Yes, this is a YADI - Yet Another Dirac Integration post.
This time from a “sharing the pain points” angle
Roon things we can’t do when using Dirac Live:
Identify our RoonReady connected device through the Dirac virtual sound card
Use Device Volume control with our RoonReady connected device
Use HQPlayer properly (no point in upsampling to the 192kHz max Dirac virtual sound card)
Use a network connected RoonReady endpoint
Dirac is a popular software and by far best fit to Roon’s UX philosophy out of all the Room Correction software available today.
Dirac has made a VST plugin available as another option in addition to its Virtual sound card (DAP) so no need for specific joint integration effort - implement VST and all the above is solved in addition to any other VST options out there, without affecting customers who won’t use it.
Fully agree that VST host functionality inside Roon would be beneficial, from a set of reasons. Earlier on, I have also suggested that it should be possible in Roon to define an external source as the stream for playback, for example a proper virtual sound card like the bit perfect HiFi cable Virtual sound card from VB-audio.
Such a feature would allow for any third party media player, for example a radio or TV app, or this or that mediaplayer, to connect to Roon’s multiroom feature set, which - in itself - would be another reason to purchase Roon (and fuel further sales for Roon), and this would of course come as an addition to all the good things already present in the Roon concept.
Both on Windows and OS X there are available hifi-proper virtual sound cards that would thus be invited. From this user perspective, this please-let-the-dream-come-true feature would obviously be beneficial for all parties.
Roon can be used with Dirac AU plugins, I’ve configured Roon to use them in their current beta DL 1.x version and used them with success.
(the upcoming Dirac Live 2.0 will feature AU and VST plugins as well)
As you can see in the image linked here: http://diracdocs.com/Roon&Dirac.png
one can use Audio Hijack so that the music stream from Roon is routed to the Dirac plugin first and from that to the DAC, or any output device.
(by the way Audio Hijack can be used for a number of other purposes)
One has to drag the Application icon from the menu on the right and then click it in order to select Roon so that audio from Roon will be captured
Then the Audio Units icon has to be dragged after the first icon and they will be automatically connected, the icon has to be clicked and Dirac plugin selected.
Last the output Device icon… again it will be automatically connected defining the path and the output device of choice has to be selected
BTW - I actually prefer to be able to not use Dirac DAP (I can’t so far) since it has troubles detecting my DAC (which is actually an HDMI pre/pro) after it was turned off and on again forcing me to close Dirac DAP and re-open it every time (which takes time). So the VST option sounds great.
EDIT: Just figured AudioHijack is for MacOS. I’m on Windows. Looks great though.
Hi Flavio,
thanks for the hint, finally a workaround for the static noise problem of Roon with Dirac. How do you configure Roon in that case? Currently I am playing to loopback, but I only have the trial version at the moment. The other outputs (built-in, DAC) don‘t seem to work.
I have installed the Dirac plugin on my Mac mini per Dirac instructions, and it works on Audirvana. When I use Audio Hijack to access the plugin using Roon, I follow the above instructions, but I get no sound, unless I bypass Audio Hijack. Is there something I am missing?
Thanks
Greg Young
Gregory,
I have installed Soundflower on my Mini and I play from Roon to Soundflower in exclusive mode. In Audio Hijack I capture the output of my Roon Server, direct it to the Dirac plugin and from there to my DAC.
Thanks for the tip, Kay!
I am able to create a Soundflower zone in Roon, and I can then use exclusive mode. But I’m not sure I have it set up correctly. If my first selection is a music file with a 44.1 sampling rate, and I then select a file with a 176.4 sampling rate, my DAC still displays 44.1, even though Roon and Audio Hijack show that a 176.4 file is being played.
I wonder if there is a hidden setting in Soundflower or Audio MIDI, but I have not found it yet.
Again, thanks for your response!
Greg
not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but my DAC also sticks to the sampling frequency of the first file to be played. My solution is that I configure DSP in Roon to upsample everything to 192 kHz, then I set the DAC via Audio Midi Setup to 192/24 and afterwards I can play whatever I want. This lasts until the Audio Hijack is shut down.
Thanks, Kay. I figured out that I can use Audio MIDI to change the sampling rate to that of the file that I am playing.
I sent a help request to Dirac, and they are looking at how to use Audio Hijack. I passed on your tip about Soundflower!
Greg
Dirac Live has finally released the new standalone 2.0 package. The previous package had a WASAPI driver which allowed the user to add it as an audio output. This worked great, but the new version only supports plugins which Roon does not. For Windows there are no viable workarounds using a virtual null-cable that I could find. Is Roon planning on supporting Dirac Live as part of the roadmap?
Dirac Live Processor can be run as an audio plug-in in most host application that supports VST, VST3, AAX or AU formats, such as digital audio workstations and certain media players.
As a Mac user my understanding is you can use Audio Hijack as an AU-host and virtual soundcard with Roon. See here: http://diracdocs.com/Roon_&_Dirac_Live_2.0.pdf
That said this isn’t an optimal solution in my opinion and I’d be very interested to hear from people actually using it and how well it works, or if there are any annoyances with this method…
I have, but have been in limbo for a solution.I was hoping somebody had figured it out. I ran into nothing but roadblocks using the virtual soundcard approaches. VST Plugins seem to be the standard that Dirac are aiming for and it’s unlikely we will get a convolution export for Roon.
Flavio
