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Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac
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NanoGuidingStar
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Should I pull the trigger to external amp now?
I currently have a 7.2.2ch system. Here are the speaker models and their distances from my listening position:
Front L/R: Elac Carina BS243.4 / 170cm
Center: Elac Carina CC241.4 / 130cm
Rear Surround L/R: Elac DBR62 / 150cm
Side Surround L/R: Ascilab F6Bs / 75cm
Top Middle L/R: Monolith by Monoprice THX Certified Satellite Speakers / 170cm
Subwoofer 1: SVS SB3000
Subwoofer 2: SVS SB2000 Pro
Receiver: Denon X3800H
My room is small — 4×4×2.5 meters. My typical listening master volume when watching movies is -25dB, and I'm driving all speakers using the AVR's built-in 9-channel amplification.
For the most part everything sounds great, but on rare occasions — such as the opening scene of the Star Wars trilogy — I've noticed a brief harsh/distorted sound from the center channel (speaker cable has been confirmed to be fine). I've also run the system continuously for 6 hours and when touching the top of the AVR it only felt slightly warm, not notably hot.
That said, the main reason I'm considering a power amplifier is that these speakers are genuinely not easy to drive. Most of them are 4 ohm (nominal impedance), and based on ASR and Erin's measurements, some frequency ranges dip to 3 ohm. On top of that, I'm using Dirac Live ART, with these speakers mutually support bass down to 60Hz, rather than the more typical 80–100Hz crossover setting.
I often see people say a power amp is only necessary when your room is large or you can't reach adequate SPL. However, another camp argues that a typical AVR running a full multichannel load can't deliver strong instantaneous power — in the case of the X3800H with all 9 channels driven, each channel may only have around 50W available. Even if the math suggests your power is "theoretically sufficient," adding a dedicated amplifier to reduce the load on the AVR can still allow the whole system to perform more effortlessly.
I'm currently considering the Buckeye NCx252MP 8-channel amp to drive the LCR+SL/R+SBL/R channels, while continuing to use the AVR's built-in amplification for the height channels. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I currently have a 7.2.2ch system. Here are the speaker models and their distances from my listening position:
Front L/R: Elac Carina BS243.4 / 170cm
Center: Elac Carina CC241.4 / 130cm
Rear Surround L/R: Elac DBR62 / 150cm
Side Surround L/R: Ascilab F6Bs / 75cm
Top Middle L/R: Monolith by Monoprice THX Certified Satellite Speakers / 170cm
Subwoofer 1: SVS SB3000
Subwoofer 2: SVS SB2000 Pro
Receiver: Denon X3800H
My room is small — 4×4×2.5 meters. My typical listening master volume when watching movies is -25dB, and I'm driving all speakers using the AVR's built-in 9-channel amplification.
For the most part everything sounds great, but on rare occasions — such as the opening scene of the Star Wars trilogy — I've noticed a brief harsh/distorted sound from the center channel (speaker cable has been confirmed to be fine). I've also run the system continuously for 6 hours and when touching the top of the AVR it only felt slightly warm, not notably hot.
That said, the main reason I'm considering a power amplifier is that these speakers are genuinely not easy to drive. Most of them are 4 ohm (nominal impedance), and based on ASR and Erin's measurements, some frequency ranges dip to 3 ohm. On top of that, I'm using Dirac Live ART, with these speakers mutually support bass down to 60Hz, rather than the more typical 80–100Hz crossover setting.
I often see people say a power amp is only necessary when your room is large or you can't reach adequate SPL. However, another camp argues that a typical AVR running a full multichannel load can't deliver strong instantaneous power — in the case of the X3800H with all 9 channels driven, each channel may only have around 50W available. Even if the math suggests your power is "theoretically sufficient," adding a dedicated amplifier to reduce the load on the AVR can still allow the whole system to perform more effortlessly.
I'm currently considering the Buckeye NCx252MP 8-channel amp to drive the LCR+SL/R+SBL/R channels, while continuing to use the AVR's built-in amplification for the height channels. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
markus
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What exactly do you mean by “increased timing precision”? Are you referring to a higher sample rate? The smaller capsule of the UMIK-1 is actually preferable because it's more omnidirectional.
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Dirac ART does not really benefit from UMIK 2 the way REW workflows do. That is why Dirac still recommends UMIK 1. The main advantage of UMIK 2 is better timing and phase consistency, which matters more for manual alignment work like sub integration in REW.
markus
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The UMIK-1 depends on the external USB host clock, whereas the UMIK-2 uses an internal clock. So I’m not sure what Miniyouuuu means by “increased timing precision” in this context.
Dirac clearly uses the left speaker as an acoustic timing reference, so I don’t see the basis for the “increased timing precision” argument. Also see John's post here regarding acoustic timing reference.
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No, this is not true for my Marantz Cinema 30, so it is not true in general. What processor are you referring to?
Here is a screenshot from the web manual for my Marantz receiver:
It can be a bit of a handfull to understand how it works
But there is no traditional hpf and bandwidth are set with F-support high/low.
The tool is there for 2 reasons - if a speaker can only be used as support in a small range.
Or you can hear a speaker giving support, like a surround speaker supporting a front speaker.
And if you turn on BM before dirac calibration it will be automatically shut down.
Turn on BM after calibration, Art will be shut down.
I recommend users to measure the support lvl of different speakers. it gives good understand of how it works and also gives a hint if you might overload the speaker.
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Dirac locks down a lot of stuff and ignores others in Denon/Marantz products. The crossover and a lot of other settings are more for Audyssey than it is for Dirac (again, for D&M products). I'd be surprised if it's any different for Hyperion products.
AI gave me a bogus answer the other day and assumed the wrong units of measure. This can lead to engineering disasters like the '99 Mars Orbiter loss or the '04 Tokyo Disneyland Space Mountain derailment! I don't think you can go wrong with "trust, but verify" as a life-long adage!
Interesting! How are these speakers and subs grouped into support groups? And how did you measure the supporting speakers individually?
Oh well, I must admit that I dearly care only for one seat in my HT
. My kids and wife not interested much in my toys...90sNintendoKid
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Did you measure the left channel and then measure the left again but with all the other channels disconnected so this represents what ART is doing?
Although I honestly forgot the settings before ART measurements as it was couple of months ago, my understanding was always that Dirac would do full range sweep for all channels to determine in-room response of the speakers. This is Dirac's own protection as well since they definitely don't want to be blowing up the speakers.
If I did any crossover settings before Dirac calibration, I am sure I would put 90hz crossover on my Atmos as I always did since they are bookshelves with 7" drivers. They came out of Dirac sweep with F3 of 50hz, which I already knew from the past, just did not want to stress these speakers as relatively small so always had them bass managed at 90hz before ART.
Setting support groups, support ranges, and support intensity can be complex. One example would be optimizing the system for -20dB to reference listening vs. 0dB to reference. Some support speakers might be great for -20dB, but not really capable of much support at 0dB to reference. Especially with some serious bass boost curves/shelves.
This might also be system dependent. I never bothered to go through this as my system tends to cope well with 0dB to reference and as much as +12dB low shelf. For that reason I keep sub support intensity to the max, so that they carry most weight up to 90-100hz, despite the fact that all 13 channels have F3 from 30-50hz. I recall from experimenting that for low listening levels like -20dB to reference it was actually sounding better to put support to -12dB. As I usually listen at -10dB to reference and occasionally crank it up to reference, I keep the sub support to the max.
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I must say it’s clear a mud as to how crossover settings in AVRs and processors are taken into when ART is active. I haven’t seen a clear statement by Dirac in any of their YouTube interviews, nor a clear instruction in a manual, Dirac or otherwise. The range of theories on this go from Dirac completely ignoring the settings to Dirac running on top of the processor bass management. Dirac setting these to automatically maximize the speakers as a system doesn’t necessarily mean it ignores the crossover settings. Regarding F support, best I can tell this only affects the bandwidth of the support anti signal not the original signal that is intended for a particular speaker in a multichannel set up. If Dirac is ignoring the crossover settings then why does it lock them? Please point me in the right direction if you know otherwise.
ART vs. Bass Control (BC)
BC focuses on automating subwoofer setup, blending subs with mains, and ensuring consistent bass response across the listening area. ART simply takes the next step and goes beyond, actively creating an ideal sound field by coordinating all available speakers to control resonances and decay times. ART offers more advanced control over spatial variation than BC.
Optimised speaker usage.
Every speaker in the system (within the 20-150 Hz range) actively contributes, either playing its own content or supporting others to create the ideal sound field. Performance scales and improves as more capable speakers are added to the collaborative network.
My interpretation is idea of traditional crossovers is less relevant to Dirac ART. ART makes crossovers less relevant by replacing fixed handoffs with a shared control region where multiple speakers cooperate in the 20-150hz band.
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If we look at it based on what it does. Dirac ART is trying to create spatially uniform bass. There is also potential overuse of speakers outside their ideal roles...it's important to have capable speakers that can respond at low frequencies even surround/height channels. There is a cost of improving spatial consistency of bass in my opinion and its decreased localization and overlapping phase interactions. It's not bad its just different. ART is going for smooth even bass...
Would you be willing to share this mdat? I'm interested in seeing how other aspects are affected by ART. If you're feeling especially generous, I'd also love to see the left channel with no Dirac processing for comparison.
Don't think it is so unclear. Just completely different principle than traditional crossovers. What is happening is best shown in Dirac graph after you calculate the filters. Below is the screenshot for my Front Left. It is supported by Wides, and Surround backs, and off course group of 4 subs. Range of support for beds is 50-150 and intensity 18. Subs are 20-150 and intensity 24.
It's a busy graph, but you can see front left measured response and spread in orange, what it actually does is the dark red line (crossing 0dB at around 150hz). It is a large tower with F3 just under 30hz. One can see traces with high SPL in ART range and those are 4 subs. Traces that generally never cross -10dB are supporting bed speakers. All of this together gives you the response of front left. As one can see, all speakers contribute based on their capability and capability of other speakers in their range. You can see spread in the ART range being very tight, which is unfortunately not true with Dirac Live range.
Kind of,
Left with all the support ch on
Then i turned of all the support an measured left again (black curve)
And lastly i measured ever support ch by them self.
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