Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael Osadciw 
Oh yes, forgot to mention...I am also scared of putting other "EQ" equipment between the CIII-HD and my Enterprises. That makes me a bit uncomfortable. With a well designed, well treated room, I'm wondering if I'd actually lose more by throwing something else in the fully-balanced signal path (which would probably kill that benefit right off the bat) and be best on using Dirac in Theta's digital domain.
When I asked about using diffusion in my room, the response I got back matched what I have gotten when I have asked of other companies that sell RC technology. The advice was to first treat the room as much as possible, position speakers and subs in the best locations, and use room correction LAST. Also, you don't have to use correction over the entire frequency response. For example, I was advised that you can only correct the bass response if you do not want to alter the rest of your speaker's response. One of the benefits of the Casablanca is that you can sell parts that you no longer want or need. If you decide to purchase Dirac, and do not like it, sell it.
With it being done in the digital domain, I plan to use it. I am pretty much a purist. Steve recently mentioned Stevie Wonder. For years, Stevie would call my wife's family at Christmas to wish the family merry Christmas. My wife's uncle recorded one of his albums that won a grammy. I think I heard a million times about how good he was at that and how Stevie had won that grammy
. When I first married my wife, the family informed him that I was, "into stereo." He came over and was immediately impressed with the sound. However, seconds later into our listening session, he kind of started to shake his head back and forth and gave me a "look." The recording I had used was a Mobile Fidelity recording which I loved. His comment was that the recording was great for ,"Cats like you, into stereo." However, he said a great recording needed to sound great even on a portable radio. At first, I did not realize what he was saying. What he meant was that the recording had too much dynamic range. He liked compression because that's the way he recorded for the masses. He loved the music and was surprised at how good a home system could sound. We never agreed on the compression but I understood his position. We audiophiles are different,"beast," from the rest of the world. My wife's sentiment was basically how could I have higher standards than her uncle??
The situation before was that you felt that you had to compromise on the sound quality of the electronics in many cases, just to have room correction. I have been listening to gear with and without room correction for the last decade or so. The tech is finally getting there were I don't see ANY downsides to using it. It's still not the ,"magic bullet," that everyone wants it to be. It also is still no sub. for the stuff that comes before, purpose built room if possible, room treatments, seating locations and speaker positioning. That is basically the advise I got from Dirac but not so strongly worded.
Over the years, I have had friend curious about Mcintosh preamps. Some of the more purist audiophiles have an issue with tone controls. One of my buddies toyed with the idea of getting a Mac preamp for years. It always came back to the same thing, the tone controls. For years I explained that the tone controls could be defeated and taken out of the signal. Finally he relented and loved the preamp that he purchased. A couple of weeks later, I came back over. Guess what? He was using those tone control
.
My experience that given the opportunity to have control over the audio and suit it to personal taste, even the diehards buckle.
. There are sound effects that I have never heard in all the years I've watched Alien on DVD that are suddenly there. The CBIII without HD audio just didn't reveal these details IMO.
