About Dirac
Answered
Hi,
coming from old school hifi and then shifted to streaming audio there is a lot of new things
I don't know about. I understand tha Dirac kan help with room correction and what I learned
it is useful when using a computer. The new icon seems to have Dirac built in so I wonder when the settings is done is it stored i the Icon so no further fiddling is needed? Is it possible
to use more than one setting (maybe via equelizing, fine tuning) that could be useful when listening to different music/CD's? There is a lot of sound difference in my CD collection, the music is good but sometimes the sound is not that great.
My room is not the most listening/hifi friendly room but it is the only option, how good is Dirac to compensate for a not so perfect room?
Maybe silly question for some of you but most important for me.
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Official comment
Another Bluesound as well as Dirac user here.
Dirac can make a huge difference in any room. Whether you like it or not is a matter of taste. I have used it on 2 NAD systems and am very pleased with the results.
To understand what is involved there are several official videos on YouTube.
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Thank you Brian for answer, I will look into the videos. My "problem" is for some reason most of my ripped CD's
(and I have a lot of Cd's) are sounding dull and lifeless everything ripped to Wav. I stream via a Node X and have a 400 watt amp and floorstanding speakers. Sometimes I feel that I listen more to the flaws in sound than to the music, or at least I have a hard time to find the sound to my satisfaction. I listen to everything from the 50's to the music from today. I've tried everything to the speakers setup and I have a very limited options to make any bigger improvments. There is a lot of money to go into upgrading if it not meets the demand and I learned that both the Icon and Dirac license will cost a lot of money. In my younger days with a cheap gear it was more fun to listen to music, the sound was not perfect but it was more fun back then.
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for some reason most of my ripped CD's (and I have a lot of Cd's) are sounding dull and lifeless everything ripped to Wav
Sound quality can vary depending on the ripping method and software. I do all my ripping to lossless uncompressed FLAC and use MusicBrainz and Yate for metadata. dBpoweramp for Windows and XLD on the Mac provide good options for ripping CD's.
I suggest you rip a CD you are familiar with using one of these and see how it compares to what you have. If it sounds the same, then the problem lies elsewhere.
It's true this can be an expensive hobby.
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Nope.
You should only use Exact Audio Copy with the Accurate Rip plugin. EAC does many things to ensure consistent and accurate rips. It even understands your CD drive, right to the firmware level.
Accrate Rip then makes a hash of your track, and compares it to the results of other people's rips of that same track on the same album.
If it reports >90% accuracy - and it usually does, you can be confident that your rip was on the money. I should point out that some players are less accurate than others, so follow their recommendations. You will never have to worry again.
Finally, it's free and open source, so your name is not being added to a list at RIAA headquarters...
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For anyone still reading…the downside is EAC is PC only, closest on the Mac is XLD, however it does use the AccurateRip database to match checksums.
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Thanks for chiming in Seppi, I didn't want to get into a discussion of which ripper is best as that leads nowhere fast. I have several friends who are audio engineers and producers who stand by XLD.
XLD also uses CD Paranoia as one of it's ripping modes.
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Also, the Vault does an excellent job of ripping without the need for a computer.
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Hi everybody
Thank's for all your input, first of all I starte ripping music around 2005, back then I had an dedicated computer an external DAC to play nnusic, the software was JRiver. I then came across BlueNode and here I have stayed. Since day one I have ripped all music to WAV files the choice of doing so was that I keep the files lossless and if I want I can convert them to whatever I want. Tags are not a problem since I add recordlabel and year of release to the track and it looks like:
01. Something - The Beatles - Parlophone 1969
Back then I was on EAC now I'm using DB poweramp. Both do a fine job and both use accurate rip. My initial question about Dirac was that I have two sets of speakers one model from a Swedish brand XTZ and then I bought a pair of magnepan LRS. for speaker cables I used audioquest rocket that I have owned for a long time. The magpnepan is still in the house but after a week I couldn't get the sound right sometimes it was to sharp almost hurting to my ears, I know that magnepan is hard to setup they demand a good environment to perform at their best, and a lot of power that's why I sold my Powernode. The XTZ 99.36 on the other hand had a "dull" sound hence my tought on getting Dirac. I have now shifted my speaker cables to an old set of TaraLabs and Bi Wired my speakers and now I'm very happy with how everytihng sounds it is like night annd day. some records that I didn't care for before is now nice to hear. I haven't give up on Dirac or the Icon but as I wrote earlier I have change my Bluesound a lot of times and there is a lot of money to lose and spend everytime I decide to upgrade. The Vault model is not for me as I now is up to 70 000 + tracks and there is more music to add.
This is my first experience that cables do sound different depending on amps speakers and so on. I will give the Magnepan LRS a new chance before I decide sell them. When I have tested the MAgnepan I will let you all now my experience.
Conny T
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