4/27/2026 at 11:43:30 AM
Tangentially related, I recently had some hand-me-down high-end full tower speakers lose their integrated subwoofer amps. I bypassed them and wired in an external amp but people said the integrated DSP would be missing. That's when I learned about CamillaDSP [1] and CamillaFIR [2]. I got a calibrated UMIK-1 microphone and did a frequency sweep in the room. Then I applied the Camilla-computed FIR filter to my snapcast-sourced music stream on the Raspberry Pi 3 B I have networked into the living room. Now I have room-corrected and loudspeaker corrected fancy DSP and the speakers sound better than ever. Pretty fun, and very cheap. The Pi3 runs it using about 20% of its CPU. Not bad! I did the same process up in my office with some desk speakers and they sound great too (that time using EasyEffects to apply the filter in real-time rather than CamillaDSP).by acidburnNSA
4/28/2026 at 6:23:25 AM
Ah that’s super cool. Wish I knew about this a week earlier. Just last week I got the iLoud sub to correct speakers for my living room because I wanted a standalone piece of equipment that’s not my PC that can hold the corrected EQ/phase.by weiliddat
4/27/2026 at 12:09:38 PM
Did you ever use Dirac Live and can compare the results? Hardware that supports Dirac is unfortunately very expensive.by MrBuddyCasino
4/27/2026 at 1:08:34 PM
FWIW, I've tried Dirac Live and compared it to the correction suggested by REW [0]. In both cases, the measurements were taken with a UMIK-1, and the correction was done on a computer. Contrary to GP, I didn't have to fix borked components, just a random, untreated living room.Dirac seemed to have a fairly heavy-handed correction. In my case, I only had fairly narrow frequency ranges that needed correcting, but Dirac seemed to move much wider ranges at a time. It's also nearly impossible to tweak; you basically can only increase/decrease "the lows" or "the highs". But maybe I'm missing something.
In contrast, the suggestions produced by REW were loaded in EasyEffects on Linux, and I could tweak everything to my heart's content. But I actually just left it alone, since it was good enough.
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by vladvasiliu
4/27/2026 at 1:14:46 PM
I also have a UMIK-1, and tried the REW route once, but it made everything worse. I suspect a lot of the know-how in Dirac is how to automatically get good results.by MrBuddyCasino
4/28/2026 at 8:47:43 AM
It's equal parts science and art. Best left as a last resort, never a shortcut. These utilities are generally directed towards much louder systems, in bigger spaces, with far more than a few speakers. Everything that has bled down into the consumer space is a band aid for people who either can't or don't know/care/want to treat their rooms and position speakers correctly.Ideally you want to be going into it intenting to correct a specific aspect of the room or the speakers, after already ensuring that you've placed the speakers correctly for the room and listening position. If you did not use a tape measure and the full dimensions of the speakers, start over. One of the most useful things REW/Dirac can do for you is confirm that you've placed everything correctly. It is not a magic "make it sound better" utility.
Hate to sound like an ad but the most impressive thing I've purchased wrt audio in the past 20 years has been some isolators from https://isoacoustics.com/. It's legit engineering magic, you will spend the first hour thinking something is wrong with your body because you can no longer feel the sound.
by monster_truck
4/28/2026 at 9:46:12 AM
> a band aid for people who either can't or don't know/care/want to treat their rooms and position speakers correctly.Indeed, but I'd bet many people are in the "can't" category. Especially for low frequencies, you need pretty hefty treatment to make a difference, which is oftentimes impractical to install in a room which wasn't designed for that. And I seriously doubt any sizable number of rooms in apartments are designed for that. Combine this with the ungodly amount of snake oil peddled, and I can easily understand why many people look at Dirac and similar solutions.
And while they are band-aids, in many cases that's enough. I used to live in a studio apartment where room correction made a night and day difference to my listening position. Elsewhere the sound wasn't that great, but I didn't really care since I never listened from theme. I was renting, and the space was rather small, so there was no way to install any useful treatment.
In my current apartment it works much worse, it's actually close to useless. But it's rather bigger, so I could put in some treatment. But I've spent a lot of time researching this, and it's still not clear how to go about doing this. People can't even seem to agree on what kind of material to look at. And while I love listening to music, I'm not keen on investing thousands, plus time living under construction for weeks just to throw multiple solutions at the walls and see what sticks.
by vladvasiliu
4/27/2026 at 1:29:09 PM
In my case, the setup is pretty simple. I have full-range floorstanders that only take a single input, and I mostly wanted to control some booming in my listening position. So there's no crossover to handle or anything fancy.Maybe for more involved situations Dirac does a better job, but, in my case, it didn't really solve anything. Also, I see they now have this newer "bass control" thing, and it's not clear if my version had it when I last tested it (around November 2025).
by vladvasiliu
4/27/2026 at 7:14:58 PM
Dirac Live BC or Dirac Live ART? I would love to know how much these room correction approaches differ in practice.by Avamander
4/27/2026 at 8:39:48 PM
I think I may have been thinking about ART, indeed.by vladvasiliu
4/27/2026 at 6:21:25 PM
Ive done quite extensive testing with Dirac(with a MiniDSP Flex), rePhase, normal PEQs, BruteFIR, CamillaDSP etc. etc.Dirac is the most user friendly of the bunch, but honestly once you limit the correction to below Schroeder frequency I cannot tell them apart. So for my systems I just stick to a few PEQs targeting the main peaks under 300hz.
by throwawaySimon
4/27/2026 at 3:34:29 PM
You can get a miniDSP 2x4HD for like $225 that supports Dirac Live.by SirMaster
4/27/2026 at 5:25:08 PM
The optional Dirac Live firmware/licence for the miniDSP is an extra $199, so it's really $425.I have one and personally didn't bother, did the usual UMIK-1 + REW to create the room correction.
> https://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series/index.php?opti...
by giobox
4/28/2026 at 4:03:57 PM
Well they said hardware that supports it is expensive, so I was just mentioning the hardware price, not the Dirac license cost.by SirMaster
4/27/2026 at 1:12:57 PM
I don't use it and so haven't compared. I'm interested as well.by acidburnNSA
4/28/2026 at 2:35:14 AM
Why not use a crossover driver?The loudspeaker would have used one; a driver is both cheaper and of higher quality.
by brianaker