Dirac without losing resolution

Thanks for all of the feedback.  I agree that most of the source material is within the limits of these dirac devices.

For those of you that are using it, how do you have it connected?  Ex between the streamer and dac?  If so, which connectors are you using for the input and output?

I was hoping to at least connect my PC via its USB to the minidsp but not sure if it even has a USB input.

Does dirac need to work in the digital domain?  If not, can I connect the analog output of the dac to the input of the minidsp?

Thanks again for the confirmation.

That still leaves the question as to which connections for the input and output to at least get the optimal resolution.

Let me try and be more specific as I now understand that it needs to be digital.  My PC currently only has USB.  I couldn't clearly confirm if the minidsp devices have USB in and USB out.  That is why I was asking those that are using these devices.

I am open to any dirac "endpoint" but have been directed to the SHD Studio.

It looks like that is limited to 96kHz.

my guess is that I could connect my pc (or hifirose rs130 in the future) to the usb input on the shd studio.  The output would probably need to use the spdif or aes-ebu to the topping dx9.

It looks like it also supports tidal connect so I might be able to connect the shd studio directly to my network via the ethernet port.

the rel 31 sub is currently connect via the amp speaker outputs per rel's recommendation.  It looks like I could change the sub connections to connect to one of the outputs of the shd studio if I wanted to play with those settings.

so I have narrowed my questions to the following (thanks to everyone's help):

1. mahler123 mentioned that the minidsp that he has applies DSP up to 24/192.  Which minidsp product is able to do that?  the shd studio looks like it is limited to 96kHz:

Digital Signal Processor 32-bit Floating point Analog Devices SHARC ADSP21489 / 450MHz Internal sample rate: 96kHz 

2. the dx9 dac's spec show that the spdif and aes-ebu have the same limits:  up to 24/192

is there a recommended choice between the 2?

3. does dirac further limit the DSP to 48kHz regardless of the shd studio specs?  ex. are the specs for the shd studio of 96kHz referring to their own processing vs dirac?

4. are there any other dirac endpoints that might get better results than the minidsp shd studio?

thanks again for everyone's help!

I think I will take kr4's advice and load dirac suite on my pc.

I ordered the umik thingymajig and will initially test with REW.

Then I will use the dirac trial to see if helps.

thanks again for everyone's advice!

I also looked into using the new nova from trinnov.  I could connect that between my streamer (hifirose rs130) and either my dac or directly to an amp with xlr inputs.

I could still utilize my dx9 dac as a headphone amp as it works pretty nice with that part.  I would connect the I2S on the rs130 streamer to the I2S on the dx9 dac and listen with the headphones.

I haven't found many folks using the trinnov nova for 2.1 listening.  I think that device was designed for studio monitoring.

Although it does seem to be able to work for my use case.

I did reach out to Trinnov HQ as well as a local pro audio distributor.

Not much luck yet.  Still waiting to hear back with any confirmation or even a quote.

The distributor did suggest that I place the Nova after the DAC so that I could separate the sub from the mains.  This would be done via XLR outs 1-4 on the Nova.

The potential issue with that is a stream manipulation of the following:

d/a (at the DAC to the analogue XLR in of the Nova) - a/d (at the Nova) - d/a (out of the Nova to my amp and separately 2 x XLR out to my single sub)

That sounds unnecessarily complicated.

a simpler set might just be:

streamer - nova - amp 

there would only be 1 d/a inside the nova and I would be able to separate the mains from the sub. 

I started to play around with REW and some EQ app on my w11 workstation.

It worked ok but Tidal was a little finicky with those apps and setting Exclusive mode.  

I have the topping driver loaded into my pc but wanted to avoid using windows sound driver when playing back tidal through my external dac (topping dx9).

tidal has a setting to allow my external dac to do any conversion aka exclusive mode.

I will give DL studio a try this weekend.