DIRAC is a problem fixer.
What’s the problem you like to fix?

If it’s about room acoustics, don’t expect too much beyond what ADI-2 can do.
Room acoustics is more a time domain problem, think “Echo”.
Dirac (and other equalizers) work in the frequency domain only, leaving the echo untouched.

EQ’s are very good in fixing mis-tuned systems, or re-tune a system to a personal preference:
more or less quantity of bass or treble or midrange, in great detail.
But they cannot remove wall reflections, “Echoes”.

It boils down to invest personal time into speaker placement, even selecting a speaker that fits to a room, or fit the room to the speaker.

Example 1:
You have a room with lot’s of reflective surfaces, like glass and naked walls.
If your speaker has a controlled, high directivity, focusses it’s sound more on the listener and less on the walls, less reflections will be produced, you get a clean sound.

Example 2:
Your speaker has a wide dispersion, spreads the sound all around.
You have treated your room with some absorbing materials like carpets, curtains and drapes, maybe a filled bookshelf and textile seatings.
Again, you get a clean sound.

It’s about pairing, and there’s not much an EQ can do if the pairing doesn’t fit.

What EQ can do:
Give some retouch to an otherwise well-paired and optimized system, bringing the quality a notch or two up.
Remove little annoyances, that stick out more if everything else is already on a high level.

There’s one area where it’s just the other way round:
Headphones.

With headphones it’s very much about frequency response tuning, time domain is clearly dominated by it, simply because much less is going on in the time domain of headphones.
For headphones an EQ can make a night and day difference.

As you already know, ADI-2 DAC as the central unit is a fine solution.

If you want to use Dirac, it has to be inserted BEFORE ADI-2 DAC.
This means, source selection (TV (SPDIF)/BT Receiver(SPDIF)/PC (USB)/...) needs to be done in the Dirac unit.
Check, if that’s possible.

Both speakers mentioned don’t need much correction per se, for basic adaptions they have their built-in controls.

Compensating one or two room modes could be done in ADI-2.
An iPhone with the app AudioTools by Andrew Smith, temporarily used as measurement tool would be enough to assist finding the right setting.

So if you buy Dirac it’s really more about expertise than hardware.

Hi, I have been using a DDRC-22D for room response correction since 2018. It works in the frequency, as well as the time domain (impulse response correction).

Having measured the room response once and defining the target frequency response, I found any other frequency domain setting downstream from the DSP (EQ, loudness, tone) is unnecessary.

I have recently bought an ADI-2 DAC and it works perfectly with my setup (of course, as KaiS pointed out, it connects to DDRC's digital output). In this setup, I might not have much use for ADI-2's own DSP and filtering, but ADI-2 DAC has enabled me to better understand the signal coming from the DDRC and adjust the output (ref level and volume) to best match my amp's input stage.

One thing that happens with a DSP like DDRC is the need to attenuate its input in order to compensate for the gain that might occurr during processing, which can lead to clipping. DDRC has four attenuation presets: 0, -3, -6 and -10 dBFS. Before getting ADI-2 DAC, I was never sure whether I was applying too much or too little attenuation - now I can see exactly.

I am quite sure that a great deal of knowledge, effort and money goes into equipping a good recording studio. Dirac is definitely not designed for studios or recording, and not even for monitoring. But it is also not "tricking acoustics" as it is based on recognised research in acoustics and signal processing, and not snake oil. Its correction is based on a signal model which - as any physical model - is a simplified approximation of reality.

However, this model is surprisingly effective in dealing with most domestic situations, where little or no optimisations beyond good speaker positioning can be done for reasons of aesthetics or economy. You will not see bass traps, absorbers or QR diffusers in many living rooms! It can't do wonders - a difficult room will stay difficult, but it does a fair job of reducing most prominent resonant modes and indeed does try to cancel the room impulse response - up to a reasonable amount.

Now the question is the user expectation - it won't turn a concrete stairwell into an anechoic chamber, for sure. But it does help an audiophile get rid of the most annoying imperfections induced by a living room not designed by an acoustic engineer, and allows us to take a step further in music enjoyment.

I think, this will be somethink what controls active bass traps / double bass array.
I use DBA since years and it works great!

To absorb bass energy from a room the absorber needs area and volume.
Volume can be replaced by mass, if you limit it‘s effect to a certain frequency range.
A foil absorber does that, it‘s most effective around it‘s resonant frequency.

I‘ve built studio control rooms where the whole back wall was used as foil absorber.
This way not much room size is sacrificed.

For active bass traps the same premise is valid.
A small absorber does not catch much energy from a room.

Maybe soundfield calculations might help, if an active absorber (which is in fact a subwoofer) does send some compensatory energy in advance.
The regular subwoofer itself could be used for this too.

Will be interesting what Dirac will come out with.

EDIT:
After reading through their press release it seems they come out with exactly that.
Following their announcement you need more than one bass-capable speaker to achieve the desired effect.
https://www.dirac.com/live/dirac-live-a … treatment/