Dirac and sonar ? Anybody succed

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Bonne anniversaire, Nino, t'as 116 ans aujourd'hui.

I have... but I do it with dedicated hardware. I tried out the Dirac software and found that the room correction was pretty amazing, but the driver was crap and getting it to work with anything was a pain. So I went the hardware route. I have an Emotiva XMC-1 that is the DAC/preamp/correction/router for my system and I loves it. I am 100% sold on Dirac, it is far and away the best room correction I've ever used. I wanted the XMC-1 because I use home theater speakers, and because I wanted a surround solution (I have a 7.1 setup).
 
Other hardware options that are cheaper, but still pricey, can be had from MiniDSP. They have a line of 2-channel Dirac Live units that are $800 each (price includes calibration mic) that are quite nice. You have the option of analogue or digital on the input and output side. They also have a $1000 surround unit, but it is analogue I/O only. The digital one (DDRC-22D) could be placed right in line between a soundcard and DAC, or looped out an AES output and back in to the soundcard if you wanted to use the DACs you have and add Dirac.
 
If you want to go the software route, contact them and see if they can offer help. They aren't wonderful, but aren't useless. Also you can ask them about trying out their VST plugin. They have one, it is just in private beta at the moment. However they will usually let you try it, if you ask.

8 measurements is how they do. I guess they don't feel more are needed. Even if you buy a Datasat AP20 it still only does 8 near as I know. Given how good the results are, I guess they are on to something. I do my measurements trying to follow their positioning guide as close as possible and I like the results. The other important thing is, of course, using a good calibration mic and loading in the correction file for it.

The Sonarworks mic will work fine, you just need to have a calibration file to feed to Dirac, one that is made for grazing incidence (meaning pointing at the ceiling) also called a 90 degree calibration. If you don't have that, might be worth buying a MiniDSP mic. They are both the same basic design of mic, and probably use the same capsule.

Basically if you have a 0 degree file and use the mic in a 90 degree position what you'll have issues with is the high end. A guy over at the MiniDSP forums did some testing and calculation and found out the general transfer function for mics line that. You can see it here (3rd graph) the net effect is it starts rolling off at around 2kHz. What that means is your high frequency sounds will be emphasized more than they should, and you aren't going to get the focus and sound stage that you would with an accurate calibration.
 
Now if you used a 0 degree calibration and then set the mic at zero degrees (meaning pointing straight at the speaker) it'll work great. You do need to move the mic for each sample though, you have to point it at the left speaker, take the sample, then point it at the right speaker, and take the sample.

At the center it works OK, but then you need a 45 degree calibration file. Best to just look in to getting a mic with a 90 degree file in the long run, or having Cross Spectrum Labs calibrate your mic.