> 
> Does that answer your question ?


Thanks for all the replies. Sorry my post was unclear. The Dirac literature speaks to measurements for one chair, or as you mention, measurements for several seats. They caution about to small an area around the main listening position. One nice review I read said Dirac recommended a larger microphone coverage area as opposed to a small one. There literature does not say that. Dirac is a little different from Audyssey in that it requires high and low measurements relative to the initial primary listening position measurement. I appreciate your advice.


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## chrapladm (Jun 17, 2009)

Are your trying to only have filters applied for one seat or a whole couch?

Depending on which piece of equipment you have there are so many filters than can be applied that the configurations and final outcomes are limitless. So it really depends on what your trying to achieve.


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## fbczar (Apr 2, 2010)

chrapladm said:


> Are your trying to only have filters applied for one seat or a whole couch?
> 
> Depending on which piece of equipment you have there are so many filters than can be applied that the configurations and final outcomes are limitless. So it really depends on what your trying to achieve.


Basically interested in optimizing for two seats.


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## AudiocRaver (Jun 6, 2012)

fbczar said:


> They caution about to small an area around the main listening position.


You have done your homework. While I would never argue with Flavio or the expertise of the Dirac team, I have a bit of a bias toward a somewhat smaller measurement area, having seen so many unsatisfactory results from larger area mic patterns _in general._



fbczar said:


> Basically interested in optimizing for two seats.


My experience has also led me to prefer a mic pattern centered on the main LP. A 2-seat optimization makes that difficult, for obvious geometric reasons. If you have trouble getting satisfactory results including both seats in the mic pattern, you might try centering it on the main LP and extending the pattern _a little_ in the direction of the second seat, as a compromise. Unfortunately, there is no exact science to mic patterns for room correction. There are usually adjustments to be made for personal listening preferences and room characteristics.


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## FargateOne (Mar 3, 2015)

As you can see in my other post, I am doing my classes in this very interesting hobby.
But before I went here, I tried to put microphone for YPAO (for Yamaha receivers) where owner manual from Yamaha suggests and get horrible results.
Now I try to use the a tighter set up as suggest for Audyssey here. I can assure you that it is better this way even for YPAO. I have not find the right distances between 10 cm (4 inches) and 40 cm (16 inches) beyong for MLP. For high, I found that more than 15cm high (6 inches) gives bad results (tweeter center speaker directionnality?).
Not nirvana yet (room modes, eq etc problems yet to be solved) but better image and sound for much fun listenning movies in 5.1 .


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