DAC Upgrade Advice, budget $5k

[ecwl]

I think you already know what kind of DAC you like and ones that you don’t like so I actually think that a DAC upgrade may not be the next best upgrade for you.

Do you have a microphone to measure your frequency response given the room acoustics? I strongly suspect a well constructed convolution filter (that you make yourself with Acourate/Audiolense) or one that you hire somebody to do (Mitch Barnett’s https://accuratesound.ca) would probably the most bang for the buck upgrade for you since you can just load the filter into Roon.

[ecwl]

22 minutes ago, chewynuts said:

I think this is a very good point. I purchased a minidsp SHD studio to try to run Roon before the DAC but a convolution filter made by Mitch would be much cheaper and fuss free. Thank you for the recommendation. I will try it out.

So re-reading your post, I noticed you already have a UMIK-1 microphone.

The advantage of miniDSP SHD studio is that you can run Dirac yourself. So if you already have it, you might as well just use it. The main disadvantage is that most hardware Dirac solutions involve automatic ASRC converting your 44.1kHz music to 96kHz before running Dirac. Now depending on your system, the conversion may not be audible to you but as you upgrade the rest of your system, you may get to a point where this conversion becomes a bottleneck in your system. By comparison, a dedicated convolution filter running in Roon means that you’ll be able to avoid this type of sample rate conversion with room correction.

 

To me, the main advantage of running Dirac or creating your own convolution filter is that you’re not reliant on somebody else to determine what your favorite frequency response is. Although I found most people’s favorite frequency response approximately follow what their current speaker system setup (frequently in the treble region maybe less so in the bass region). So running Dirac yourself means you have more room and control to tweak your filter.

 

One thing that is worth trying before you decide on Mitch vs sticking with the miniDSP SHD Studio & Dirac is to actually measure your left channel and your right channel and then both channels together with pink noise. It sounds like you have an asymmetric room setup so there is a good chance your left and right channel might cancel each other out at specific bass frequencies when played together (as that is fairly common in asymmetric speaker setups). I don’t think this is something Dirac can correct. Whereas by comparison, this is something a custom-made convolution filter can correct.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that I would not use your Dirac experience to extrapolate what you can get out of a custom convolution filter. I have seen many people who say they don’t like Dirac or other room correction DSP systems but an optimized custom convolution filter in my opinion can perform at a much higher level and there are many reasons for this that’s too convoluted to go into.

[ecwl]

13 minutes ago, chewynuts said:

Thank you ecwl, I will try Dirac through the Minidsp -> Young DAC signal chain first and then A/B compare with the convolution filters I have commissioned to see which gives me the best result. I currently already use Dirac through my Home Theater system (fed through the tube preamp's HT bypass through for the L-R channels) running on the NAD T777 V3 receiver. I enjoyed the rectified phase coherence and overall tuning of the bass against my room nulls and peaks. However, the entire soundstage became very narrow. Hence, will experiment using the minidsp through the 2ch signal chain.

 

You are right I do have an asymmetric setup and that may be where the convolution filters will win out.

Right. So this is the challenge with Dirac. With your HT, is it because your frequency response curve is not optimally setup that you have a more narrow soundstage? Is it because your ?subwoofer or your left or right speakers have a phase cancellation that causes an additional dip when they're playing in sync that you won't see on individual channel measurement with Dirac that's causing a loss of soundstage? There is no easy way to know. You can experiment with the frequency response and nothing else.

 

With respect to HomeAudioFidelity vs Mitch Barnett, I've seen them post on Audiophile Style forums. Both offer interesting insights. But HAF usually posts about their additional room correction software that's not related to creating convolution filters. Whereas Mitch Barnett has been posting for year about how to use Acourate and Audiolense to help DIY people like myself create our own convolution filter. And in discussions with him and having experimented things myself, I think Mitch definitely knows what he's talking about. Moreover, I don't know if HAF would even correct for stereo phase cancellation whereas I know for sure Mitch does. If you want to dive into the weeds and see how it's done...

https://www.audiovero.de/acourateforum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=171

 

Nothing to stop HAF from doing the same thing. Just don't know if it's even part of their service.