I calibrated Dirac Live for a customers stunning HiFi / Home Cinema integrated system consisting of an Arcam AV40 processor with two Primare multi channel power amplifiers and an Arcam stereo power amplifier, a REL S/812 subwoofer, Sonus Faber Sonetto speakers, Chord company cabling. Then for HiFi an Innuos Zenith streamer, a Chord Hugo TT2 and M Scaler with other power conditioning products from Russ Andrews.
This is a customer whom I have calibrated his system before, but he has been on a huge upgrade path changing making improvements to key areas of his system with the most recent change being to the Sonus Faber Sonetto Speakers with the Arcam PA240 power amplifier to drive them.
This calibration ended up being split across two sessions. The first session was cut short due to the customers internet provider having a local issue so we couldn’t work, so the calibration required a second visit to complete 95% of it. However on the first visit I did some system trouble shooting as the system was suffering from a strange ground loop type issue that was creating a high frequency buzzing sound that was not loud but audible. I recognised this type of system behaviour and traced it back to the link cables that were being used to connect all the different amplifiers back to the Arcam AV40. Once they were changed the ground loop sound went away.
Then second calibration session went according to plan. I started by taking measurements and working on the systems sound for 2 channel music trying to find the optimum balance for the system and the best integration for the REL subwoofer over high level. After a couple of hours I was close enough to move on the systems sound for movies and multi channel music. This did take me some time to dial in fully, initially time aligning the subwoofer, then balancing all the speakers to create a very balanced immersive sound field for movies.
I ended up creating a separate Dirac memory slot for the customer for music and movies, I don’t always do this, I generally think one for all is all you need when you nail the calibration, but because this customer likes to listen to 2 channel music in multi channel and balance the system in a certain way having a mode for each makes sense.
The end result was about an 8 hour calibration, but it was worth it to get the system really singing to the full potential it could.
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