Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[PGAMiami]

Welcome to ASR.
I’m also using the Denon A1H and enjoying ART.
Please share your ART experiences when you get the chance.View attachment 513691

Very impressed with ART, D&M products and KEF. I’ve been mostly listening to stereo on two channels for decades. Most recently with my TADs and RME DAC with a Mitch Barnett Audiolense convolution filter with 60,000 taps running on Roon. I decided to give ART a try on a 4800h as a pre pro. Very impressed. RME DAC is in a box now. Added two Perlisten R210s subs in the front and then two Rythmik F12SE on the back wall. ART blends the TADs and the 4 subs flawlessly. Using the same target curve for the TADs and the KEF Reference 2c multichannel sounds pan uniformly across the soundstage. KEF R3 Meta Surround and R8 Meta Height sound great, again using the same target curve. I set the TADs as small speakers with 40hz crossover so I avoid the contributions from the port. The center and surround crossover at 80hz, and the R8 at 100hz. TADs support from 40hz to 120hz, subs from 20hz to 120hz, center and surround from 80 to 120hz. Front subs provide more support to front speakers, rear subs to rear.

Looking forward to upgrading the 4800h to a Tide16, APR-16 or AV10/20.

 

[PGAMiami]

If I check the box to allow infrasonic output on the subs then the calculated response of all my speakers supported by the subs show a bump up at just above 20 hz. Is that normal?

 

[JRowland]

If I check the box to allow infrasonic output on the subs then the calculated response of all my speakers supported by the subs show a bump up at just above 20 hz. Is that normal?

Bump or a dip, I have a bump too thankfully but don’t notice it.

 

[Flak]

Our Nilo Casimiro Ericsson on Active Room Treatment (March 10):

 

[Oddball]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

 

[levimax]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Release the PC version.

 

[Frank207be]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Deeper infrasonic extension? ART flat to 15Hz should be doable with the right gear.

 

[mmares056]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Improve the UI.

 

[TimoJ]

In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Extend ART upper range to 250Hz.

 

[middlemarch]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Improved error handling.

 

[EWL5]

Perhaps some transparency for when the Dirac servers are busy (especially important near promotional periods like Black Friday).

 

[dlaloum]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

There are so many variables / parameters.... I have no expectation that my current setup is as optimal as can possibly be achieved....

Is it the "best" that my setup could potentially achieve - probably not.

Within the amount of tweaking time available (including how much time I am willing to allocate to moving mics, and hearing calibration tones) - the end result I have right now is awesome both subjectively and objectively - the measurements show a level of performance that I absoutely did not expect.

For now, I am satisfied - Better is the enemy of Best - I am happy with better.

Areas where I could potentially improve my setup? - Better height speakers, with more low-end extension (my Nucleus micro's have basically nothing under 200Hz)....

And If my heights were to be more bass capable, then I might want my AVR/AVP to have a few more filters (cross-terms) available so I could take advantage of ART fully.... - but I'm in no hurry, current setup is sounding great, enjoying both music and movies/TV.... Not feeling any urgency.... no real "itch".

The developments over the next decade will certainly be in the realm of processing and decoding - I feel I can look on in a relaxed state, see what develops over the next few years, and decide whether the developments might warrant some investment on my part, but right now, I see nothing on the horizon that would tempt me substantively!

 

[Fidji]

I guess the best honour to this thread is silence - did we have it all figured out? In case we did, what would be your suggestions for next step in Dirac Live and ART?

Great point - ART is definitely doing what it is supposed to do [which is a feat in itself] and it improves most of existing living room setups.

Now comes rather philosophical question - how do you see ART - as a missing piece of puzzle, that made setup “good-enough” to enjoy for time to come or whether you see it as a foundation for further improvements.

What I have heard from Dirac ART setups until now was - great controlled bass below 100hz in terms of FR, audible processing artifacts above 100Hz outside of MLP and it revealed the issues in mids/treble, that were buried under bass resonances before. And while ART sounds highly impressive on music based on bass and rhythmical structure [and close-mice’ed], music that relies on “sense of space”and envelopment [so e.g. almost all of the classical music or live concerts] sounds constrained and card-boxy. Similar to SOE you can see on over-processed videos.

I will be brutally honest - while all of the systems sounded MUCH better with ART, none of them was really great. And not because of ART, but because rest of the system was not designed properly to suit ART. One of the glaring issues is really this ETC and EDT imbalance between ART and rest of bass. Since I am used to resonance-free high quality bass, I can hear beyond it, but I fully understand excitement of new ART users when they hear proper bass in their room for the first time. I had the same with DBA install.

You still need proper acoustic treatment strategy, high quality speakers, lot of hardware and proper design, if you want to move to really high performant systems. But I assume, for most of people it is enough to get rid of booming in bass and they can now enjoy their systems.

Specifically in your case [my opinion is based on pictures you posted and my experience with Gallo and Golden Ear AON speakers] - I do not think there is any tech that can significantly improve what you have now, unless you do significant physical changes to your system. I call systems like yours “let’s have lot of fun together” - where the real objective performance is secondary - the fun you are having yourself or with your family is much more important.

 

[fzst]

Great point - ART is definitely doing what it is supposed to do [which is a feat in itself] and it improves most of existing living room setups.

Now comes rather philosophical question - how do you see ART - as a missing piece of puzzle, that made setup “good-enough” to enjoy for time to come or whether you see it as a foundation for further improvements.

What I have heard from Dirac ART setups until now was - great controlled bass below 100hz in terms of FR, audible processing artifacts above 100Hz outside of MLP and it revealed the issues in mids/treble, that were buried under bass resonances before. And while ART sounds highly impressive on music based on bass and rhythmical structure [and close-mice’ed], music that relies on “sense of space”and envelopment [so e.g. almost all of the classical music or live concerts] sounds constrained and card-boxy. Similar to SOE you can see on over-processed videos.

I will be brutally honest - while all of the systems sounded MUCH better with ART, none of them was really great. And not because of ART, but because rest of the system was not designed properly to suit ART. One of the glaring issues is really this ETC and EDT imbalance between ART and rest of bass. Since I am used to resonance-free high quality bass, I can hear beyond it, but I fully understand excitement of new ART users when they hear proper bass in their room for the first time. I had the same with DBA install.

You still need proper acoustic treatment strategy, high quality speakers, lot of hardware and proper design, if you want to move to really high performant systems. But I assume, for most of people it is enough to get rid of booming in bass and they can now enjoy their systems.

View attachment 515498

That's some interesting points especially your concern about the bass decay being "too dry" compared to the rest of the frequency range (upper bass/midrange) due to the lack of proper treatment in most rooms.

Concerning ART, I generally agree with you at least on the basis of my current experience - which is very limited. I guess it depends on how you look at it: either you are happy with how much it can improve most systems or you are unhappy about it's shortcomings or rather the shortcomings of your setup/room/lack of proper treatment and how ART still cannot completely mitigate those factors.

Even though I myself do not have one, I find reviews of ART in completely treated dedicated rooms (like you have?) very interesting since we got plenty of reviews of ART in mixed use room setups with minimal treatment and/or suboptimal speaker/MPL placement and it's pretty clear that in those environments, ART is almost always a net positive.

 

[thcdru2k]

Great point - ART is definitely doing what it is supposed to do [which is a feat in itself] and it improves most of existing living room setups.

Now comes rather philosophical question - how do you see ART - as a missing piece of puzzle, that made setup “good-enough” to enjoy for time to come or whether you see it as a foundation for further improvements.

What I have heard from Dirac ART setups until now was - great controlled bass below 100hz in terms of FR, audible processing artifacts above 100Hz outside of MLP and it revealed the issues in mids/treble, that were buried under bass resonances before. And while ART sounds highly impressive on music based on bass and rhythmical structure [and close-mice’ed], music that relies on “sense of space”and envelopment [so e.g. almost all of the classical music or live concerts] sounds constrained and card-boxy. Similar to SOE you can see on over-processed videos.

I will be brutally honest - while all of the systems sounded MUCH better with ART, none of them was really great. And not because of ART, but because rest of the system was not designed properly to suit ART. One of the glaring issues is really this ETC and EDT imbalance between ART and rest of bass. Since I am used to resonance-free high quality bass, I can hear beyond it, but I fully understand excitement of new ART users when they hear proper bass in their room for the first time. I had the same with DBA install.

You still need proper acoustic treatment strategy, high quality speakers, lot of hardware and proper design, if you want to move to really high performant systems. But I assume, for most of people it is enough to get rid of booming in bass and they can now enjoy their systems.

View attachment 515498

Specifically in your case [my opinion is based on pictures you posted and my experience with Gallo and Golden Ear AON speakers] - I do not think there is any tech that can significantly improve what you have now, unless you do significant physical changes to your system. I call systems like yours “let’s have lot of fun together” - where the real objective performance is secondary - the fun you are having yourself or with your family is much more important.

Given the scale of your system. A dedicated room with WaveForming, multiple controlled sources and full acoustic treatment is operating in a completely different design space than the typical living-room installations where ART is often used.

In a system like yours, where the architecture is already designed around modal control and acoustic treatment, the relative benefit of ART would understandably be smaller probably zero benefit actually.

ART is not a final solution but for a lot of systems ART is like moving from a paper map to GPS navigation.

 

[EWL5]

Given the scale of your system. A dedicated room with WaveForming, multiple controlled sources and full acoustic treatment is operating in a completely different design space than the typical living-room installations where ART is often used.

In a system like yours, where the architecture is already designed around modal control and acoustic treatment, the relative benefit of ART would understandably be smaller probably zero benefit actually.

ART is not a final solution but for a lot of systems ART is like moving from a paper map to GPS navigation.

Yeah, using ART in a fully treated room is like correcting to the third decimal place! I would not open up the possibility of introducing issues if I had already spent the money on the room (unless I was a disciplined REW user).

 

[Oddball]

Great point - ART is definitely doing what it is supposed to do [which is a feat in itself] and it improves most of existing living room setups.

Now comes rather philosophical question - how do you see ART - as a missing piece of puzzle, that made setup “good-enough” to enjoy for time to come or whether you see it as a foundation for further improvements.

What I have heard from Dirac ART setups until now was - great controlled bass below 100hz in terms of FR, audible processing artifacts above 100Hz outside of MLP and it revealed the issues in mids/treble, that were buried under bass resonances before. And while ART sounds highly impressive on music based on bass and rhythmical structure [and close-mice’ed], music that relies on “sense of space”and envelopment [so e.g. almost all of the classical music or live concerts] sounds constrained and card-boxy. Similar to SOE you can see on over-processed videos.

I will be brutally honest - while all of the systems sounded MUCH better with ART, none of them was really great. And not because of ART, but because rest of the system was not designed properly to suit ART. One of the glaring issues is really this ETC and EDT imbalance between ART and rest of bass. Since I am used to resonance-free high quality bass, I can hear beyond it, but I fully understand excitement of new ART users when they hear proper bass in their room for the first time. I had the same with DBA install.

You still need proper acoustic treatment strategy, high quality speakers, lot of hardware and proper design, if you want to move to really high performant systems. But I assume, for most of people it is enough to get rid of booming in bass and they can now enjoy their systems.

View attachment 515498

Specifically in your case [my opinion is based on pictures you posted and my experience with Gallo and Golden Ear AON speakers] - I do not think there is any tech that can significantly improve what you have now, unless you do significant physical changes to your system. I call systems like yours “let’s have lot of fun together” - where the real objective performance is secondary - the fun you are having yourself or with your family is much more important.

I hear you. ART is great, but transition to Dirac Live is what would need improvement. While my system was never better, I do "hear" some room for improvement in 100-300hz range, and probably beyond.

Yeah, my system is put together with great components (lol, even the 80dB SINAD Rotels are great) - you forgot to mention the front line Heco La Diva towers and Revel 426 center - but due to lifestyle choice is place in terrible "room". So obviously I am not in pursuit of ultimate excellence, but only in improving the system within the constraints I have. This is the floorplan and system in in the 18.30 room. Extreme challenges to the point that 4 (relatively) large subs can't get into infrasonics. For the most part they they dive after 20hz as if they are lesser subs. Would probably need 18" or 21" to get there, but then my neighbours are upset as is.

 

[thcdru2k]

Yeah, using ART in a fully treated room is like correcting to the third decimal place! I would not open up the possibility of introducing issues if I had already spent the money on the room (unless I was a disciplined REW user).

A good calibrator is like a good mechanic. They know which parts actually need adjustment and which ones are better left alone.

 

[PGAMiami]

I hear you. ART is great, but transition to Dirac Live is what would need improvement. While my system was never better, I do "hear" some room for improvement in 100-300hz range, and probably beyond.

Yeah, my system is put together with great components (lol, even the 80dB SINAD Rotels are great) - you forgot to mention the front line Heco La Diva towers and Revel 426 center - but due to lifestyle choice is place in terrible "room". So obviously I am not in pursuit of ultimate excellence, but only in improving the system within the constraints I have. This is the floorplan and system in in the 18.30 room. Extreme challenges to the point that 4 (relatively) large subs can't get into infrasonics. For the most part they they dive after 20hz as if they are lesser subs. Would probably need 18" or 21" to get there, but then my neighbours are upset as is.

View attachment 515577

Difficult problem to solve. Most rooms have a Schroeder frequency above 200hz. ART goes to 150 and above 80 we start localizing location of speaker. Room treatments from 150-250 are not very effective unless they are quite large.

 

[Punchy_Power_Cat]

Im new to dirac. Thinking about if I could do this active crossover with the dirac PC Suite:

Is this possible to crossover with the PC suite alone, no additional hardware such as minidsps?