Dirac Live: The One Tool EVERY Audiophile Should Own! Room Correction In-depth review

Tell me now what is the biggest improvement to your sound, beside buying a new HIFI Gear, that you can bring tangible great results for less money.

Is it new cables? Yes, if you have stock cables, investing in some nice cables could bring tangible results, as it will unlock your system.

Is it power filtering? I guess, if you have a lot of issues with grounding and polluted current. So some better power cables and power filter/conditioner will also bring tangible results.

But no, the greatest thing you can afford to your system that will improve your sound dramatically is room treatment. Now I know room treatment is ugly, room treatment is expensive, and will require certain knowledges and expertise to be done correctly.

My experience with room treatments and measurements

But once you cross that threshold that you have invested a lot of money in your system, to truly unlock the potential of your device you need to clear the bouncing of sound waves and buildups.

So 6 months ago I bought Bluesound Node Icon, and I got recommendation to try Dirac. As it is a golden tool that helps you fix all your room's problems.

Intriguing isn’t it, so I decided to buy Dirac and to test it in my room. And one note, my room is half treated, I never managed to treat it fully. It is partly lack of funds, but mostly is that my room is super weird and there are some spots that you cannot put panels and traps. I mean in one corner of my room there is a hanging bass trap over my head every time I pass there. It is an accident waiting to happen. It would be a funny headline at newspaper, an audiophile killed by bass trap.

But the sound is 80% perfect how I wanted, so I was almost there. But can this tool really help me.

And what I can tell you is that Dirac did some things perfectly, and at some it just takes too much to my liking.

But let’s take things step by step.

What do you need from equipment?

How can you start using Dirac? Well first obviously you need device that is Dirac Live compatible. In my case it is Bluesound Node, but there are a lot of devices from Arcam, NAD and Bluesound etc. That have it.

And once you know that you need to buy Dirac Live license. There are two options here, one is limited for 160 dollars which works in area of 20Hz-500Hz, and other is full bandwidth for 250 dollars that works in area of 20Hz-20kHz. Now my opinion here is that you buy full bandwidth, and don’t bother with limited one. You need it to clear not just bass but also upper mids and treble, doing half job is not something I recommend, but if you buy limited you can easily jump to full bandwidth for 100 dollars.

Beside frequency response, both limited and full bring the same goodies that include that it also improves impulse response timing.

Now that you have license, you need to install the Dirac app on your computer or phone. Connect that license and you are ready to improve your audiophile life.

But to start measuring your room acoustics and impulses, you need a omnidirectional measuring mic. It also needs to be omnidirectional to truly work. Now Dirac offers their own measuring mic which is 60 dollars. It is a good thing and good value. And good thing for that is that you can connect it to your own Bluesound Node, or computer directly without need for external audio interface.

But for best results I do recommend that you get mic which is passive, and uses energy from audio interface to be driven. I use ZOOM H5, and ARC measuring mic. It is more expensive way, as it requires external audio interface like Focusrite or Zoom, but it is more flexible and correct measures through them.

How Does Dirac Live works?

And now you have everything and it is time for you to start using your software.

Using Dirac Live is pretty intuitive, but you will need few tutorials on YouTube to truly grasp how it is being used.

1. Measurement Levels

It will first ask you to check the gain of your microphone to see can mic truly hear your system, or is it too loud and creates clipping. Here I don’t have much to say just keep it at normal listening volume, not too loud but just how you would listen in your room.

2. Sweet Spot/Measure

And after that comes the most important aspect of Dirac Live and that is Room Measurements.

I highly recommend that you spend most of time in application here. As how my old man used to say measure 5 times and cut those nasty audio frequencies once. I recommend even when you correct it once do it few more times. Just to be certain.

It is recommended that your microphone sits on some stand. And that when you record mic remains perfectly still, and you leave the path of sonic waves. So it will record it how it is when you listen.

There are three modes here one is Focused, other is Wide and third is Group. I personally did not test the group one, but I have some thoughts for Focused and Wide.

Unless you sit on a chair that always remains in same place during listening. I recommend that you always use Wide. As it creates a larger sweet spot for music. When you do Focused and you sit on sofa, you might get sound that seems a bit bright as the sound that Dirac creates is by nature very agile and focused. So having a bigger sweet spot helps with that.

But I noticed that imagining in Direct mode is impeccable. Truly majestic, clear and in center, just amazing.

You will have instructions in application where to put your mic to measure. It has around 13 points where you need to measure. It might be a bit time consuming but you do this once and not that often.

After you measured all the spots, let Dirac do their magic, and fix your sound.

3. Filter Design

Dirac will give you a corrected impulse and frequency response. It is very balanced as the system will try to make it straight line as much as possible. You will see the new better and more audio friendly frequency response, and old one or the measurements of your room. To see how much and where it fixed your sound.

As far as I can see Dirac will try to keep the sonic profile of your room, but just more balanced without any significant curves. You can then add or remove decibels on bass or treble if needed. Similar how you would do so if your amp has tone controls. I feel that I always had to add a bit in bass or treble decibels so it would sound better.

You can also do a sound sculpting, a way for you to your own do sound equalizing on whole frequency spectrum. To add and remove decibels wherever you want and how much you want. I personally would not recommend this unless you have experience with sound engineering, as at most cases you will blow out something and make sound worse rather than fix it. I just let this be. But there is that option there.

4. Filter Export

Now when you are satisfied with your sound, you can save that response as a filter and import it to your device. After that you will not need any more mics, Dirac application etc. Just your streaming application, where you can actually switch on and off that filter, or to choose some other filters. Dirac allows you to create 5 different filters and change it to however you like.

It is a nice flexibility that it allows, and also a great way to really hear the differences you made, by turning off and on Dirac Live.

And you are done.

The Great and Amazing

Now let’s go through good and bad that I experienced with 6 months using it.

The good things, is that it actually works! It truly does, and I think the most important thing that it is supposed to do, to make your system more clear and precise. It truly does that.

You will hear right away, more transparency, more insight in details, better imagining of vocals in middle. It controls frequencies so well that it makes your system behave on a singular playing field.

That means all the excess frequencies have their decibels removed so it will not veil other frequencies and make so much more space for all the instruments, and voices to be heard and more three dimensional on soundstage.

If you had issues with bass buildup in your room, not any more, as it will control and allow your speakers to push as much as air needed to not overpower other instrumentations. If you had issues with treble being bright and fatiguing same, it will shave it enough to have power but yet to be more manageable in line with others.

But the biggest plus for me is how it handles voices. It truly gives them great focus and lane. They become the star of the show. They are firmly in middle, completely unbothered from others. You can hear it very crystal and it makes those great singalongs more better now.

Your system now is unbothered, showing details and insights, as it is more clear and vivid.

One spectacular point is also that when it phase corrects the frequency, it does not do that for both of speakers but for both left and right individually. This is a great point, as it helps with irregular rooms a lot. As with early reflections, and bass buildups, you can have different sounds coming from left and right. This application notices that and will put different signals for each of your speakers.

This is mighty fine thing, as it will help with irregularity of systems in rooms that are differently furnished on left or right, or if the system is not in the center of your room.

So absolutely it does deliver on its promises, and it is tool that I can recommend to everyone.

I also tested this at friend's place, where he believed he had no problem with sound, and he was shocked how much clearer the sound was. So if you can, please check this out somehow.

Bad and Could be better

While I think this is a tool that can help every audiophile out there, there are some problems you should be thinking about.

First is in its execution. So what this tool does is find excessive signal on frequency scale, and tells an internal device to shave decibels there. And it happens across entire spectrum.

And that creates two problems. First off, it disturbs the emotional core of your speakers, by forcing it to be more neutral. So it means all those warm or bright speakers will lose their edge with this modeling.

Of course I don’t mean they will become automatically fully balanced, but they will be less bassy and treble rich. Some speakers will lose their uniqueness, they will have less emotions to them. It is that last spark that speakers make that make them unique.

The other thing is the decibels they shave contain details in them. It contains insight. That additional corners on soundstage. That additional extension of percussions, or low kick.

And there is no way to control that, to create a compromise between shaven area and original.

But this is all on gear to gear basis, more balanced gear will have less decibels slashed, too — more V curved ones. My class D amps, with balanced speakers had smaller changes compared to Marantz with Triangles for example.

Also one more point: it creates more taxation on your amp, as the signal from the source is going to be weaker. Therefore your amp will need to add more juice to drive speakers.

This is a small issue, only will be prevalent if you have a weak amp driving hard speakers to drive, and it is firing on all cylinders, so this might push it over edge.

There is also an issue that app does not have any onboarding, or tutorials or anything similar, so to understand how to measure requires additional exploration on YouTube. And even then it is not fully clear where to place the mic in order to take best measurements.

What I would improve for future iterations

What I will improve about all this for maybe some MK2 is absolutely to have some presets. Like enhance lower mids, or enhance upper mids. And clicking on them, they would add decibels to certain areas. Or something like rock preset, classical preset, jazz preset… In order to give more flourish to a new measured result. That way listeners and users will have more flexibility and more experimentation to find their perfect sound.

And as I said earlier, there is no good onboarding or tutorials. So many things are left on user to discover by himself by exploring internet. But there should be some hints in this app telling you what to do.

And that visual plane where it shows listener and spots around him to measure — it should be in 3D or in more angled pictures to get sense how much forward and back of listener you should set your microphone for best results. Give us how perfect position looks and we will try to mimic it. There is of course an advanced way to do this, with mobile camera, where you can take photo of your listening position and it will show you where are the spots you should put your mic.

Subjective vs Objective

Now will you enjoy the new sound — is highly subjective. But reality is that new sound that Dirac mixes up, is objectively better. It is for all the people who love measurements, objective reviews, a better sound. It is amazing for those looking for precise sound.

But even though it is objectively better sound, it does not make it subjectively better. Remember that. As we all started to love this hobby not as to get the perfect sound, but the sound that moves us the most.

And for me in many cases, sound that was objectively not good, was subjectively better for me. As it did some special things that I like, a special sauce. Which required some irregularities on frequencies, and playing by audio engineers. And some speakers which by reviews of others that objectively measured great, I was severely underwhelmed by them.

And be mindful of break-in period. So after your sound dramatically changes in front of you, you might not be happy with the results right away, but let it sit, let it cook and you might start appreciating a whole new experience that your speakers now deliver.

So how much you enjoy this, is highly upon you.

Conclusion

Like with any other tool, the usefulness of it comes from the problems you have. Does it work? Yes, absolutely. It is a tool that every audiophile should have in its arsenal. As when it works, it works fabulously.

The problem of selling this tool is that not many people know they have this issue. Many think — and I spoke around this subject with a few people — that to improve clarity, details, soundstage, they need to buy new gear. Better gear. Yet no one talks about how it is your room that is suffocating the potential of the gear you have. Everyone thinks their room is just fine. And this kind of adjustment, which is not expensive, could improve your sound, without spending a lot of money on your next gear.

Is it perfect? Unfortunately no. I cannot put all my needs in its digital hands. But it did improve a lot of musical listening scenarios, especially around more acoustic music. Or more vocal-oriented music. It did help with precision, clarity and imaging a lot. And more often than not, I have been using it.

But from time to time, I do miss the sound I forged in my room. So I tend, for some scenarios and some gear, to not use it. Rather, I am satisfied with acoustics in my room.

So it will be subjective improvements from gear to gear, room to room, listener to listener. But as I said, with such ease to use, ease to buy and acquire, you should definitely try it, and let it shock you how much it improves the sound for you. You will not be able to live without it in one way or another.

Thank you for watching.

✅ Pros

1. Dramatic Sound Improvement

• Clearer, more precise sound with better detail retrieval.

• Improved imaging, especially for vocals, which become centered and vivid.

• Enhanced frequency balance – tames excessive bass or treble.

  
  

2. Solves Room Acoustics Problems

• Corrects bass buildup and early reflections.

• Applies phase correction individually to each speaker, helping irregular rooms.

  
  

3. Cost-Effective Upgrade

• Offers noticeable improvements without buying new gear.

• Especially beneficial for users who have already invested in quality components.

  
  

4. Flexible Filter Management

• Allows creation of up to 5 filters.

• Can toggle filters on/off to compare results or suit different music genres.

  
  

5. User Customization (Advanced)

• Offers full control over EQ shaping if you’re experienced.

• Gives options for bass/treble tuning post-measurement.

  
  

6. Broad Compatibility

• Works with various Dirac-compatible devices (e.g., Bluesound, NAD, Arcam).

• Good value mic available from Dirac; higher-end mics supported via interface.

  
  

7. Real-World Proof

• Validated by testing in multiple setups (own and friend’s system).

• Demonstrated clear, repeatable improvements in sound quality.

❌ Cons

1. Potential Loss of Character

• Can neutralize speaker traits like warmth or brightness.

• May make emotionally engaging gear feel more sterile or "flat."

  
  

2. Shaves Off Some Detail

• Reducing peaks might remove subtle textures or soundstage width.

• No way to fine-tune the balance between correction and original signature.

  
  

3. Power Demands

• Post-correction signal is weaker; may stress underpowered amps.

  
  

4. Steep Learning Curve

• No in-app onboarding or tutorials; requires YouTube research.

• Mic placement for accurate measurement is unclear and user-dependent.

  
  

5. Subjective Results Vary

• Objectively better sound doesn’t always translate to preferred sound.

• Some listeners may prefer the original room-influenced presentation.