Hey guys. Got my system setup. Vintage Klipsch heresy towers. Yamaha s301. Project carbon TT. Ortofon blue. Ifi audio zen pre amp. Tidal from PC to DAC in Yamaha via optical. Yamaha EQ. Room treatment. Optimal speaker placement. Sounds fantastic. However this room is literally 8x10. The Heresy’s are midfield and wow they sound good even in a small room.
Situation: I bought a mini dsp umik mic. Figured I would use Dirac next. Trouble is I need the hardware unit… minidsp flex or 2x4 seems the cheapest option. So another 300 and then the Dirac license! Add it all up and ya it’s not cheap.
Facts: I listen to vinyl 90% of the time. So to use Dirac, which is digital, to provide REW when I stream so rarely, does this make sense. Now I can output the TT analog signal via rca from the phono preamp into the miniDSP analog inputs on the unit. Then from there it will convert from analog to digital (haha) and back to analog again to the amplifier.
Question: is it really worth dsp processing REW to get better room correction, the cost, in such a small treated room, when it already sounds amazing and I’m a vinyl guy?
Tough call. Need opinions.
Before you correct, maybe just get the Umik-1 and measure your room. If you find that you have peaks or nulls, you would benefit. I personally use a miniDSP SHD with my vinyl rig. It’s transparent to the vinyl sound and really helps below 500Hz. In my opinion, almost every domestic room would benefit from some DSP and treatments. However, it boils down to preferences. If you are used to your room, you may not like the corrected sound. After Dirac and touching up a few problem areas, my response feels uniform across the spectrum and I can hear details that otherwise were obscured. Things sound more real to me too.