Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[Frank207be]

Q: are you changing the upper limit of your subwoofers to make them less audible as directivity increases? So 20hz to 80hz in stead of 20hz to 150hz?

In my room with 4 subwoofers the Dirac software says 115Hz. Sound immaculate!

 

[Frank207be]

Today I've been tinkering with target curves. Dirac uses 20-60Hz flat and then a steady decrease up higher. But with stronger curves I feel that a flat 20-90Hz boost and then a slope downwards to 150Hz feels more energetic in the midbass. I don't want to overdo this as voices need to maintain their natural character

Anyone here experimenting with target curves and midbass?

 

[IngMishael]

Today I've been tinkering with target curves. Dirac uses 20-60Hz flat and then a steady decrease up higher. But with stronger curves I feel that a flat 20-90Hz boost and then a slope downwards to 150Hz feels more energetic in the midbass. I don't want to overdo this as voices need to maintain their natural character

Anyone here experimenting with target curves and midbass?

I try to keep the speaker's character as much as possible so basically the speaker's inherent in room slope in my space determines the curve used

 

[Frank207be]

I try to keep the speaker's character as much as possible so basically the speaker's inherent in room slope in my space determines the curve used

I partially agree. I have a curtain at 1.7kHz to retain the sparkle of my Focal Scala Utopia.

The speaker's character mainly plays above the Schroeder frequency and under that frequency the room always dominates and that's where ART (comes in handy) does it's magic. D&M owners have 6 calibration positions so IMHO boost curves can help subdued movies soundtracks and recordings.

 

[Beast76]

@Flavio Could you please comment on the impact of distortion (THD) on ART decay control?

Seems like that should have been your first question rather than making the statement that it does? @flax

 

[Hyacin]

Not sure I am following. If your current preset 1 is an Audyssey measurement than preset 1 is currently Audyssey with whatever set up you loaded and saved in preset 1. With Dirac you are using preset 2 IIRC, Dirac allows 3 slots within that preset for different "tunes". So with Audyssey you get one tune per preset but with Dirac you get 3 tunes per preset of availability. With Dirac I have not measured my overall set up more than once (yet) but my understanding is you can load any project you have saved into any of the 3 slots. So you could have a tight measurement of 9 points in one slot, a tight measurement of 16 points in another, and a wide seat measurement in slot 3 if desired. Or you could have 3 variations of support settings or whatever based on the same measurement. Your term of base system measurement is where I get lost as I don't understand if you mean a new Audyssey measurement, a new Dirac measurement, or base settings (defaults) applied to a current Audyssey or Dirac measurement? Hope this helped?

Sorry, missed this message somehow! By 'base system measurements' I meant basically no settings, like what you start with if you're doing the old-school OCA EVO with REW - zero out every filter and correction, and just measure the speakers and room.

 

[Dj7675]

Seems like that should have been your first question rather than making the statement that it does? @flax

The discussion of distortion and if it affects ART… I actually don’t think it is a cause of ART not working as well as it should. Rather, I think it is a symptom of setting speakers support level at too low of a frequency. My guess is that speakers set at too low of a frequency, cannot provide the output needed to support what ART is trying to do. In particular in regards to compression as volume on the system is turned up. While all speakers have limits, I would think ported ones would be more susceptible the closer your get to their porting tuning frequency. All speculation of course.

 

[Oddball]

The discussion of distortion and if it affects ART… I actually don’t think it is a cause of ART not working as well as it should. Rather, I think it is a symptom of setting speakers support level at too low of a frequency. My guess is that speakers set at too low of a frequency, cannot provide the output needed to support what ART is trying to do. In particular in regards to compression as volume on the system is turned up. While all speakers have limits, I would think ported ones would be more susceptible the closer your get to their porting tuning frequency. All speculation of course.

That's my read as well. If your speakers can support e.g. 70hz at 85dB, but you want to listen at 95dB (-10dB to reference), you might want to dial back to the range where speakers support that level at reasonable distortion. I did not find levels of support meaningful in my system, but these could also be dialed down in borderline cases.

Dirac sweep does not go to limits of your system, just the baseline. A good question is why. Perhaps they should add that feature as advanced. Would take a bit longer to do several sweeps, but at least you would get a good estimate from ART as to what the limits are.

 

[levimax]

Dirac sweep does not go to limits of your system, just the baseline. A good question is why.

Blown speakers and amps probably

 

[Hyacin]

Just spent over an hour doing a 17 point measurement... and it's only letting me select Dirac Live, not ART ... brb jumping off bridge.

 

[Frank207be]

That's my read as well. If your speakers can support e.g. 70hz at 85dB, but you want to listen at 95dB (-10dB to reference), you might want to dial back to the range where speakers support that level at reasonable distortion. I did not find levels of support meaningful in my system, but these could also be dialed down in borderline cases.

Dirac sweep does not go to limits of your system, just the baseline. A good question is why. Perhaps they should add that feature as advanced. Would take a bit longer to do several sweeps, but at least you would get a good estimate from ART as to what the limits are.

IME with the initial measurement levels you can set the levels pretty high. A too high level will result in a warning ending the measurement procedure though.

 

[PGAMiami]

The discussion of distortion and if it affects ART… I actually don’t think it is a cause of ART not working as well as it should. Rather, I think it is a symptom of setting speakers support level at too low of a frequency. My guess is that speakers set at too low of a frequency, cannot provide the output needed to support what ART is trying to do. In particular in regards to compression as volume on the system is turned up. While all speakers have limits, I would think ported ones would be more susceptible the closer your get to their porting tuning frequency. All speculation of course.

This is an educated guess. That said, I would think the problem with distortion works something like this. ART is doing its calculation assuming the speakers are linear and not distorting. Assume your front speakers are capable of producing a 70hz signal without any problem, and now a small surround has to produce an ART calculated correction signal that’s similar in frequency, but it doesn’t. It instead produces a lower volume signal and one that has other components that are not 70hz. In this case ART’s correction instructions to the support speaker are not being strictly followed. Similarly the front speaker may be distorting and ART is not modeling this as it calculates the support from the other speakers. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle and the pieces that you’re using were not cut correctly so they don’t fit perfectly.

 

[Dj7675]

This is an educated guess. That said, I would think the problem with distortion works something like this. ART is doing its calculation assuming the speakers are linear and not distorting. Assume your front speakers are capable of producing a 70hz signal without any problem, and now a small surround has to produce an ART calculated correction signal that’s similar in frequency, but it doesn’t. It instead produces a lower volume signal and one that has other components that are not 70hz. In this case ART’s correction instructions to the support speaker are not being strictly followed. Similarly the front speaker may be distorting and ART is not modeling this as it calculates the support from the other speakers. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle and the pieces that you’re using were not cut correctly so they don’t fit perfectly.

Exactly… If the speaker cannot do what ART is trying to make it do, results are not as predicted and I don’t think we should be surprised, results are not good. Doing post ART measurements is a good way to make sure it is working. If overall frequency response or room decay is not showing good results, it may point to too aggressive support levels and/or low frequency support of speakers that can’t handle it. Many small speakers placed on or near a wall look like they can support 50hz for example… but at what SPL? Probably not very high before they distort badly or compress would be my guess.

 

[Oddball]

Exactly… If the speaker cannot do what ART is trying to make it do, results are not as predicted and I don’t think we should be surprised, results are not good. Doing post ART measurements is a good way to make sure it is working. If overall frequency response or room decay is not showing good results, it may point to too aggressive support levels and/or low frequency support of speakers that can’t handle it. Many small speakers placed on or near a wall look like they can support 50hz for example… but at what SPL? Probably not very high before they distort badly or compress would be my guess.

Lol, I keep much bigger speakers at bay with 50hz support level. If you have enough subs, then the endgame in the low end is there. Don't stretch you other speakers as they will not be able to get there. There are more and more posts on forums how ART needs to be managed carefully with the high SPL aka reverence levels.

 

[Dj7675]

Lol, I keep much bigger speakers at bay with 50hz support level. If you have enough subs, then the endgame in the low end is there. Don't stretch you other speakers as they will not be able to get there. There are more and more posts on forums how ART needs to be managed carefully with the high SPL aka reverence levels.

In my old system, I chose either 45 or 50hz. All bed layer speakers were JBL 6332 (9 of them), 3way with 12 inch woofer. I even let them support LFE. It wasn’t an issue at all with that system with those speakers. In my new system support speakers with be KEF 5160RLM with 3 6.5 inch woofers (basically an in wall R11 Meta). Will do some trial and error on how low they should support.

 

[Hyacin]

Just spent over an hour doing a 17 point measurement... and it's only letting me select Dirac Live, not ART ... brb jumping off bridge.

Just -

* Logged out
* Updated system
* Verified firmware/Dirac Live versions were up to date for the 15th time in 8 days
* Rebooted
* Restarted Dirac Live
* Logged in
* Refreshed Licenses
* Spent another 30+ minutes doing a 9 point measurement

STILL ONLY GIVING ME THE OPTION FOR DIRAC LIVE RC, not BC and not ART. :rage:

Logged into my account on dirac.com to verify my license ... confirmed, it's RC + BC + ART. :rage:

Anyone had this before? Is it just going to resolve itself tomorrow? Am I going to have to redo the damn measurements again?

 

[Hyacin]

Just -

* Logged out
* Updated system
* Verified firmware/Dirac Live versions were up to date for the 15th time in 8 days
* Rebooted
* Restarted Dirac Live
* Logged in
* Refreshed Licenses
* Spent another 30+ minutes doing a 9 point measurement

STILL ONLY GIVING ME THE OPTION FOR DIRAC LIVE RC, not BC and not ART. :rage:

Logged into my account on dirac.com to verify my license ... confirmed, it's RC + BC + ART. :rage:

Anyone had this before? Is it just going to resolve itself tomorrow? Am I going to have to redo the damn measurements again?

Ok, so I've already got 3x on my preset 2 as was discussed here previously.

What I was trying to do here was add new measurements from a wider area for when I have guests over, to preset 1. It was on preset 1 (with one RC filter loaded) when it was refusing to do BC or ART.

I flipped it back to preset 2, loaded up my 17 point measurement fresh, and it's allowing me to do ART now.

So either a limitation or bug in the AV20 maybe, that it looks like you can only do ART on _one_ of the speaker preset slots?!

 

[PGAMiami]

Ok, so I've already got 3x on my preset 2 as was discussed here previously.

What I was trying to do here was add new measurements from a wider area for when I have guests over, to preset 1. It was on preset 1 (with one RC filter loaded) when it was refusing to do BC or ART.

I flipped it back to preset 2, loaded up my 17 point measurement fresh, and it's allowing me to do ART now.

So either a limitation or bug in the AV20 maybe, that it looks like you can only do ART on _one_ of the speaker preset slots?!

I have 3 ART presets on a 4800h. I’m guessing it’s a bug.

I’m guessing this is why the high end audiophile brands ignore this product segment and focus instead on marketing and industrial design to sell overpriced but gorgeous looking equipment that’s easy to manufacture.

 

[Frank207be]

Lol, I keep much bigger speakers at bay with 50hz support level. If you have enough subs, then the endgame in the low end is there. Don't stretch you other speakers as they will not be able to get there. There are more and more posts on forums how ART needs to be managed carefully with the high SPL aka reverence levels.

I'm using 50Hz for the main speakers and 80Hz for the surrounds and I'm not afraid to turn up the volume

 

[Frank207be]

Ok, so I've already got 3x on my preset 2 as was discussed here previously.

What I was trying to do here was add new measurements from a wider area for when I have guests over, to preset 1. It was on preset 1 (with one RC filter loaded) when it was refusing to do BC or ART.

I flipped it back to preset 2, loaded up my 17 point measurement fresh, and it's allowing me to do ART now.

So either a limitation or bug in the AV20 maybe, that it looks like you can only do ART on _one_ of the speaker preset slots?!

Glad to see that you finally got ART running.

On my A1H I have 3x ART filters loaded in preset 2 and DL, BM and BC loaded in preset 1 so it should be posssible.

I sometimes have failed filter uploads where the slot of choice stays empty but then I only close and re-open the Dirac software and I reset my A1H with holding the power button for a few seconds. After that the uploads work flawlessly.