Hi Frank,
a nice explanation.
But room correction is not only Dirac or Lyngdorf.
There is another very exciting company / electronic item: the Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-SP adio 3D Sound Processor.
I got a demonstration of that very intersting piece of DSP-electronic with the
Dr Chesky´s Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show [96kHz · 24bit]. And I was blown away by this performance of 3D audio with a pair of stereo loudspeakers.
This demonstration was at the site of a dutch representative of the Bacch system. And the setup and the listening room had some aspects which seem to be neccessary for this amazing result.
But even “normal” music ( stereo, not 3D / binaural ) had a great benefit in that setup when played with the Bacch SP. With the Bacch SP working the setup sounds like a real high end system but consists only of a music server and a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8C speakers ( what you realise, if playing without the Bacch SP ).
Some weeks later I got a demonstration at my site. And my room is very different and seems to be too complex for the DSP of the Bacch. The result was that there was some approach to the 3D audio image as I had heard it at the dealers site, but by far not as amazing.
My conclusion is: you first have to have a very good listening room with an appropiate setup. Then a very good DSP may bring you nearer to audio heaven.
The question remains: where to implement this DSP? ???
I also would agree to not integrate DSP room correction into the Dac, but for me the MSB Director is something in front of the Dac.
And the DSP room correction has to be done somewhere between the music server / streamer and the Dac.
That means to get the option to add a very good ( MSB ) room correction to the Director ( perhaps as an additional input module? ) would be very interesting for me.
I have a completely different question and one that is likely not applicable to me as the Cascade DAC is likely to be where I stay for the next 10+ years.
My question is has any thought been given to Mono Sentinel’s (ie a central powerbase+diretor, a left powerbase + DAC a right powerbase + DAC, the placement would offer flexibility especially if they were tied together using fiber.
On more thought on the Room Correction aspect, it will be SW unless it’s a parametric EQ! And that doesn’t address time so let’s all agree it’s a computer which means non stop revisions and upgrades.
I personally dont’ want that in my DAC or Amp. I could live with it at the source as it’s going to be upgraded all the time to support the streaming services, but that means forget bit perfect streams as they will all be altered and modified.
Mono Sentinels will not be on the menu because of the necessity of keeping left and right physically close for the lowest jitter clock distribution. The sentinel is internally what you might call “Dual Mono” In that power is not shared between left and right channels at all, and the left and right function independently.
OK, I probably have too much time on my hands but I couldn’t resist doing some quick calculations to see what timing issues would be involved in keeping two pieces of electronics separated by a few feet on sync.
From my past work, I know that keeping a clock synchronized across a bunch of electronic components is just very hard to do.
Anyhow, here is my quick back of the envelop calculation that shows the just the fiber connecting the mono-DACS would cause more, in effect, jitter, then the current MSB 33 fs clocke has,
A 1 foot length of fiber has about 1 ns of delay (Thank you Grace Hopper).
3 feet of fiber would have a delay of about 3ns.
A 1/8 inch difference between the fiber lengths would mean there would be a difference in delay of about 10 ps, which is about 330 times more than the jitter of the current 33 fs clock in the Cascade.
Technically that’s not jitter, just a delay, but it shows that just the fiber itself has a big effect on the clocks the mono-DACs would see.
And none of these calculations take into account delays and jitter introduced by the electronics used to drive and received the fiber, which would be orders of magnitude greater the what the fiber itself introduces.
My calculation… for anyone cares:
In[76]:= sol = Quantity[“SpeedOfLight”];
delay[length_Quantity /; CompatibleUnitQ[length, “Meters”]] :=
length/sol // UnitSimplify;
delay[Quantity[1, “Feet”]] // N
Out[78]= Quantity[1.0167, “Nanoseconds”]
In[74]:= delay[Quantity[36, “Inches”]] // N
Out[74]= Quantity[3.05011, “Nanoseconds”]
In[79]:= delay[Quantity[1/8, “Inches”]] // N
Out[79]= Quantity[10.5907, “Picoseconds”]
In[81]:= Quantity[10, “Nano” “Seconds”] /Quantity[33, “Pico” “Seconds”] // N
Out[81]= 330.
Dan (not Daniel) 
Ok I sit corrected 
so the question remains for others long interconnect or long speaker cable
Huzzah @Dan ! Seeing a post like this made my day 
Dear @ernie-master,
Interesting that you suggest placing a room correction mechanism inside the digital director, possibly as an input module, as that was also my initial thought when posting my question. (Where the existing DSP inside the DD would then be tuned to the acoustical characteristics of the room, as measured with a microphone connected to the above-mentioned input module.)
Also interesting is that you mention Theoretica Applied Physics, as some of the components of their devices are made by MSB, if the following article can be believed:
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/theoretica-applied-physics-bacch-sp-adio-stereo-purifier/
Kind regards,
Ron
@Ron , you aren’t wrong. I designed their chassis design and we manufacture them in our shop here. We also make their power supplies, but the rest of the product is all Edgar and his team.
Thanks for the confirmation @Daniel_Francis.