Dirac Live 2.0 is finally out - but no Roon Support

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…

Has there been any new information about Roon + Dirac Live standalone, plugins, or anything? The virtual-adaptor workaround doesn’t work on PC.

I would rather first complain at Dirac why they have abandoned the wasapi virtual audio driver.

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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.

Seems like there are no viable workarounds unless Roon decides to support VST-style plugins


Dirac response:

https://jira.dirac.services/servicedesk/customer/portal/3/DLS-878

Flavio Fellah

Hello,

Dirac Live uses a patented proprietary architecture of both FIR and IIR filters and as far as I know, they cannot be exported to the Roon’s convolver.

The choice of AU, VST and AAX plugins is based on the fact that they are a standard that is used by practically all DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) for professional use as well as by popular media players like JRiver (millions of copies sold), Audirvana and Amarra for Mac.

We very much like Roon and we are sorry that it doesn’t support widespread standard plugins, I think that this harms both Dirac Research and Roon Labs.


It may be unlikely that Roon will support VST plugins, since it would appear that to do so runs counter to the distributed client-server architecture that they have…

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Is there a direct way to do that?

In theory there is a way, but one would probably break the license agreement with Dirac when doing so (haven’t read it so wouldn’t know for sure). It is also not a straight forward procedure and requires a bit of technical understanding. For personal use I’d do it. You’ll need a licensed Dirac install. Roon & Dirac integration again.
At the moment the MiniDSP SHD/SHD Studio seems to be the easy solution. In particular after MiniDSP enabled RAAT.
I am a happy Audiolense user so I would not need this anyway. The new Audiolense XO 6.2 is extremely good!

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This SHD device is only 2 channels, and I need 8 channels. Sadly this won’t work for me.

Ah, I didn’t think beyond two channels.

Well for most 2 channels would do it - and it would be a start.

Hi,
I just got my 1.2 license for windows upgraded to the new Dirac 2.4 version. However it seems like I will not really be able to use it on windows at the moment. I use roon as an endpoint. And as far as I can find it does not support these plug-ins.
The solution provided so far is this: http://diracdocs.com/Windows-Using_Dirac_plugins_with_players_not_supporting_plugins.pdf

Built in support for these plug-in types would be much better. Any plans for this?

Regards,
Fredrik

@danny Any update on the direct Dirac integration in Roon?

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I am about to try audiolense. When I first looked into it the set up looked extremely convoluted. I love the simple UI of dirac live, but I don’t appear to have an upgrade path at all. It’s too bad that we can’t somehow import the direct filters into another program or Roon.

Audiolense is actually quite easy to use and a very good choice. It’s different to Dirac of course, but after the initial learning you’ll quickly get used to it. And the filters are directly compatible with Roon. To make it easy, start by loading only one sample rate (for example 48kHz) into Roon. Roon will resample as needed. When you have done a good sounding correction, let Audiolense create a file for each sample rate and make a zip of the files and load in Roon. This is when you do a stereo full range correction (as I do). For MCH and/or cross over you’ll need to use a cfg for correct mapping

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Hopefully many will find this article interesting

About plugins:

I’ve lost track of Dirac Live and Roon compatibility, and to be honest, largely given up on Dirac as a result, but if anyone here is still interested, Dirac have a 30% discount on Dirac Live running until November 15th 2020:


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Roon and Dirac live combo works for me on Windows.

I have had great experience with Dirac Live and see a lot of people having great experiences with Roon. I decided to give it a go together this weekend.

I have two alternatives. A surround amplifier with build in Dirac live and a straight stereo setup with a dac and a power amplifier.

The surround amplifier option
I run Roon on a barebone PC and use the NAD T778 as endpoint. Dirac live is integrated in the NAD.
Works smooth. This setup is for home cinema and fos casual listening.

The stereo setup
I use a barebone intel PC to run both the Dirac processor an Roon.
For digital to analogue conversion a denafrips Area ii connected to a power amplifier.
The idea was to do Roon - Dirac - Ares ii. This did not work straight away.
By adding a VB VoiceMeeter banana audiomixer and put the Dirac processor as plug in there, I was able to route Roon - Dirac - VoiceMeeter - Ares ii.

Sleepless nights are now caused by listening to music instead of trying to figure out how to crack getting Roon on with the best room correction.

Only thing I lose in the stereo setup is full MQA that I have through the NAD.
The Denafrips Ares ii come with a Thesycon 5.0 USB driver. It might be doing some of the trick.

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@Christian_Rasmussen Thanks for sharing!

It’s too late for me, though, because I switched from Dirac to Sonarworks and when I started using Roon I had to look into other solutions without VST.

So fortunately I discovered Home Audio Fidelity which sounds so much better than Sonarworks (can’t compare directly to Dirac because I had stopped using it before).

It’s a different approach, because you only do the measurements and upload them. Then the correction is made by Thierry, who not only “corrects” your room, but adds some special sauce which really opens up the stage and makes that center image VERY precise.

You should definitely give it a try. There are many Roon users sharing their experience in this thread:

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Thanks - it doesn’t look like it support 5.1 multichannel, but I will ask on that thread.