Streamers from miniDSP with built in room correction!


Hey everyone,
So one of my dirty habits is looking around used equipment sites trying to score a great, cheap surround processor. I admit it, I’m cheap, and demanding when it comes to audio gear. Some A’goner once tried to insult me by saying the could not imagine me spending money on gear, and honestly it was a badge of honor for me.


- HAH! -


So anyway, I came across a couple of neat, inexpensive streamers from miniDSP! Among the cheapest I’ve seen, plus they include Dirac room correction!


https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series


While some of them include DAC’s, at least one DOES NOT!! This is so cool. Essentially it is a pure streamer + room correction system, but still outputs to a DAC via S/PDIF / AES or ... USB!

Outstanding!!


I am really tempted to get one, if I don’t just get a new surround processor instead.

Best,

E
erik_squires
@mktmkt, thx for the useful inputs. how is your Roon-> SHD->DAC3 setup doing? Are you happy with sound quality? Do you have DIRAC enabled? How about usability/stability of the ROON+SHD? On the configuration side how/where do you do the volume adjustments? In Roon or SHD studio or the DAC3?
I have a question related to these (and Digital Room Correction generally).  I have not tried it before but am interested in giving it a shot, particularly DIRAC. I am just not sure about the best way to incorporate it into my system.

The system I'd like to use it with is currently: Roon on a Mac Mini --> Bluesound Node 2i (Soon to be a Lumin u1 mini) -- > Chord Qutest DAC --> Musical Fidelity M5si Integrated Amp --> Focal Aria 926s + SVS SB-2000. 

Can I incorporate DIRAC through the Mac Mini? I would also buy a miniDSP product but am not sure which one would be best because I don't really need any features other than the room correction.  If I got a miniDSP product, where would it go in the setup? In between the streamer and the DAC?

Thanks for any thoughts.


You might want to look in this thread for clues about using Dirac Live with Roon:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/how-to-enable-dirac-live-with-roon/2753

If you wanted to do this with miniDSP, you could use this all-digital unit before your DAC:

https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd-studio


Before you go nuts with Dirac though, consider that Roon does have pretty full feature DSP capabilities built in.  You can do some elaborate bass correction using parametric EQ's without Dirac if you know what you are doing.