Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[kawauso]

So I have the wife's feedback for you now. She didn't notice anything different over the week, then last night we sat listening to music and I asked here to select tracks she likes and toggled between the two. She said she didn't hear a big difference but though ART was maybe a bit more impactful, but both sounded good to her.

I asked her how it compared to the previous time we tried ART, she said that was clearly worse, it sounded hollow. I keep trying to think what could have caused it to sound that way, I can't make sense of it, but at least it's not longer an issue.

So for her, she wouldn't have spent the money, but thinks it sounds good, so it's a win in that category anyway. Of course I think it makes quite a difference, but I think us audio folk are a special breed.

I'm glad Ken doesn't have to enjoy ART only when his wife isn't around.
As she walks around the house doing chores, she'll eventually notice that the music sounds good no matter where she is.

 

[kawauso]

Earlier this week I switched out my Anthem MRX 720 (using additional amplification for 7.2.4) to a Denon X4800h and purchased Dirac ART immediately. Setting up new AV equipment is fun.

My first impression with the default ART settings was "Okay, this will probably be an improvement over the Anthem with MSO and ARC Genesis." Next I loaded in a fairly aggressive Harman curve, tweaked some support settings, and put on a scene I'd recently noted as good demo material: two women talking punctuated by a grenade going through a window and exploding.

I'm not kidding: even knowing it was imminent the explosion jump-scared me. It was loud, impactful, and extremely tight.

Having four subwoofer outs on the X4800h and an easy spot to place a third subwoofer I initially planned on adding another. Of course I still may but at this point I imagine it will be a marginal gain. (My current subs are a SVS SB-2000 (older, not the Pro), and a CSS SDX 12 with dual passive radiators powered by a Dayton SA1000).

Thanks to everyone contributing to this thread.

For some objectivity I'll attach a screenshot of sweeping my center channel with ART on and off.

Welcome to ASR!
Hearing positive feedback from someone experienced with
MSO and ARC Genesis really adds weight to ART’s advantages.
Your description of that demo scene gave me chills just reading it.
Enjoy exploring ART!

 

[KenMasters]

I'm glad Ken doesn't have to enjoy ART only when his wife isn't around.
As she walks around the house doing chores, she'll eventually notice that the music sounds good no matter where she is.

I’m the one that does the chores around here She’s actually not all that into music, it’s her shows that need to sound good!

 

[gepgep]

Just started running ART on a Marantz Cinema 30

My subs play down to 15hz
Dirac ART has set the subs to 20-150 support for all the speaker groups.

The Infra bass checkbox next to the sub group is greyed out.

Any idea why?

Thanks

 

[smygolf]

Just started running ART on a Marantz Cinema 30

My subs play down to 15hz
Dirac ART has set the subs to 20-150 support for all the speaker groups.

The Infra bass checkbox next to the sub group is greyed out.

Any idea why?

Thanks

Can you give us a print screen plz

 

[Oddball]

I’m the one that does the chores around here She’s actually not all that into music, it’s her shows thar need to sound good!

Glad you managed to get ART working in your setup and hope you will enjoy for many years to come.

 

[ban25]

Just started running ART on a Marantz Cinema 30

My subs play down to 15hz
Dirac ART has set the subs to 20-150 support for all the speaker groups.

The Infra bass checkbox next to the sub group is greyed out.

Any idea why?

Thanks

IIRC you have to drag the curtain all the way to the left (i.e. 20 Hz) in order to enable the checkbox.

 

[gepgep]

Can you give us a print screen plz

 

[gepgep]

IIRC you have to drag the curtain all the way to the left (i.e. 20 Hz) in order to enable the checkbox.

By curtain you mean the tabs on the Subwoofer channel support range?. I have repeatedly moved it away from and back to 20Hz with no effect

 

[smygolf]

IIRC you have to drag the curtain all the way to the left (i.e. 20 Hz) in order to enable the checkbox.

In ART there is no left curtain, at least not for me

 

[smygolf]

In ART there is no left curtain, at least not for me

Sub group support to 30hz - no infra tab

Support to 20 - infra box is availible

 

[ban25]

By curtain you mean the tabs on the Subwoofer channel support range?. I have repeatedly moved it away from and back to 20Hz with no effect

How-to: Infra-bass bypass in ART | Dirac Live Active Room Treatment

Problem formulationDirac Live ART implicitly enforces a steep high-pass filter at 20 Hz, with the consequence that any content below 20 Hz present in a recording would not make its way out to any of the speakers, including infra bass-capable subwoofers. For reference, neither Dirac Live Room...

helpdesk.dirac.com

Dirac has implemented an optional “infra bass bypass”, enabled through a checkbox for each support channel group within each main channel group. It is intended to only become available when F-support Low (the low end of the support range) of a speaker group is lower than 21 Hz. Checking the box, which is optional, will then allow a low-passed versions of the inputs for that speaker group to pass through.

A user can make the checkbox available for a particular loudspeaker group by dragging the support range for that group down to 20 Hz. It must be stressed that this kind of manual override should only be done for speakers that have the capability to play below 20 Hz.

 

[gepgep]

How-to: Infra-bass bypass in ART | Dirac Live Active Room Treatment

Problem formulationDirac Live ART implicitly enforces a steep high-pass filter at 20 Hz, with the consequence that any content below 20 Hz present in a recording would not make its way out to any of the speakers, including infra bass-capable subwoofers. For reference, neither Dirac Live Room...

helpdesk.dirac.com

Yes I’ve see this but I can’t seem to check the box. Not sure what I’m doing wrong

 

[AudioJester]

Just realised the default setting puts all 4 of my subwoofers into 1 group. 2 of the subs are identical, the other 2 very different. Is there a benefit moving them into 3 different groups?

Is setting the support levels a trial and see thing? Or is there a strategy to it?

Thanks!

 

[kawauso]

Just realised the default setting puts all 4 of my subwoofers into 1 group. 2 of the subs are identical, the other 2 very different. Is there a benefit moving them into 3 different groups?

Is setting the support levels a trial and see thing? Or is there a strategy to it?

Thanks!

By separating the subwoofers into different groups, you can assign different support ranges to each of them.
For subwoofers that aren’t strong in the low end, I set something like 30–150 Hz.
Try experimenting by measuring with REW or just listening with your ears.
You can also adjust the level for each group, but I think the default of –18 is fine.
If you want to change it, feel free to try different settings.

 

[mmares056]

My Denon X3800h came in and I plan on taking the initial measurements tomorrow to start playing with ART. There is no need to leave the miniDSP in the chain because it is no longer needed with ART, correct?

 

[lessthanjoey]

My Denon X3800h came in and I plan on taking the initial measurements tomorrow to start playing with ART. There is no need to leave the miniDSP in the chain because it is no longer needed with ART, correct?

Correct

 

[agentcooper]

My Denon X3800h came in and I plan on taking the initial measurements tomorrow to start playing with ART. There is no need to leave the miniDSP in the chain because it is no longer needed with ART, correct?

I had a miniDSP with MSO filters for two subs in my old setup. As part of my ART testing, I corrected one sub with REW and loaded that into the miniDSP before running ART. My thought was -- maybe I should get this sub as good as possible before feeding it to ART.

In the end ART produced identical results whether it processed my raw or corrected sub. So I removed my miniDSP for the sake of simplicity.

 

[mmares056]

I had a miniDSP with MSO filters for two subs in my old setup. As part of my ART testing, I corrected one sub with REW and loaded that into the miniDSP before running ART. My thought was -- maybe I should get this sub as good as possible before feeding it to ART.

In the end ART produced identical results whether it processed my raw or corrected sub. So I removed my miniDSP for the sake of simplicity.

That makes sense. MSO and ezBEQ was the reason I had the miniDSP also.

 

[notmyname]

That makes sense. MSO and ezBEQ was the reason I had the miniDSP also.

So does that mean you’re no longer going to be using BEQ?