UMIK-1 miniDSP + DIRACLIVE I Next level DIRAC LIVE room correction
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- #UMIK1 #DIRACLIVE #REW
Most modern AV receivers come with a "puck" shaped measuring microphone so that you are able to use room correction out of the box. But is it better to use a calibrated room correction microphone like the miniDSP UMIK-1? I am going to test it out by using my ONKYO RZ50 surround reciever and compare my results from measuring with the puck mic against measuring with the UMIK-1. The UMIK-1 is the recommended microphone for REW and DiracLive room correction software which I'll be using to make my measurements.
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - INTRO
00:29 - THE UMIK-1
01:45 - UNBOXING
03:35 - OPTIONAL ADDITIONS
04:45 - DIRACLIVE
07:08 - RESULTS
10:00 - CONCLUSION
Guide for volume and gain settings:
mehlau.net/audio/dirac-live-2...
Music provided by "BACK TO THE MOON“:
www.backtothemoon.de - Zábava
Spot on! Everything you have done, I always recommend to everyone who ventures into Dirac. Before I had the Umik-1 a few years ago, my results with the supplied puck mic were very inconsistent between calibrations. Also, Dirac recommends the 90° position even for 2 channel as it needs to hear the room with the reflections or else it can't properly apply the correct filters. And the supplied "tripod" stand for the Umik is laughable. I struggled with stacking boxes to get it to the proper height. Investing in a boom arm mic stand and a longer USB cable were a life saver like you said. One thing that I do is, I set a 10 second timer in Dirac to give me time to leave the room before the measurement happens as your body in the room can throw things off.
Hi Richard, thank you so much for your comment! It makes a difference, more than I expected. And good call with walking out of the room. I didn’t mention this but that’s what I did for my measurements as well. 👍😊
I make sure to sit in the room or place pillows to simulate my body in the main listening position. Your body does have an impact on the room, and you will be in the room when listening to your system.
Thanks, this was a huge help!
Dan, I need you to come to Australia and help me with my tech 😂 Your knowledge of tech really surprises me and I love it!
Thank you! ❤️😊 I’d be definitely down for that. I enjoy helping out. And if you get to come see our couch I’d love to show you my tricked out setup 😁
The issue that immediately jumps out to me here is that the Umik-1 was on a stand while the puck was placed on pillows or wherever, so you should perform another measurement with the puck on the stand to make all things as equal as possible. The measurements really don't look different enough for me to want to spend the money on a single-use mic, and, in fact, your results show just how good the included puck mic really is.
Hello 👋 The difference is minor and really to be considered a finishing touch for the enthusiast. This is not a 100% scientific experiment, else this would have taken much longer than it already did. I made this just as a guide how much difference you can expect as a regular user. I did find it to be easier to set up though with the UMIK-1 being more sensitive in general. I didn't need to fiddle with the volume and noise background as much as with the puck.
@@SamDansCouch I certainly appreciate your effort, but the results are being skewed because the same process is not being applied to both mics. You're selling this as the difference being the mics, but you need to measure with the puck mic on the stand while connected to your PC running the more robust Dirac program to get meaningful results. Different mics connected in different ways running different programs with different methods of placement is just far too many variables to make any kind of objective claim.
I believe the same test should be run with the puck mic there you go more content more $$$
@@richardsnyder3802I don't think it really matters. That is the general conclusion is unlikely to change. The Puck is very good and for many it's perfectly fine.
For those of us trying to squeeze that last bit of performance as well as have a much easier time capturing the 17 measurements it's definitely an improvement from his video, Dirac's perspective and my own experience.
Wow! Wow! I followed your advice and ran Dirac from a laptop with the puck mic. It took quite a while to adjust speaker volumes to get rid of the low noise ratio errors. I did the 17 points with no target curves. The result was amazing! My 5.1 sounded far better than the Dirac result from iPad w the puck mic. The only thing I adjusted after calibration was to change a couple of crossover values: center from 70 hz to 80 hz and sub from 120 hz to 100 hz. The Hotel California by Yao never sounded this good. Thank you.
Hi James! Thank you for your feedback 😎 I’m glad you could tune your setup to the next level.
Cool!! Good information. I will follow on with this upgrade as well. Like you said, since I have over $10K worth of gear, it makes sense to use this $75 higher fidelity mic too instead of the puck mic.
Hi tg 👋 Thank you 😊 yes it’s definitely worth it going the last step with a good calibrated mic. It does make a difference and gives the sound a nice final touch.
Hi Daniel. Nice video. At what volume did you put your subwoofer on before dirac calibration?
Hello Ronny 👋 thank you! 😊 I set my sub at -10db and then compensated the volume within the AV receiver after Dirac measuring was done 👍
Thank you so much! I’m about to do the 17 measurements with the umik1😊
For sure, the center channel should never be at 120hz. Try going to 10hz above the manufacturer lowest frequency. Listen to deep voices like Clint Eastwood to see if you’re losing content with the 90hz.
Hi Tech Samurai! I’m gonna try it out 👍 Good luck with your measurements! It’s gonna sound much better 😎
@@SamDansCouchOh man, the volume calibrations were so tough. Thanks for the link as I could have blown my speakers or sub.
I used your guide but still found them tough especially when they talk about -20 to -30 - there are no colors now. in the app.
Are you supposed to put the mic in the MLP to do them? I suspect that would be a prerequisite as I did them close to the MLP and then had to redo them as I realized the volumes are different based on distance. 😃
I had to lug my laptop around so I decided to get a long USB cable and redo all the measurements.
It's quite a bit of work...
How much did you vary the height by? My sofa is a deep sofa so my ears and head are right at the top of the sofa.
@@techsamurai11 Yes the volume calibration is tricky. For that the mic needs to the in the MLP. It also tries to measure the distances and stuff from the first measurement at the MLP, which is not always spot on and needs to be manually corrected afterwards. Same with the crossover settings. Good call getting a longer USB cord. The supplied cable is too short when doing all the different measuring positions. I did the heights like this: Ear height, one mic length above ear height and for the low ones directly on the couch/seating height. I don’t think the heights are super important as long as you keep them the same heights when going around your couch. It is definitely a lot of work especially when other people are making noises ruining your measuring but it’s worth it in the end 😁
@@SamDansCouch Holy Crap ;-) I ended up with a crossover of 150hz and distance of 0.0 ms and the same speaker level so clearly something went wrong somewhere.
I did receive exclamations marks when I was measuring for 15 out of 17 locations but it also said that it measured it successfully so I didn't think there was an issue. I just thought that's what it shows after you measure it. Then I noticed that one speaker had a check as did another so that led me to question the results but I loaded them and they looked fine. I guess that caused the issue but it still provided targets for all speakers and the frequency measurements look fine for the checks and question marks.
Do you remember if Dirac measured the left channel twice for you? It did that for me every time and I wasn't sure if that was a bug. I thought it was doing both left and right for stereo but it was just the left on the UI.
The sound is very tamed now and warmer compared to the measurement from the 3 positions and the included mic. I might do a test with the included mic and fewer positions.
Thanks for the video. I'm having problems with getting the UMIK-1 mic pick up enough sound...tried many things but some reason is not working. The RZ50 puck is more sensitive...not sure what to do. I have downloaded the latest direc live version (also tried 3.4.4) and used different mac versions. Any suggestions?
Hello 👋 Thank you 😊 Im sorry you are having issues. The UMIK-1 is definitely more sensitive compared to the puck so something is wrong. Im sure you have tried this but have you messed with the mic gain before the testing starts? The higher the level the more sensitive it should become using DiracLive. I am using the Mac software too. Also check if you have the mic profile loaded into DiracLive. Other than that there is not much else you can do. If its still less sensitive compared to the puck I’d contact the manufacturer.
Have you ever spent time to modify the curves in the DIRAC results to increase certain frequencies or for a small home family room....leaving it the way it is after calibration would be more than enough?
Hello Talking With Cars! 👋 I’ve modified my curves with my first Dirac setup with older speakers and the puck mic. Ever since though with advancements in the DiracLive software itself and in combination with the UMIK-1 I am very satisfied with the automatic results and left my curves as is and that’s how I run my setup right now. No need to worry about having to manual adjust things unless you really really feel like bass or any other frequencies need a boost to your ears😊
Nice, habe mir gerade ein Umik1 über Kleinanzeigen geholt. Bin gespannt, ob ich Unterschiede höre. Habe Dali Rubicons im 5.0 Setup mit nem Onkyo TX NR7100. Super Video, alles richtig erklärt. Nur "surface" falsch ausgesprochen ;)
did you hear any improvement using umik, then? :)
@@ErikBoooxx ask me again later this year. won't be able to use it until October :D
@@ErikBoooxxwürde mich auch interessieren, ob Unterschiede hörbar sind.
Haben Sie es in der Zwischenzeit selbst testen können?
Hey,
cool video. Nicely explained!
I've been using a Denon AVR with Audyssey for a long time, and before that I used a PC with Creative sound cards to watch films for years. What I can no longer find with Dirac (on the Onkyo 7100):
The possibility of sensible volume or dynamic compression (in 4 levels) (in Audyssey called “Dynamic Volume” / “Dynamic EQ”).
The differences in the sound dynamics in films are so extreme without the possibility of gradation that the overall volume has to be constantly turned down and up, over and over again, all the while holding the remote control in your hand.
At the beginning, the Dirac calibration option was considered the main reason for me to buy the receiver, but it would now definitely be the main reason for returns.
So my question:
Do you know of any way to limit the dynamic range? (I only know the night mode on Onkyo, but it's like on or off, and the limit is much too strong)
Hello DF 👋 Thank you so much 😊 I’ve been a creative soundblaster user myself as well a long time ago 😄 The Onkyo has something called THX Loudness Plus which helps dynamically adjust the sound even when listening at low volume. Unfortunately it’s not compatible with Dirac. When using Dirac you can only use the none dynamic night mode. It sucks that this is still a problem how many shows and movies are mixed bad. Some productions are well done these days but many others are not and things like dialogue are so low compared to the rest of the sound. If the movie you are watching is too badly mixed you might have to turn off Dirac and switch to thx. Or do it manually with the remote in your hand. Not ideal. I’m sure there will be a new room correction that will do this too. Companies always have to give us a reason to have to buy another new receiver 🥲
very unfortunate. But thank you for your feedback anyway@@SamDansCouch
@@df5485 No problem. The dynamic volume is active using one of the following modes: "THX Cinema, THX Music and THX Games mode. The optimum THX Loudness Plus setting is applied according to the type of content"
if you want to listen to movies at low volume and be happy use denon and its dynamic volume set to LIght, if you want to listen to movies at reference level or close to it with a very clear sound onkyo and dirac is the way to go... if you want to watch movies loud and clear with the best enveloping experience I really recommend the new sony's avr and its 360 spatial mapping tech ... it really creates a bubble around you... but it kinda sucks at low volume
You should had done the comparison measuring just 1 location. That way there is no room for error of the mics not always being located at the very exact spot.
Hi juanlega7551 👋🏻 Thank you for watching. Yes I could have done a single test for one position, but I wanted to show in this test how much different multi measurements make comparing the two mics. I had both mics as close as possible to the same measuring spots. The difference on a whole are not tremendously huge but definitely a fine nice tweak that I can definitely recommend. 👍
I’m trying to use a puck mic that came bundled with my Pioneer receiver. How do I go about using it in REW? I’m seeing that in silence the puck mic reads much much lower than the NIOSH app on my iPhone mic. Any suggestions?
Hello 👋 I personally don’t use REW but I know that it is highly recommended to use an USB mic with it. Even better when it comes with a calibrated profile like the UMIK-1 that you can load into REW. If you go through the trouble of room correction I’d definitely suggest getting a better mic 😊
For many users the upgrade ( if you have no dirac license for example) very expensive. You need software and the microphone. But ont he other side..every hobby is expensive :D
Hello Dimitri 🙂 Our hobby is for sure expensive. It was worth it getting the Onkyo because it already has the DIRAC license included. Other brands want extra money for it which adds up quickly. But if you are so deep down the rabbit hole, around 80 dollars for the UMIK-1 doesn't make much difference any more. You can always get it later too which I did.
@@SamDansCouch I don't know where you bought your UMIK-1 for $80 . My UMIK-1 cost me $144.67 out the door from Amazon . Bought it on 3-25-2024
For the life of me, I couldn't get my Umik-1 to work with RZ50, kept getting low noise errors, no matter what I tried, even when the room was absolutely dead silent, with the fridge turned off over in the kitchen, far away from the mic. Had to resort to the puck mic. Which was a lot less fussier.
Hi Jaggu, thank you for sharing your experience. I recommend to look at the guide at mehlau.net. I put the link in the description. It helped me a lot. Biggest problem in my house is the AC which I had to completely turn off (even the fans in the system). The noise level of your room and the test tone noise should be around 20db apart. Meaning if there is background noise of 20db, the test tone should be shown as at least at 40db on the microphone level. You can also try turning down your gain level. The UMIK-1 is more sensitive, which is good for measuring but of course it means it can pick up more background noises too, even ones you don’t really hear with your ears.
Can you provide a screenshot of your levels window ?
@@SamDansCouch quick question, I noticed right before you went into the select arrangement and measure you have the gain all the way down. Was that on purpose? Because when you were adjusting speaker volumes. you had the gain set high?
Hi Dough👋🏻 Good catch! You have to play with the gain according to your surrounding noises that you can’t eliminate (people being one of them 😂). So the tighter the gain the better.
I started off with a high gain and then lowered it to eliminate noises coming from above (neighbors walking). But don’t set it too low so that the test sound can be fully analyzed as well. The UMIK1 is more sensitive so going low still works out well with this mic.
A trail and error periode before the measuring starts but it makes life much easier later and gives you less errors.
After measuring the levels of the speakers - do you have to correct them to a similar level before going to the next step in Dirac ?
Hello 👋 yes do the volume level within DiracLive first and then do the next steps in room correction. When it’s all done you can check the volume levels again with e.g. a sound level meter for the last tweaks. The center can always use a little more db 😊
@@SamDansCouch Thanks. I was just surprised that the Dirac instructions only describe playing the individual loudspeakers, but there is no indication of adjusting them to levels that are as similar as possible
@@soundsgood2911yes that is important, else the measurements can be off and produce a not so great result 👍
Wondering why Dirac recommends The UMIK-1 instead of The UMIK-2?
Hi Jaystar! I wondered about that too and did research it. Turns out the extra sensitivity doesn’t make a difference for room correction that you could actually hear while the UMIK-2 is way more expensive. So in this case the OG UMIK-1 does the job very well for this purpose 😎
I am getting error messages, that my measurement has been taken for the position but is unusable, and an error 106 thst states the position measurement failure...HELP!
Hello! 👋 that error code means that the surrounding noises are too loud and interfere with the test tone. Try to lower the gain level. The UMIK-1 is way more sensitive compared to the puck mic. Which is a good thing. And also try if you can measure at a time where neighbors or street noises are the lowest. It’s gonna take a few tries but it’s worth it 👍
Hi Daniel.
Thanks very much for your job and video.
Have a question though.
I'm using pure stereo system in my (definitely) imperfect room.
System consist : NAD C658 as a A/V hub/switcher/pre-amp
Denon amp
Variety of sources
Variety of loudspeakers ( still in pure stereo )
I bought a full version of Dirac Live and it installed on my phone.
I did a full calibration using provided ( puck/cheapy looking mic )
Considering to get a UMIK but...
Now's the question finally🤭 ...
Do you know, if I can plug in UMIK directly to NAD C658 or do I need to use laptop ?
If the latter, can I still use a Dirac Live license I already paid for using it on the laptop ?
Hello @MrHesmovedon 🙂 Thank you! I used my puck mic for the first year but after this test definitely could tickle a little more details out of my system with the UMIK 1. I am not sure if the NAD directly supports the UMIK 1, I kinda doubt it. My Onkyo receiver only accepts its own microphone and nothing else. But I would always prefer using a laptop over the DIRAC Live phone app. You just have more ways to store settings and mess with the curves without having to deal with the touch interface.And even more important: You can load the calibrated microphone profile into the Dirac Live app on the laptop which is very important. For that you'll just need to hook up your UMIK 1 to a laptop. Your license should carry over when you log into your DIRAC Live account on your laptop. A little more work but it's going to be worth it 🙂Just remember that when using PURE mode, Dirac live will be turned off. So you'll need to use a DIRAC LIVE mode after measuring your room.
@@SamDansCouch
Thanks Daniel for quick and comprehensive response.
I already decided to buy UMIK 1
Most of the internet sources says, there's no need to go up to UMIK2.
Still, need some extra dough put aside first 😉
I still hope to connect UMIK directly to NAD C658, as it is
Quote :
"Your NAD C 658 model comes with Dirac Room Correction Limited Bandwidth installed..." And now...
Because Dirac officially recommends UMIK mic as a alternative to the provided one, I hope (again) to connect it straight to NAD and use laptop running Windows instead my phone only as a controler.
What do you think ?
@@MrHesmovedon No problem 🙂And yes the UMIK 1 will be perfect for this use while an UMIK 2 would be a waste of money for just room correction. I would give it a try if your NAD will accept the microphone directly. I just wonder how you would get the calibrated microphone file into your NAD as well. On the computer you need to load the calibrated file into the Dirac Live app. Let me know once you got the UMIK 1, I'm curious as well but I know you will love the results in the end 👍😎
Very nice comparison ,but : The Screenshots of both messaurements are nearly similar . This shows: There is no really difference . Why are you sayings differently to the results ?
Hi df5485 👋🏻 The differences in the graphs are minor, you can see them more clearly when zooming deep into the graphs which I didn’t show. I am rating the mic of how better the results sound than going to deep into the math of it. But the sound did improve, also because of DiracLive using a mic with a higher sensitivity made the volume calibration and crossovers an easier process. So for people who are not too comfortable setting everything by hand, the better mic + room correction gets it done right 😎
Partially agree, but he fell victim to the classic error of using a too large a Y axis scale. De facto industry standard is 50dB, it looks like 75-80 is used here and then most things even out, even really bad speakers can look decent with this classic graph/statistics trick.
umik 1 is $300 in australia when i just paid 5k for a reciever, and ill only use this mic once
Oh that sucks that it is more money in Australia. I found it on "heynowhifi" a little cheaper for Australien customers. It is not a huge difference so if you don't want to spend the money, that's ok too 👍