Dirac Live Bass Control for Denon AVR-X3800H / AVC-X3800H (Digital License) Expired

I'm in the same boat. I was going to pull the trigger because someone mentioned to me they have a 30 day return policy in case it doesn't perform according to it's desired effect (which makes sense), but I just checked their license agreement and it says to get a refund you "must not have used the Software," which makes no sense at all to me.

If you find evidence that they do give you a no hassle 30 day period to see if it improves your correction beyond what Audyssey MultiEQ X32 + the $20 Audyssey app can do, post the link here to let us know.

For me, if that company isn't willing to let you see if it's worth the money, it's a bad policy. It's not like they have to absorb return shipping costs or resell a discounted used product.

Dirac experts can chime in, but my limited research shows that if you only have 1 sub, especially a modest one that isn't doing a whole lot below 20Hz, regular full-bandwith Dirac is arguably enough. Yes I know even a regular 10 or 12" will technically play below 20 Hz. But you need some heavy subwoofers in a controlled room to be really pushing usable output at 10-15Hz.

Seems to me you could use bass control as a standalone if you only want it tuning your subs, or go with the live + the multi-sub license if you want it doing everything in a multi-sub system. I've always been happy with XT32 but want to give Dirac a try because there seems at least some agreement that is superior. I missed the BF deals on full-bandwith but though somewhere in the ~$250 - 300 range might be worth a shot. XT32 does handle 2 subs, but not to the complexity that the multi-sub Dirac bass control is described to.

I'm probably oversimplifying this but based on the descriptions, to me it seems:

For a no sub or 1 sub system - Dirac full bandwidth is arguably superior to XT32.

For a 2 sub system - XT32 is arguably superior to Dirac full bandwidth alone. Dirac FB + multi-sub bass control would be superior to XT32.

I'm really struggling with seeing the value of Dirac bass control for a single sub, except as a standalone product where you only want sub calibration. Maybe that's the point?

But for me, the $799 package to cover multi-sub systems... I'm not doing that. I'd rather wait until my next AVR upgrade to see how their market / built-in options pan out. Not saying it isn't worth it, but $800 is far too big of a gamble to me to try it. Maybe if the licenses were transferable at least once or twice maybe, but locked to one AVR? Nah.

Unpopular opinion: Dirac live is not worth it for 90% of us. It's not gospel.

All mid-to-high tier receivers will have basic speaker distance correction. So you can take a tape measure and tell the speaker how far each channel is. That will give you a pretty good (not perfect) timing delay. But then, you modern high end receiver also mostly likely has some free flavor of room correction software. That will do 90% of what Dirac does.

Dirac does three things on top of all else: it flattens each speaker's curve, chooses a good crossover, and adjusts the level of each speaker. Of all those, I'd argue adjusting the level is the most valuable feature. In my view, you're paying $100's more to get the level correct out of each speaker on top of what you can do for free. Is that worth it?

I'll go a step further. I did my own calibration on a new Onkyo receiver, listened to it for a few weeks, and then did a Dirac calibration. Dirac nailed all 5 speakers, but completely underpowered the sub no matter how hard I tried. I just don't think I'd pay so much $$ out of pocket on top of the brilliant Marantz / Denon / Pioneer etc capabilities that come free with the receiver.