Optimal signal path not achievable without Bass Management in Roon with Dirac for PC (Switching from JRiver)

As of now without Bass Management a system with Dirac Live for PC cannot get an optimal sound path from Roon.

Case -

  1. I use Dirac Live for room correction
  2. For Dirac to correct the Subwoofer speaker on stereo content the content needs to be upmixed to 2.1 upstream (i.e. before Dirac) in the chain*
  3. With JRiver the upmixing was done in the player itself
  4. After moving to Roon, I’ve found EqualizerAPO which is capable of performing upmixing and crossover system-wide (OS), but it functions by attaching to a Windows playback device as an audio signal processing enhancement and thus works only in Shared Mode, i.e. through the OS Mixer (which might also badly resample the signal)

So, using EqualizerAPO for BM works but is not ideal sound quality wise.

Any plans on adding Bass Management to Roon?
Something that I might have missed?
Other suggestions / alternatives to EqualizerAPO?

*Doing BM at the receiver / audio processor (I have Emotiva UMC-200) is not feasible as the created LFE channel will not be Dirac corrected.

Update - I was able to produce similar (hopefully) BM settings using roon’s Procedural DSP (a bit complex and probably not perfect with surround content) and move to Exclusive Mode, now have a bright and shining signal path :sunny:

But come on… Slap on some UI there that do that in one setting and call it BM :stuck_out_tongue:

Actually, you can. And, yes, it will.

This seems to be a point of contention between Dirac Live and the home theater crowd, but at least for 2.1 channel audio, Dirac suggests optimal bass management should be downstream. In that way, Dirac does not see the system as 2.1 channel but as full range stereo.

To explain further, bass management is set up and optimized first. Then, Dirac is inserted upstream and its calibration routine run. Dirac test signals pass through bass management before being output to L, R, and Sub. As such, Sub does not appear to Dirac as a channel, while L and R loudspeakers appear to Dirac as full range. Additionally, because Dirac test signals during the calibration routine pass through bass management, Dirac can apply its time domain impulse response correction to the entire system – including the bass management crossover.

AJ

But then the Subwoofer speaker is not frequency/room modes corrected.

They agree and write about it in their FAQ (specifically for 2.1 systems) -

While crossovers should be applied downstream of (after) Dirac, bass management or any mixing of source signals into speaker channels should be applied upstream of (before) Dirac.

https://www.dirac.com/faq-technical/

Anyway it was stated by Flavio that they are working on adding a BM feature (see last posts) -

I’m trying to figure out 2.1 for 2.0 signals myself (Quad ESL63’s). Could you possibly outline a “how to” for the Procedural DSP? If it’s complex to you, then it’s more akin to foreign language for me…