Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[IamJF]

I have quoted them in several projects (have yet to deploy one) and you are right they are expensive, but there are several sub $200K displays currently on the market.

Interesting to have a concrete price for these ... 200k just for the display is still pretty far from most home cinema installations here in Europe. You can start with a nice screen and 4k projector with 10k. (My manual masking screen was about 3,5k, Sony 4k projector starts at 5k) With 30-50k you have really great solutions and all the benefits from an acoustical transparent screen - which keeps the over all costs lower.

Many home cinemas here are in the 100k range over all ... not sure if it will really take 10 years but costs needs to come down to at least 30k to be able to install in these.

 

[Mr. Widget]

Interesting to have a concrete price for these ... 200k just for the display is still pretty far from most home cinema installations here in Europe. You can start with a nice screen and 4k projector with 10k. (My manual masking screen was about 3,5k, Sony 4k projector starts at 5k) With 30-50k you have really great solutions and all the benefits from an acoustical transparent screen - which keeps the over all costs lower.

Many home cinemas here are in the 100k range over all ... not sure if it will really take 10 years but costs needs to come down to at least 30k to be able to install in these.

We are way off topic here, but Samsung currently produces the lowest cost direct view displays that I am aware of. They even have 1080p designs that are below $100K.

As you, I also use a Sony projector and couldn't be happier.

 

[Andysu]

In your situation I would suggest - get a bigger, acoustic transparent screen with masking!
You can put it close to the front wall and don't loose room, put the center in the correct position, put main speakers behind it, maybe 2 of your subs and a LOT of absorption in between to get a better sounding room.
You could try to put your 4 subs in the 4 corners of the room, theoretical that should give a more even SPL distribution in your room. Dirac will do the EQing to get it more linear but position of the woofers define how good spl distribution is.

if your using at-screen then your system has problem , lethal weapon vs lethal weapon 2 3 and 4 , masking issues sound , i'm relaxing at present i'll explain technical details later

 

[tjcinnamon]

Room curve part is identical to regular Dirac/DLBC.

can gains be individually controlled for each speaker or are gains locked down similar to timings/distances.

 

[TimoJ]

can gains be individually controlled for each speaker or are gains locked down similar to timings/distances.

Channel gains are adjustable. It's not possible to adjust subwoofer levels separately (you could do that with PEQ but it will cause issues with ART calibration).

 

[IamJF]

We are way off topic here, but Samsung currently produces the lowest cost direct view displays that I am aware of. They even have 1080p designs that are below $100K.

As you, I also use a Sony projector and couldn't be happier.

As there is no better place here to continue this discussion? These huge screen walls have no problem with daylight. I see them in the "home of the future" - one wall of the living room will simply be a giant display. Put whatever you want there - Art, News, outside view, fireplace or - Movies. But 1080 on such a huge display ... 8k will actually have a good use here!

Sound integration in such a room will be very interesting and challenging. Invisible speakers with wide radiation as tested here not long ago will be very interesting, even when their sound quality is not the best to start with.
AND - back to topic - digital corrections like Dirac ART will be essential to get good sound in unperfect rooms. Hiding speakers around the room and calibrate them to a coherent experience will probably be normal in an upper class house in the middle future.

Or everybody sits with their VR googles and headphones around and all of this has no use at all.

 

[tjcinnamon]

Channel gains are adjustable. It's not possible to adjust subwoofer levels separately (you could do that with PEQ but it will cause issues with ART calibration).

Sounds good. I suppose so long as the subs allow me to boost it uncomfortably hot within Dirac via the curve, I'll be able to get what I need. I wonder if I could reduce the channels by a bunch of DB and then run the master volume hot to compensate?

I'm looking at about 18dB hotter for the subs relative to the seated position. They are nearfield, so from a "right at Microphone position" they are very hot but about 3ft away, it tapers a ton. People can't believe the bass in the seated position vs a seat about 3 feat away.

The trick will be to get the perfect delays on LR. I'm having better luck this time around. But it's still a few fractions of a millesecond off which does move the stereo image a few inches per .1ms. I feel like it should only move it about 1.1 inches per .1ms if 1ms = 1ft. However, it moves it 3 or 4.

So we're talking deathly precise.

 

[Shimrra Jamaane]

Forgive me for a likely dumb question, but would front wide speakers added to a 7.x.4 setup to thus create a 9.x.4 setup compliment what ART does? Can those front wides be configured to solely act in the role of active room treatment rather than a surround channel?

 

[tjcinnamon]

Forgive me for a likely dumb question, but would front wide speakers added to a 7.x.4 setup to thus create a 9.x.4 setup compliment what ART does? Can those front wides be configured to solely act in the role of active room treatment rather than a surround channel?

I'll say this, if you have room for front-wides, I'd not limit them to purely ART duty. The new Dolby Upscaler uses wides and the are the most impactful surround speakers I've beyond maybe the surround sides.

They are a revelation. Good news is that you can use them for both. If you wanted to get crazy you could get a miniDSP or even a Harrison FMOD crossover. Then get one of those Microsubs (from SVS or Kef or REL), then you could put them on ART duty and they could dig to low 30's what ART needs.

 

[tifune]

. Then get one of those Microsubs (from SVS or Kef or REL), then you could put them on ART duty and they could dig to low 30's what ART needs.

Sorry if I've missed it; I've seen it asked a few times but never saw a response. one cannot use subs as supports for ART?

 

[tjcinnamon]

Sorry if I've missed it; I've seen it asked a few times but never saw a response. one cannot use subs as supports for ART?

It's my understanding that you can.

 

[slaweks]

Nothing major, just things that need to be done properly before release or even beta release. The actual ART DSP code works fine, it's mostly just things around it that controls loading/presets/ui etc.

Hi, may I ask if HTP-1 has similar limitation on the speaker distance as Denon and Marantz, 20ft?

 

[ban25]

Hi, may I ask if HTP-1 has similar limitation on the speaker distance as Denon and Marantz, 20ft?

When using Dirac, the speaker delays are set in milliseconds, so that's 20ms. That said, D+M increased it to 50ms in a firmware update released last year. This is helpful for people with wireless subwoofers, though to be honest, you don't want your HT audio lagging that much if you can possibly help it.

 

[slaweks]

When using Dirac, the speaker delays are set in milliseconds, so that's 20ms. That said, D+M increased it to 50ms in a firmware update released last year. This is helpful for people with wireless subwoofers, though to be honest, you don't want your HT audio lagging that much if you can possibly help it.

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View attachment 353623

Thank you very much. I got alarmed by this recent post https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...a-fw-for-denon-xx800h-avrs.46616/post-1901778
So, it appears that, generally, Dirac is fixed but Denon/Marantz implementations are not.

 

[Dj7675]

Sorry if I've missed it; I've seen it asked a few times but never saw a response. one cannot use subs as supports for ART?

Yes, subs are used for ART. The user controls what speakers/subs that are used as support speakers, what level they want them supported at, and the frequency range of support. To me it is very well thought out and as flexible as you want it to be. For example..
-I have 7 atmos JBL SCL-8 speakers. These have compression drivers and a 5.25 woofer. I chose to not include them as support speakers because of the limited frequency range
-I have 9 JBL 6332/LSR32 which are very capable down to around 40hz with high output low distortion. I let all but the center support down to 50hz (I don’t include the center as a support speaker). I also let those 8 speakers be support for the LFE (in addition to the subs).

 

[ban25]

Thank you very much. I got alarmed by this recent post https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...a-fw-for-denon-xx800h-avrs.46616/post-1901778
So, it appears that, generally, Dirac is fixed but Denon/Marantz implementations are not.

Yeah I'm not certain what that poster is referring to. He seems confused. There is no difficulty in time-aligning speakers that are not equidistant to the MLP.

So, just to clarify, the D+M Dirac Live implementation will support speaker delays up to 50 ms.

 

[slaweks]

Yeah I'm not certain what that poster is referring to. He seems confused. There is no difficulty in time-aligning speakers that are not equidistant to the MLP.

So, just to clarify, the D+M Dirac Live implementation will support speaker delays up to 50 ms.

Hi. But the 20ms limitation is reportedly a well known problem o Denons, e.g. see https://www.avsforum.com/threads/of...hread-read-the-1st-page.3261194/post-62423404

 

[ban25]

Hi. But the 20ms limitation is reportedly a well known problem o Denons, e.g. see https://www.avsforum.com/threads/of...hread-read-the-1st-page.3261194/post-62423404

Yeah, that's an old post from last March. The issue was corrected in the U30.1 firmware released in May 2023:

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support-uk.denon.com

 

[slaweks]

Yeah, that's an old post from last March. The issue was corrected in the U30.1 firmware released in May 2023:

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support-uk.denon.com

Great. Thank you.

 

[Shimrra Jamaane]

I'll say this, if you have room for front-wides, I'd not limit them to purely ART duty. The new Dolby Upscaler uses wides and the are the most impactful surround speakers I've beyond maybe the surround sides.

They are a revelation. Good news is that you can use them for both. If you wanted to get crazy you could get a miniDSP or even a Harrison FMOD crossover. Then get one of those Microsubs (from SVS or Kef or REL), then you could put them on ART duty and they could dig to low 30's what ART needs.

What a rabbit hole to go down. What size room do you have the front wides in?