Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[smygolf]

all ported ahah, not worried about infrasonic, they are the perfect sub for me, and they are efficient, one of the most important thing

Good choice

 

[rf1938]

Replaced a 10" passive Phase Tech sub with a Sigberg 10D, Rosso Fiorentino mains. Ran new ART measurement and used default target, no other mods. I'm extremely pleased with the results, and am hearing elements in low frequency content I had not heard before, even with the previous sub. I'm sure I could learn more by running REW, but I don't feel the need to; very happy withy the balanced sound. With the AV10, you can quickly switch between "Pure" and the ART filter, and the difference is dramatic. Big Dirac fan (and of Marantz and Sigberg as well).

 

[KenMasters]

A quick report back now that I've tried and sat with all the permutations that made sense to try.

Nothing too out of the ordinary, of minor note and contrary to much I've read, I have my LCRs supporting each other, rather than leaving centre out of support. Perhaps the logic to not including the centre is if there is a mismatch across the three (large L&R with smaller C)? But with the same speaker I can see no reason not to do it.

The bigger change is in my sub config. I have two Arendal 1723 1S subs, one alongside each front and a Buchardt Sub10 raised center midwall. I measured each of my speakers and subs individually to understand the added demands ART was placing on them. The standout was the Buchardt, ART was asking a lot out of it centred at 45Hz. I found limiting it to 70Hz had a positive impact on distortion, a minor positive impact on response and no discernable impact on the active treatment.

Here is the difference in response:

Here is the difference in filters for the Buchardt relative to the response at the same SPL:

I'm happy with this, as the reason I bought the Buchardt in the first place was to fill a gap in the low end from 90Hz up. The Arendal's response drops markedly from that point in my room (as evidenced by the filter applied tothe Buchardt) and I wanted to use a high 150-200Hz crossover for my LS50s. So it returns to its initial purpose.

 

[kawauso]

Replaced a 10" passive Phase Tech sub with a Sigberg 10D, Rosso Fiorentino mains. Ran new ART measurement and used default target, no other mods. I'm extremely pleased with the results, and am hearing elements in low frequency content I had not heard before, even with the previous sub. I'm sure I could learn more by running REW, but I don't feel the need to; very happy withy the balanced sound. With the AV10, you can quickly switch between "Pure" and the ART filter, and the difference is dramatic. Big Dirac fan (and of Marantz and Sigberg as well).

Welcome to ASR! It looks like you're enjoying ART. Rosso Fiorentino seems to be an Italian speaker with beautiful design. How many channels is your system? Since you're using the AV10, it sounds like you have quite a few speakers.

 

[tsammyc]

Just watched Master and Commander in Atmos after ART and the dialog is so crystal clear. The ships bells are as defined as the coins in Pink Floyd’s Money and the footsteps on the deck seem twice as loud as they used to be. Another good sequence is the beginning car race of Ready Player One. The objects moving on the screen are now tightly connected to the sounds.

It seems to me that Denon/Marantz has pulled away in the affordable AVRs and its difficult to compete now without ART as its a transformation of the room sound. Even Onkyo with DBLC may need to up the game soon. I wonder how much better a Storm Audio processor is? Would love to listen to one.

 

[rf1938]

Welcome to ASR! It looks like you're enjoying ART. Rosso Fiorentino seems to be an Italian speaker with beautiful design. How many channels is your system? Since you're using the AV10, it sounds like you have quite a few speakers.

Running 5.1. As Rosso doesn’t make a center speaker, I bought a Chario center to keep the front all Italian. Not sure if there is an “Italian” sound, but whatever it is, they sound great. One of the biggest surprises with ART is how improved the mains sound. Got some Klipsch surrounds.

 

[fzst]

A quick report back now that I've tried and sat with all the permutations that made sense to try.

Nothing too out of the ordinary, of minor note and contrary to much I've read, I have my LCRs supporting each other, rather than leaving centre out of support. Perhaps the logic to not including the centre is if there is a mismatch across the three (large L&R with smaller C)? But with the same speaker I can see no reason not to do it.

The bigger change is in my sub config. I have two Arendal 1723 1S subs, one alongside each front and a Buchardt Sub10 raised center midwall. I measured each of my speakers and subs individually to understand the added demands ART was placing on them. The standout was the Buchardt, ART was asking a lot out of it centred at 45Hz. I found limiting it to 70Hz had a positive impact on distortion, a minor positive impact on response and no discernable impact on the active treatment.

Here is the difference in response:

View attachment 496733

Here is the difference in filters for the Buchardt relative to the response at the same SPL:

View attachment 496734

I'm happy with this, as the reason I bought the Buchardt in the first place was to fill a gap in the low end from 90Hz up. The Arendal's response drops markedly from that point in my room (as evidenced by the filter applied tothe Buchardt) and I wanted to use a high 150-200Hz crossover for my LS50s. So it returns to its initial purpose.

Looks very good, does the different low FSL-setting effect the decay times?

Putting a sub up high up under the ceiling is a very interesting idea and one a lot of rooms could probably take advantage of. I guess the height plane is often neglected with subs and woofers of big speakers mostly residing near the floor and the vertical modes still being "untreated".

 

[dlaloum]

Looks very good, does the different low FSL-setting effect the decay times?

Putting a sub up high up under the ceiling is a very interesting idea and one a lot of rooms could probably take advantage of. I guess the height plane is often neglected with subs and woofers of big speakers mostly residing near the floor and the vertical modes still being "untreated".

Not just with subs - I recall years ago, having issues with a setup... it had some substantial "Realistic" speakers.... raised up on chairs ( as stands) the bass was boomy... - I turned them upside down, had the woofers at the top, the tweeters at the bottom - and the setup ended up sounding (subjectively) a heck of a lot better....

This was back in the late 1980's - so no measurement tools or DSP... but some speakers would work best upside down, may have been a matter of moving the bass source to a more optimal location, or away from floor reflection.... not sure, but it was a trick I used a couple of times. (only with speakers having substantial bass)

 

[agentcooper]

Played around today removing support for various speakers and measuring the difference. Here are two sweeps of the C channel:

• C is supported by itself, L+R, SL+SR, subwoofers
• C is supported subwoofers

ART gets it done either way! One can see the different filters created to achieve the same result. (But the graphs are messy and I didn't take screenshots.) I didn't do any subjective testing along the way,

Is one way better than the other? No idea!

I do know that after monkeying around a lot, I listened to some demo material and...huh...did I mess something up? One effect in particular that was fantastic before and spanned a wide expanse behind me seemed to move up front. We'll see if I need to revert back or start over, but for now heading down to watch something with the fam. (Probably "Phoenix" (2014))

Edit: nevermind about the above problem. It was an AVR thing. For whatever reason it was not seeing the Atmos signal. I noticed it said “Dolby Surround.” A simple on/off and that impact is back in the correct spot

P.S. One annoying thing about Dirac: when loading a previously saved project, why does it have to calculate the filters again? Seems like those are just some values it could save along with the rest of the project .

 

[mmares056]

I'm officially part of ART lovers club. ART does a great job in my imperfect, acoustically challenging room. Prior to ART I was using MultEQ-X and MSO. I also experimented with A1 Acoustica and I did find A1 to sound very good but MultEQ-X/MSO just sounded better to my ears using per speaker custom target curves. With A1 I could only use a global target curve. ART just took my 5.4.2 system to a whole new level. The bass is cleaner, tighter, more impactful but not boomy with ART. The audio effects seem to precise that it feels like I'm in the movie, inside the action. My system sounds immersive, balanced, and incredibly realistic. My system didn't sound this good with MultEQ-X/MSO. Movies and Music sound fantastic with ART and Magic Beans. The ART experimentation continues in pursuit of better sound.

Here are some screenshots of Pre-ART vs ART for comparison. My LCR are not timbre matched. My Center is 3-Way and FL/FR are 2-Way.

L+R ART

L+R Pre-ART (MultEQ-X)

C ART

C Pre-ART (MultEQ-X)

ART Bed layer spkrs Step Response

Pre-ART (MultEQ-X) Step Response

ART LCR_Phase

LCR Phase_Pre-ART (MultiEQ-X)

 

[TimoJ]

P.S. One annoying thing about Dirac: when loading a previously saved project, why does it have to calculate the filters again?

It's a bug. It started happening in October. I (and I hope many others) have reported it to them, but they are very slow at fixing this bug.

 

[kawauso]

I'm officially part of ART lovers club. ART does a great job in my imperfect, acoustically challenging room. Prior to ART I was using MultEQ-X and MSO. I also experimented with A1 Acoustica and I did find A1 to sound very good but MultEQ-X/MSO just sounded better to my ears using per speaker custom target curves. With A1 I could only use a global target curve. ART just took my 5.4.2 system to a whole new level. The bass is cleaner, tighter, more impactful but not boomy with ART. The audio effects seem to precise that it feels like I'm in the movie, inside the action. My system sounds immersive, balanced, and incredibly realistic. My system didn't sound this good with MultEQ-X/MSO. Movies and Music sound fantastic with ART and Magic Beans. The ART experimentation continues in pursuit of better sound.

Here are some screenshots of Pre-ART vs ART for comparison. My LCR are not timbre matched. My Center is 3-Way and FL/FR are 2-Way.

L+R ART
View attachment 496917

L+R Pre-ART (MultEQ-X)
View attachment 496918

C ART
View attachment 496914

C Pre-ART (MultEQ-X)
View attachment 496916

ART Bed layer spkrs Step Response
View attachment 496919

Pre-ART (MultEQ-X) Step Response
View attachment 496920

ART LCR_Phase
View attachment 496921

LCR Phase_Pre-ART (MultiEQ-X)
View attachment 496922

From the graphs, it looks like the combination of MultEQ-X and MSO is already capable of producing a flat and sufficiently good sound.
However, in terms of overall sound quality, there appears to be a clear one-step, or even two-step, gap compared to ART.
In addition to the reduction in decay, the consistent low-frequency phase alignment across the LCR channels also seems to be a major factor contributing to the exceptionally clean and natural sense of resonance.

 

[kawauso]

Played around today removing support for various speakers and measuring the difference. Here are two sweeps of the C channel:

• C is supported by itself, L+R, SL+SR, subwoofers
• C is supported subwoofers

ART gets it done either way! One can see the different filters created to achieve the same result. (But the graphs are messy and I didn't take screenshots.) I didn't do any subjective testing along the way,

Is one way better than the other? No idea!

I do know that after monkeying around a lot, I listened to some demo material and...huh...did I mess something up? One effect in particular that was fantastic before and spanned a wide expanse behind me seemed to move up front. We'll see if I need to revert back or start over, but for now heading down to watch something with the fam. (Probably "Phoenix" (2014))

Edit: nevermind about the above problem. It was an AVR thing. For whatever reason it was not seeing the Atmos signal. I noticed it said “Dolby Surround.” A simple on/off and that impact is back in the correct spot

P.S. One annoying thing about Dirac: when loading a previously saved project, why does it have to calculate the filters again? Seems like those are just some values it could save along with the rest of the project .

Yes, even when changing support on/off or adjusting the support level, it’s quite common not to see any clearly visible differences in REW.
Because of that, I think it’s perfectly fine to dial these settings in based on personal preference.
Personally, I prefer not to increase the number of support speakers too much.

For reference, even extreme support range settings such as 149–150 still function properly.
In that case, some low-frequency directivity is lost and sound quality degrades slightly, but headroom improves.
For the LCR speakers’ subwoofer pairing, I use only the two front subs out of the four corner subs, which helps partially restore the lost directivity.

In normal use, I found a support range of 50–150 to work well, with all subwoofers enabled as support within an appropriate support range.

 

[kawauso]

Just watched Master and Commander in Atmos after ART and the dialog is so crystal clear. The ships bells are as defined as the coins in Pink Floyd’s Money and the footsteps on the deck seem twice as loud as they used to be. Another good sequence is the beginning car race of Ready Player One. The objects moving on the screen are now tightly connected to the sounds.

It seems to me that Denon/Marantz has pulled away in the affordable AVRs and its difficult to compete now without ART as its a transformation of the room sound. Even Onkyo with DBLC may need to up the game soon. I wonder how much better a Storm Audio processor is? Would love to listen to one.

I personally have no interest anymore in devices that do not support ART, but for those who don’t understand it, they will probably never truly get it.
Denon/Marantz supports a wide range of network features, and once the benefits of ART become widely recognized, high-priced network players that rely mainly on aesthetics may find their position becoming somewhat precarious.

Denon/Marantz Network Streaming Features

Network / Streaming

• AirPlay 2
• Roon Ready
• Spotify Connect
• Qobuz Connect

HEOS Supported Services

• Amazon Music
• AWA
• Deezer
• Qobuz
• SoundCloud
• TuneIn
• TIDAL

 

[tsammyc]

I agree. I just spent the day listening to some multichannel DSDs that I ripped over the years. The quadraphonic 1971 mix of Miles Davis Bitches Brew (2018 Japanese rerelease) is now not just enveloping but crystal clear. Never heard it like this before. Also listened to the 5 channel DSD from Kind of Blue, which was recorded in 1959 on three track analog tape. The rear channels are almost silent, but the three front speakers accurately reflect the three mikes on the original recording. After you hear this you won’t want to go back to a phantom center mix again on the stereo mix. Before ART, the music was not clear or integrated compared to the stereo recording. But after ART, it is perfect.

 

[peng]

I agree. I just spent the day listening to some multichannel DSDs that I ripped over the years. The quadraphonic 1971 mix of Miles Davis Bitches Brew (2018 Japanese rerelease) is now not just enveloping but crystal clear. Never heard it like this before. Also listened to the 5 channel DSD from Kind of Blue, which was recorded in 1959 on three track analog tape. The rear channels are almost silent, but the three front speakers accurately reflect the three mikes on the original recording. After you hear this you won’t want to go back to a phantom center mix again on the stereo mix. Before ART, the music was not clear or integrated compared to the stereo recording. But after ART, it is perfect.

How did you rip DSDs, with freeware of "paidware", and any loss in resolution after ripping?

 

[tsammyc]

There are no SACD drives for PC or Mac. So you have to acquire an old Sony (or Oppo) networked Blu-ray player that plays SACDs. Someone wrote a script that turns either into a SACD server on the network when you plug in a USB thumb drive into the player. I then use a program called sacd_extract from Github to connect to the player (ip address of player needed) from my Mac and transfer the files to my Mac’s HDD. I then put them on a large SD card that I plug into my Panasonic UHD player, which plays MPCM to the Denon receiver. I activate the Atmos speakers with Auro-3D. Beautiful with ART. The DSDs are perfect 1 bit copies of the SACD. Seperate files are created for stereo and multichannel. The single track of Bitches Brew in multichannel is about 2.5GB so you can imagine the resolution of the recording

 

[JRowland]

Yes, even when changing support on/off or adjusting the support level, it’s quite common not to see any clearly visible differences in REW.
Because of that, I think it’s perfectly fine to dial these settings in based on personal preference.
Personally, I prefer not to increase the number of support speakers too much.

For reference, even extreme support range settings such as 149–150 still function properly.
In that case, some low-frequency directivity is lost and sound quality degrades slightly, but headroom improves.
For the LCR speakers’ subwoofer pairing, I use only the two front subs out of the four corner subs, which helps partially restore the lost directivity.

In normal use, I found a support range of 50–150 to work well, with all subwoofers enabled as support within an appropriate support range.

I limited my subs upper support to 70 Hz except for the LFE channel. For me on top of keeping left and right sides separate it improved the directivity even more. I’m using very little support currently and this increased the spread which I notice is what effects that “wet” or “dry” feel. So tune for taste seems visible as well looking at the corrected spread?

I’m using a lot of different music content, for Atmos a good one for me has been Slump by OutKast from the Aquemini album. Towards the end a baby is crying and there is movement that changes (less or more) for me depending on my settings. Another is the Billie Eilish song I Didn’t Change My Number from the Happier Than Ever album. I learned of this song through this forum (I’m a classic rock and metal fan typically) on one of the bass threads, lots of decorrelated lower frequency action in the chorus that gets progressively more intense each chorus. Cutting the upper support for the subs from 150Hz to 80Hz first then 70Hz made the “outside of your head/body” bass more pronounced for me. This song has a mono bass line that continues to tickle your feet/chest/head while the decorrelated content hits from all around, it’s a really neat feeling that I like very much. I don’t do movies or really TV so until I try that I’m not sure how badly, if at all, any of this is affecting the video enjoyment part of this hobby a lot of folks like.

 

[kawauso]

I limited my subs upper support to 70 Hz except for the LFE channel. For me on top of keeping left and right sides separate it improved the directivity even more. I’m using very little support currently and this increased the spread which I notice is what effects that “wet” or “dry” feel. So tune for taste seems visible as well looking at the corrected spread?

I’m using a lot of different music content, for Atmos a good one for me has been Slump by OutKast from the Aquemini album. Towards the end a baby is crying and there is movement that changes (less or more) for me depending on my settings. Another is the Billie Eilish song I Didn’t Change My Number from the Happier Than Ever album. I learned of this song through this forum (I’m a classic rock and metal fan typically) on one of the bass threads, lots of decorrelated lower frequency action in the chorus that gets progressively more intense each chorus. Cutting the upper support for the subs from 150Hz to 80Hz first then 70Hz made the “outside of your head/body” bass more pronounced for me. This song has a mono bass line that continues to tickle your feet/chest/head while the decorrelated content hits from all around, it’s a really neat feeling that I like very much. I don’t do movies or really TV so until I try that I’m not sure how badly, if at all, any of this is affecting the video enjoyment part of this hobby a lot of folks like.

Looks good! In my case, I adjust things by changing the number of support speakers rather than the support level.

Please feel free to try my recommended settings as well.

 

[JRowland]

Looks good! In my case, I adjust things by changing the number of support speakers rather than the support level.

Please feel free to try my recommended settings as well.

I do plan on it, when I sit in front of this system now I have a hard time getting anything done I just get lost I read somewhere about center support range and moving the low support for the center from 50Hz to 80Hz. Clarity improved for me when I tried it so I tried the sub thing and the results were the same, a touch more clean/clear. When I got to my decorrelated playlist I noticed the other bonus for the subs. It was a win/win plus less dry which for me was another win, let freedom ring (a little bit anyway).