Roon endpoint or Dac with Room correction

Roon has a room correction endpoint, but it's clunky and not that advanced IMHO as Dirac.

What Roon lets you do is upload convolution files and use them to correct the speaker response and phase. This requires you to do the measurement, acquisition and configuration. It is also VERY heavy on processing power that's required.

Instead of this approach, I judiciously applied a few parametric corrections which is much easier to do for me, and a lot easier on the Roon server CPU.

You can read about this approach and how it worked for me here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-snr-1-room-response-and-roon.html

The reason I say Roon is not as advanced is that Dirac does a lot of processing of the signal to hear closer to how we perceive sound, and averaged so that the benefits are spread out over a listening area.  What I mean is, our ear/brain averages the speaker/room response over time. What we perceive as elevated or suppressed may be very different than how a microphone hears the room. You can read a lot more from Floyd Toole, but as I understand it, the Roon convolution is a single snapshot which uses 1 location and pretends the microphone is the only source of truth.

The thing I want to let you know, is that most experts, and I (definitely not an expert) agree that we can't hear phase changes very much, so adjusting for perfect phase may be more bother than it is worth, so the approach I took may be most of the benefit for only a little work.  It took very little time, uses very little CPU power and has left me with subtle improvements.

I’ve used ARC and Dirac both (as well as several other methods of auto and manual room EQ). They both give great results. I have two different systems doing what you want.

1. MiniDSP SHD. This is in our living room, a third system for us. I find the SHD’s interface a little clunky, but it is a very good quality unit at a reasonable price, and it has everything you asked for.

2. Auralic Aries G1 to Anthem STR Preamp. A far more polished interface than the SHD, but more expensive, as there is no streamer in the STR, and the STR is more costly than the SHD. One could replace the Aries with an RPi streamer and accomplish the same thing. The Anthem has -- in addition to ARC -- bass, treble, balance, and sub level controls, very useful in my opinion. They are transparent and a great way to touch up quickly the sound of problematic recordings.

Note that the Auralic Aries G1 is a certified Roon endpoint and has its own manual DSP (20 bands, I think). It upsamples to do its DSP and to my ears, is quite transparent. So if you wanted to do manual room EQ (I don’t recommend it), all you’d need is the Auralic and any DAC.

DSP has improved enormously in recent years. I find the newer systems transparent and without the hardness older systems could induce.

I think the SHD not the Studio would be an upgrade how significant I can't say. I know what the manual says but I ran Dirac 2 on a Windows 8 laptop even though it says it only runs on Windows 10. The Studio so I assume the full SHD will as well works as a Roon endpoint though it isn't certified. I never had a problem with it. The SHD can be used as a preamp as well. 

I see didn't know you could do that with Dirac 1. So you can't load the filters to the 2x4HD 

it was a hack using a virtual sound card that wrapped the Dirac filters. That said, it still wouldn’t solve my problem of using a different endpoint/dac.

Minidsp or NAD are about the only products that work with it unless you want a home theater AV.

That’s what I was afraid of. Maybe I’ll continue to use the 2x4HD with Dirac and wait for a potential update to the SHD. Unless you think the current SHD would be a significant upgrade over the Node + 2x4HD

Same problem I had with Dirac. Minidsp or NAD are about the only products that work with it unless you want a home theater AV. 

I see didn't know you could do that with Dirac 1. So you can't load the filters to the 2x4HD ? I loaded the filters to the Studio and disconnected the computer, only used it creating them. 

I was referring to running the Dirac filters on the desktop/within the Roon core before sending a signal to the endpoint. This would (I believe) allow me to use any regular Dac or endpoint and still have RC. I believe this was possible with Dirac 1, but not with Dirac 2

Since I cannot apply the Dirac filters at the source of the stream, I'm looking for options to apply Dirac or other RC at the other end of the stream - the SHD being one such option 

I am confused why does Roon have to work with the desktop version of Dirac? I used the new desktop Dirac and loaded the file to the SHD Studio and used the Studio as an endpoint. 

If you're familiar with REW you can do the correction with that and upload the file into Roon.

I am familiar with REW and tried it with the MiniDSP before upgrading to Dirac. With subwoofer integration, it just felt like too much of a struggle. Dirac was so much easier. 
Unfortunately Roon doesn’t seem to work with the new desktop version of Dirac - which would have been ideal, as I could then use “any” endpoint or Dac. 

At least you don't always have to clear the queue first.

One of my pet peeves with BluOS, and what drove me to look at Roon!

I have the Studio, dpon't need any more cheap DACs.  Love it. Haven't even gotten to the DSP part yet, though I bought my first laptop to do it. I just go balanced out to my DAC. It' has better SQ than my BluNode digital out.   It'll power a larger SSD than the BluNode.
Volumio (installed) has it's pluses over BluOS but art ain't one of them. It'll power a larger SSD than the BluNode.
At least you don't always have to clear the queue first.
I'd email Hong Kong first. They asked us users what features we would desire and they might be close to an update.

Not many one box solutions. You could get a different streamer and still use your 2x4HD. I had a miniDSP SHD Studio into dac to amp. I got tired of a bunch of boxes and got an Anthem STR Integrated withARC and use a raspberry pi as an endpoint for Roon. If you're familiar with REW you can do the correction with that and upload the file into Roon.