miniDSP EARS + Dirac Live: headphone tuning FAQ

Can I use a miniDSP EARS with Dirac Live?

Yes. Dirac Live expects one calibrated microphone; the EARS is a two-channel jig with a separate calibration per ear. The free, open-source EARS Bridge app bridges the gap: it applies each ear's calibration and presents the EARS to Dirac Live as a single calibrated microphone through a virtual audio cable. Dirac then measures and corrects your headphones exactly as it would a room.

Which calibration file should I use — HEQ, IDF, HPN, or RAW?

HEQ for headphones, IDF for in-ear monitors. HEQ is miniDSP's recommended headphone-EQ compensation; HPN is the older headphone curve it superseded. RAW is uncompensated microphone-only data — not meant for headphone EQ, and EARS Bridge warns if you load it.

HPN vs HEQ — what's the difference, and which should I pick?

Both are translation layers: they turn what the jig's microphones hear into a graph you can act on. HEQ is tuned so that a good-sounding headphone measures roughly flat — the "sounds right to most people" character (close to the well-known Harman preference curve) is built into its reference. HPN follows the older conventions of published headphone measurements — under it, that same good-sounding headphone reads bass-heavy, because the graph shows the bass listeners actually prefer.

There's a physical reason for that extra bass: headphones can't move air the way speakers in a room do — you hear the low end but never feel it in your body, and there's no room reinforcing it. A little more bass than "flat" is what actually sounds balanced on headphones, so building that lift into the correction gives the better-sounding final result. HEQ folds it into the reference; with HPN it comes from the target curve instead.

Which to pick: if you want the simplest path, use HEQ and aim at a flat bass target — measure, EQ to flat, done; that's why miniDSP recommends it. If you're using the downloadable Jazzi Overall house curve (or want graphs comparable to classic published measurements), use HPN and let the target carry the bass — which is exactly what the Jazzi curve does.

What target curve should I use in Dirac?

Dirac corrects your headphones to whatever target you give it — correcting to a proven reference is the whole point. If you measured with HPN, import the downloadable Jazzi Overall in Dirac's filter-design stage and use it as your target (adjust to taste from there). If you measured with HEQ, start from a flat bass target instead — the warmth is already in the calibration (see HPN vs HEQ above).

Does the playback level matter for the measurement?

Absolute loudness doesn't matter — Dirac normalizes the measurement, so there's no SPL number to hit. What matters is signal-to-noise: turn your headphone amp up until the meters in EARS Bridge reach the green target band, and keep the room quiet. A sweep barely above the noise floor produces an unreliable correction even when everything else is right.

Why does Dirac say "imprecise (excluded from phase correction)"?

This is almost always a per-sweep signal-to-noise problem — amplifier hiss or room noise sitting too close to the sweep level — not a defect in the chain. Raise the level into the green band, silence fans and background noise, and re-measure. EARS Bridge grades every sweep's SNR as it lands, so a capture it grades Clean is one Dirac should accept.

What sample rate should everything run at?

48 kHz, everywhere — the EARS, the virtual cable, and Dirac. If any device in the chain runs at a different rate, the operating system resamples silently, and a resampled chain is a less trustworthy measurement. EARS Bridge reads the true endpoint format and warns when the chain is being resampled, rather than letting it pass unnoticed.

Do I need an EARS Pro, or does the original EARS work?

Both work. The original EARS runs at 48 kHz / 24-bit; the EARS Pro spans 44.1–192 kHz at 16/24/32-bit. EARS Bridge supports both and scales its correction-filter length with the sample rate, so neither unit needs special handling.

Does this work with a hardware Dirac processor (miniDSP DDRC)?

Yes, with one caveat. Modern Dirac Live 3 lets you choose the virtual cable as the measurement microphone even when the correction runs in a hardware box, so the bridge itself works. But the box plays its sweep internally — there is no PC loopback — so EARS Bridge's reference-based quality grading can't verify those sweeps; the measurement still goes through.

Is EARS Bridge free? Is it official miniDSP software?

It's free to download and use non-commercially, and the complete source is public on GitHub under the PolyForm Noncommercial license. It's an independent open-source project — not affiliated with or endorsed by miniDSP or Dirac.

What is a virtual audio cable, and why is one needed?

A virtual audio cable is a software audio device that pipes sound from one application into another. EARS Bridge plays the calibrated, single-channel EARS signal into the cable, and Dirac Live records from the cable as if it were a microphone. Use VB-CABLE on Windows or BlackHole 2ch on macOS — the guide's install step covers both.

Why measure each ear separately instead of both at once?

Two reasons. Each EARS capsule has its own calibration file, so the correction must be applied per ear to be accurate. And open-back headphones leak sound from the sweeping earcup into the other jig ear — mixing both mics would fold that crosstalk into the measurement. In Auto per-ear mode, EARS Bridge follows Dirac's sweep and records only the earcup being swept, so both ears are measured cleanly in a single Dirac routine.

Should I move the headphones between Dirac's measurement positions?

Yes. Dirac measures several positions; between them, gently re-seat the headphones on the jig — slightly up, down, forward, and back — so the correction averages over the seating differences of real use instead of overfitting one placement. It's the headphone equivalent of moving the microphone around the room when measuring speakers. The guide's measurement step covers the full routine.

Something not covered? Read the full setup guide or ask on GitHub issues.