Wanna save your hard-earned money and have Dirac Live to Roon without buying a NAD M33 (USD 5000) or MiniDSP SHD (USD 1200)?
Install Dirac Live Standalone on your W10 Roon Server and enjoy seamlessly Dirac and Roon. Dirac appears as windows device in Dirac. Currently I am on the trial version and I love it. You can also control the target curve from the Dirac mobile app to instantly switch between your favourite target curves.
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Nice! Did you use the app to calibrate the room? I believe it uses the phone’s microphone.
I was thinking along the same lines also, I have a powerful gaming pc that I could use.
Is there a way to use the Dirac standalone software and save an impulse response file in a format that Roon will be able to use as a Convolution filter?
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Does this work with a MacBook as well?
Hey Louis - do you mind getting a little deeper into this subject ? I’m using a miniDSP SHD now, but would like to facilitate Roon as server. I guess that Dirac will not work directly with Roon Rock (as this is linux based), but do I get you correct : will Dirac integrate in the Roon DSP when running Windows ? Please explain a bit further.
Kind regards Leif
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I’ve just started testing Dirac standalone for Windows. The Dirac setup isn’t that complex, but there’s still a lot of moving parts that make it confusing to explain.
There’s two pieces that get installed for either Windows or MAC, Dirac Live Processor that becomes a virtual audio interface, and Dirac Live where the measurements are made to create a filter that is exported to the Dirac processor. Dirac Live Processor gets configured with whatever physical audio interfaces you specify that are available on the computer.
I have Roon Bridge installed on the same machine as Dirac, so the Dirac Live Processor virtual interface shows up as an output on the endpoint in Roon as “Dirac”. So the Dirac processor sits between the Roon server and the physical audio interfaces on the computer/Roon endpoint, allowing it to apply the DSP filter.
Dirac offers a two-week trial license, so the only money I’ve spent so far is for the miniDSP UMIK-1 mic. Right now Dirac is running on a Windows 10 PC I had laying around with a low end Celeron processor and 16gb RAM. I’m only a half hour into playing with this, but so far, so good, applying a filter isn’t that resource heavy. You can toggle the filters on and off in real time in the processor to make it easy to compare the improvement the filter provides, which is quite dramatic. Still need to do more comprehensive measurements and figure out the nuances of the setup.
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Keep us updated.
My roon server runs on linux. So I have to start over with win10 to setup the dirac processor.
Wounder what impact dirac and the switch to windows will have on my PC’s resources
Also how will it sound?
Let me know if you think dirac is worth the hassle 
I wouldn’t be quick to abandon a working setup either.
From my limited experience, I think DSP/room correction are defiantly worth it. You already have access to DSP via Roon and REW, so I’d imagine you can get most of the benefit with just a mic and trial and error. But when my Dirac trial license is up, I’ll either being buying Dirac standalone, or ordering a MiniDSP Flex. That would work for you to incorporate Dirac without giving up Linux.
I run ROCK in an ESXi VM on an Intel Mac Mini at another location. That could be an option for you as well. Dirac needs direct access to hardware, which is a bit more difficult to pass through to a VM, but Roon is all network services. I don’t think it’d be too difficult to do a physical to virtual migration of your current Linux setup, then run Dirac on the bare metal hardware in either Windows or OS X.
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hi @randing thanks for sharing your excellent experience with Dirac Live on Roon.
I am struggling between several Dirac options as well and wonder if you have had more insights since your last post? Here are the list of options:
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$4000-$5000 NADs out of the question because of cost
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SHD Studio – It’s “only” $945 but it doesn’t do DSD that my excellent SMSL DO200 DAC is capable of. Also, it only supports up to “96kHz” which is much lower than many high sample rate files in MQA and SACD formats. Will this reduce the quality of output?
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Flex – it’s low “$495” starting is deceviing because unlike SHD, a Dirac License is addtioanl $199" so total cost is actually “$694.” Supposedly Dirac Live is even more limited than SHD at “48kHz” sample rate only. How much does this affect actual output?
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Dirac Live “Room Correction Suite” will run natively on my Mac Studio at the cost of $349. It’s the cheapest option but I’m not sure how good the “software” solution is compared to the hardware ones.
I’m now using both a Flex and the standalone DIRAC software in different locations. If your SMSL DAC is hooked up to your MAC by USB, you should buy a UMIK-1 and do a trial of the DIRAC software to see if you like it and want to invest further. The DIRAC experience between the standalone software and the miniDSP hardware is the same.
I can pretty consistently hear the difference between MP3 and Red Book, but jumping from CD quality to sample rates above that is a lot harder for me to discern, so in my opinion the loss of support there isn’t significant. The difference between toggling DIRAC on and off is night and day.
The benefit of the Flex for me is that my stereo at home is in the living room, so now the TV is hooked up to toslink and the Roon server is hooked up to USB. And having a remote makes toggling DIRAC settings easier, plus the Flex is IR learning, so it’s hooked up to my Harmony remote.
If you end up going with one of the miniDSP hardware solutions, I think you’ll be happy with whichever you choose. I don’t have room for the larger footprint of the SHD. Keep in mind that the SHD Studio is not a DAC, you have to jump up to the SHD for analog output.
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I apologize if this is a too simplistic question. Is there a procedure/process for installing Dirac on a headless Roon server?
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Fantastic question! I was thinking about this as well.
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You can just run Roon endpoint software on any cheapo mini pc running windows 10 along with DIRAC software on it…
You only need to worry about the end point, not the server itself, server can stay the exact same, you’re just setting up a fancy endpoint pc that has roon and dirac software on it
Short answer no
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can someone clarify how this is supposed to be done on windows with a DAC connected by USB? Can it be done via LAN with a roon ready device?
Could you describe how to do that in practice? My Roon endpoints are all Rpi4 running ropieee. Where in the chain do I need to connect the Win10 computer?
They need to be your endpoints. You can’t use a pi and use Dirac.
Thank you for your reply. So if I understand correctly, the chain should be one of the following, if one wants to integrate Dirac:
Ethernet > RPi4 (with SPDIF hat) > miniDSP digital (e.g., DDRC 22) > DAC
OR
Ethernet > miniDSP SHD Studio > DAC (i…e no Rpi)
OR
Ethernet > mac/win computer (running Dirac sotware > DAC (i.e., no Rpi)
Correct?
More or less yes.
Hi there. I realize this thread is very old so any advice may be moot…
Dirac does not provide a way to export it’s correction to a convolution file. You must run your music through Dirac for correction.
Actually there may be a workaround, but one needs to be quite the computer “geek” to do it. I have used this method to extract correction from a Tact RCS 2.0 unit (that basically work the same way as Dirac) many years ago. Running the resulting file in an ordinary convolver gave identical results to the Tact hardware.
With Dirac enabled, play an impulse through Dirac (a file with all samples zero except one, like this: _______|_______ ), both channels. Keep the single sample at -3 dB or so (to reduce chances of clipping). Record the Dirac output digitally in stereo (with Audacity for example) - this is your Dirac filter Impulse Response. Save 64k (65536) (or more if needed) samples to a wav file with the main recorded spike near the middle of the file. Make sure you keep all non-zero samples of the Dirac output. Use the stereo wav file in Roon’s convolution engine and check if it sounds the same as music through Dirac.