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War of the Worlds, The MiniDSP SHD vs Analog

I could have put this topic under "Digital" but then I would have been preaching to the choir and it would not have been any fun. 

Last week the old TacT 2.2x processor I have been using for some 25 years finally lost it's main DSP processor and I was left with an analog preamp without subwoofer crossovers. I checked with DEQX and my new Pre 8 is still two months out so I figured just for fun I would get a very inexpensive MiniDSP SHD digital preamp to hold the fort until the DEQX unit arrives. 

MiniDSP is located in Hong Kong and like many Asian products the instruction manual does not translate well. It did not help that my current computer is Windows 11 and their manual editors only made it to Windows 10, but who ever said life should be easy. After 30 minutes of crossed eyes I tossed the manual and dived in head first. 

The SHD Dashboard is relatively easy to use. There are four output channels. Each channel can be assigned a crossover filter, an EQ curve, gain , delay, mute and compression. The crossovers can be adjusted in one Hz increments, 1st to 8th order, butterworth or L-R curves. Wonderful! The only problem is there is no way to do this on the fly so making comparisons is more difficult. There are output meters for all four channels and two main output meters. They are totally worthless as there is no peak hold function and the refresh is so slow you can count it. 

The SHD uses Dirac Live room control which is done online. The SHD sends measurements to the Dirac computer that calculates the appropriate filters and sends them back to one of four presents in the SHD. All you have to do is click on the calculate button and you are handed seamlessly over to Dirac Live. Dirac shows you where to place the microphone and takes just three sine sweeps for the measurement, then you move on to the next position. It takes a minimum of five measurements taking a total of maybe 10 minutes.  A very nice feature is you can switch the Dirac correction on and off with the remote without interrupting the crossovers so you can really tell the difference between corrected and uncorrected.  

The SHD is a relatively inexpensive unit made to Asian mid fi standards. Because the heavy hitting is being done online by Dirac it does not need an expensive, hot running processor and is very cool running. It should last a very long time and it gives you all the remote codes so you can program it to almost anything. 

Now on to performance. Dirac Live does it's job well. Imaging tightens right up and it integrates the subwoofers perfectly. Switching it in and out is an epiphany and a worthwhile experiment for any audiophile including all you analog dweebs. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for and there is a faint graininess that overlies the sound of the SHD. It does not have the silky smoothness I am used to. 

So, what is the point? If you were nervous about spending the money on a high end processor but wanted to know what one could do for you, particularly if you use subwoofers this is a great inexpensive way to get your feet wet before you dive in. I do not think it is an end game unit for any of you here in analog. You will appreciate what it does but will always be missing that last word in analog performance. Those of you with subwoofers will be permanently hooked so be prepared to spend another $10K or do not get started. I am absolutely sure that last word in analog like performance will be available shortly. If my old TacT could do it I'm sure with modern tech Trinnov and DEQX can also. For the young Audiophile on a budget who has to have subwoofers (that would have been me 40 years ago) the SHD is a no brainer. 

128x128mijostyn

Showing 6 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

Hi Juan:

Without MiniDSP they sound great.  I am trying the DSP route to see what if anything might be left on the table :

Ah, ok, I misunderstood what your issues were.  The biggest benefits of DSP IMHO are in the bass.  Clipping excess peaks, and raising the bass to preference. I wrote a little about this here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2021/12/room-speakers-eq.html 

 

I have not replaced caps on the crossovers as I'm weary of messing things up. 

Upgrading existing caps is a waste of money when your speakers need a different crossover.  Not sure about what's been done for your models though.  Sounds like you have already found Danny's crossover mods.  Take a look at the impedance changes the new crossovers offer.

Question is, do I mess with the design?

if you get higher minimum impedances, absolutely.  These are notorious. 

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

@ervikingo - Whenever I hear of people having issues with vintage Infinity speakers I always look to the measurements of the impedance curves first.

Infinity was many things but careful about crossover impedance was not one of them. There are legendary stories about finished speaker designs being hacked late in the product development stage and ending up a hot mess electronically, and this in turn can make a lot of amplfiiers measurably underperform in the frequency domain.

Per Stereophile measurements: these speakers have several 2 ohm valleys which can give a lot of amps trouble. First thing to do is to see if there are aftermarket crossover kits which fix the issue, and I know there are for some models. Second is to compare your frequency measurements to that of Stereophile to get some idea of how off you might be.

Another is to measure the impedance of each speaker and, again, compare them to the Stereophile charts. This will tell you quickly if your speakers have failures in the crossover or drivers. I like to use DATS by Dayton Audio, but you can also build a poor man’s impedance measurement using Room EQ Wizard. Google it.

Best,

 

Erik

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

OP:  It is my impression, with very little evidence, that the HDMI licensing issues were a huge hurdle, even for companies like Meridian.  Probably had a very large entry fee. Theta's delay, and then essentially turning to an OEM HDMI board manufacturer is part of what makes me think this. 

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

I am afraid that if I use a cheap miniDSP in my analog path I may not even know it is there, and then where would my cred as an audiophile go?? 😀

I will end adding to this discussion by saying that a very long time ago I had a Theta Casanova and it was a fabulous musical performer, as well as excellent home theater processor. It has the distinction of converting everything to digital, AFAIK there was no pure analog path. Still sounded really wonderful.

The slow-quitting of Theta Digital at the time, and failure to produce an HDMI product in time, or the Supernova was a real disappointment to me.

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

Where it is let down is in the quality of it's DACs which is, I suspect, the origin of the graininess I perceive.

Which is why I pointed out that it's a very good thing to have even if you don't use it full range, so your reply supports my main point.

erik_squires
15,824 posts
 

Even without Dirac, miniDSP in line with a subwoofer can be a very effective, if not absolutey glorious combination.  It's certainly a lot less expensive than say, JL Audio's combined subs + room correction.

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