It seems you are exploiting your system acumen as best possible to realize the full sonic potential of Audirvana Studio… 
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I am very happy with the Dither from Airwindows. I’m actually curious if I’m the only one.
Once upon a time there was a user who asked for Dither/noiseshaping in Audirvana. But I don’t think Damien is in favor of it.
I’m personally not in favor of additional dithering… I use the sample-rate interpolation in Audirvana Studio to audition everything at DSD128 using custom filter settings in SoX and my DAC or I listen to binaural DSD product… I have no need for room correction as I am headphone-centric. Speakers in the room are just background noise makers… 
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To make Dirac work properly I give a 12dB headroom. After processing there is a 32 bit of signal . I don’t want to just truncate this but have it properly processed.
16bit Original file
After Dirac Processing
After 24bit Dither
Nevertheless. You can’t have everything. With ‘Not Just Another Dither’ it works fine.
Edit:
Just start using Airwindows StudioTan24. This seems less CPU intensive.
Binaurel DSD is very interesting. I’m interested in making a separate headphone setup for that one day. Do you have tips?
I’m presuming you use the dithering plug-in application because you don’t feel Audirvana Studio will handle the signal levels good enough and DIRAC does no dithering?.. You are only reducing the signal by 2 bits in DIRAC (6dB/bit)… I’m assuming this is a tricky balance… Are you outputting the digital stream as 32bit?
The DAC only supports 24 bits. And if I attenuate the signal by 80 dB, you can clearly hear that the signal is being truncated. With most recordings/masterings this should not be a problem. But it is not correct.
And no, Dirac is not dithering either.
It is in a 64bit bus. Why should it?
Audirvana maken the conversion from 64bit to 32/24/16 bit.
I like the Native DSD catalog for native binaural DSD product… Otherwise, I use the 112dB "Redline Monitor HTRF plug-in with the hi-resolution setting of no room virtualization just parametric HTRF speaker placement… This is a 64bit app with a maximum sample-rate of 32/384kHz… all PCM up to 384kHz is fed through the HTRF and then sample-rate converted to DSD128… I down-convert stereo DSDxxx to 24/384kHz so to get the precision HTRF of Redline Monitor applied… I never listen to plain vanilla stereo in my headphone system.
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Thanks for the advices. I’ll be reading more about it.
Just a curiosity: it seems you prefer SoX, not r3brain. Why? For me r3brain sounds better but I’m not sure. What do you think? And with what settings? Everything to maximum? Is not wrong?
Thank you.
Hey guys, today I did the same process for my father but there he uses speakers and everything. The system is incredible, with Luxman DA-06, DALI Epicon 2, Krell s300i, Transparent cables, QED speakers cables, Luxman USB cable. Today he have only a simple notebook Acer but we tested with his main computer, because we will end this notebook stuff. Obviously he is losing quality with the notebook (not obviously, took some years to us test it. Damn, we are dumb).
Anyway, we did some tests last week with Audirvana + Qobuz and was great, but the have a rent apartment, so it’s impossible to change things there physically and the 80hz and 180hz area always, for more than 15 years (yes, that long) bothered us. Today I FINALLY fixed using Ozone 9: Dynamic EQ, Main EQ and Imager. Guys, the sound there now is outstanding. We after all these years was speechless. Besides I add more details to the sound, soundstage. It’s finally epic sound for a room with that equipment.
So yes, if you have some room for yourself where you can change things, do it. Not having much money, time or patience and want to simplify things, some plugins like Ozone will serve well, more than well, obviously knowing what you are doing.
And to end this conversation, everyone have one taste for music and foremost a different ear, so to you the sound here could be lacking something or so on… There would be like this, I’m certain. I always say that to me this is a really selfish hobby, but an interesting one.
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This question is difficult to answer, due to the subjective nature of my amalgamation of system components and tweaks… My best answer? Use the tool that suits your sensibilities…. The settings I choose in SoX, work in conjunction with the FIR filter settings of my DAC, which are based on what I perceive, as auditioned through the signal transmission pathway of my USB system… I do not use the default SoX settings…
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Nice. I love to read success stories.
Enjoy the music.
Just curious. Is it 80hz and 180hz or 80hz and 160hz?
80hz for sure using the dynamic eq and regular eq to change things around 170~200hz area. I think.
I always use a spectrum analyser and EQ Plugins but to be honest, I am convinced the best performance/quality gain comes from a good DAC/Amp ( & Speaker/HP) combination! Right now I’m using Lake People and Violectric gears which I used to think before were too expensive but not anymore… (Sorry to only refer to these brands but if, like me, you avoid what is expandable and want something you can easily repair a few years later… you know what to pick up).
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Couldn’t agree more.
It seems that EQ is the primary plug-in tool that folks are using… Perhaps here, is the opportunity to branch the discussion into the realm of more effective room-correction plug-in tools like ARC System 3 and DIRAC LIVE as these are focused on the specific task like no other amalgamation of plug-ins are capable of accomplishing… They are also very affordable and easy enough to employ for the neophyte to address the acoustical anomalies of the speaker/room interface and interactions, that interfere with accurate hi-resolution playback appreciation, so to realize the full potential of Audirvana Studio in their listening environment…
If we can get users of these plug-ins to speak about how to apply them in Audirvana Studio, a great amount of AS users may benefit from the insights they provide, avoiding wasting money by chasing-down the acoustical gremlins in their personal listening environments by employing simple EQ, or otherwise…
This is not to obviate the synergistic relationship of physical room-treatment and related topics of electronic/mechanical, component/interconnect amalgamation, power/grounding/isolation and other tweaks that play into the appreciable enjoyment of hi-resolution audio playback. (It would be to continue the dialog regarding using the plug-in architecture of Audirvana Studio.)
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I use two plugins for headphone correction, Sonarworks SoundID Reference and Toneboosters MorphIt. If they don’t have their own in-house curves for whichever headphone I’m using, I use Voxengo’s Prime EQ along with data from the AutoEQ Project and build a parametric EQ curve based on Harman’s studies.
Random: Lately though (on Windows) I notice AS using lots of CPU time doing nothing …wonder if it’s related to Tidal or Radio stuff. Weird.
I will try the Sonarworks. Never heard of. Seems to be VERY interesting.
Yeah… SoundID doesn’t work for me. With my manual settings with Ozone is absolutely a beauty to my ears. Impossible to describe.