Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[napfkuchen]

What speakers do you use in the setup ?

5.2.4 setup: LR (Mesanovic CDM65), C (Genelec 8351B), all remaining speakers KEF LS50 Meta, 2x SVS SB 1000 (pro)

 

[smygolf]

5.2.4 setup: LR (Mesanovic CDM65), C (Genelec 8351B), all remaining speakers KEF LS50 Meta, 2x SVS SB 1000 (pro)

LCR should be able to handle -18dB @ 40hz as support lvl on all the ch

If you hear an impact from the center lower the support to -10
For music let the center help as much as possible since the ch otherwise is inactive
Kefs -12dB @ 50hz as support on all the ch
Subs as they are

And good to know is that a change of +6dB on the target curve does not mean support also are being raised 6dB

 

[napfkuchen]

@smygolf: Current support levels are already higher than what the various guides recommend. The stereo image should therefore actually have collapsed by now, but it hasn't. So, why not? I'll give these settings a try.

 

[smygolf]

@smygolf: Current support levels are already higher than what the various guides recommend. The stereo image should therefore actually have collapsed by now, but it hasn't. So, why not? I'll give these settings a try.

My support lvl should not affect the imaging, only bass decay
As for Center giving support, in some cases it has an impact on voices in movies

My suggestion was based on your speakers F3 and max dB
As for my self i have LCR support down to 20hz without breaking a sweat

An old pic from Dirac 1
Black is Left fullrange and red is with bass management with a crossover at 100hz
When i was doing sweeps around 100-102dB fullrange started to compress a bit below 30hz
So i should be able to have support lvl at -24dB @ 20hz without any issues if i wanted/needed to

 

[BJL]

It seems I had been too cautious with the support level until now. Significantly raising it and also (partially) utilizing the rear and height speakers for this purpose has narrowed the spread somewhat. Here are two overlays as examples:

front right:

subwoofer:

support settings:
View attachment 556934

With these settings, I do not perceive any disadvantages regarding localization compared to the recommendations in the DIRAC guide.
To further reduce spread and reverberation, additional subwoofers on the rear wall are probably necessary, since the speakers/subwoofers with low lower cutoff frequencies are all positioned at the front.

What are your support settings and experiences/recommendations?

The only settings that I've changed thus far are:

F-Low for seven of the ear level speakers to 40 Hz, (LCR Surrounds Wides) surround back remains at 50 Hz
F-Low for all six heights to 60 Hz
Remove heights as support for sub/LFE

To decide the F-low I contacted the manufacturers of the speakers, and they gave me the figure to use that will not overdrive the speakers. I did not base it on measurements.

I have not changed the levels. I want to give that some more thought before I make those adjustments, but also on a don't mess with success theory, I'm leery of altering what already sounds great.

 

[napfkuchen]

My support lvl should not affect the imaging, only bass decay
As for Center giving support, in some cases it has an impact on voices in movies

Turns out that's right (at least in my case). Everything is fine with the settings you suggested. However, the spreads have narrowed only slightly. Likewise, I do not perceive any clear differences in the sound. It seems to me that the four small speakers on the rear wall simply cannot contribute anything further in the 50–150 Hz range.

My suggestion was based on your speakers F3 and max dB

F3 of LS 50 Meta ist 79 Hz. I took the frequency measured by Dirac where 0 dB is reached and then added 5–10 Hz. I listened at a somewhat high volume (for my taste)—around 90 dB—and couldn't detect any cone movement in the LS50's coaxial driver, let alone perceive any distortion.
I (and my neighbors!) don't need as much headroom as you do.

I have not changed the levels. I want to give that some more thought before I make those adjustments, but also on a don't mess with success theory, I'm leery of altering what already sounds great.

Your approach seems fine. Given all the effort involved, the Pareto optimum is already a long way off for me, and I don't expect any major improvements. That said, tinkering can be fun, too... provided Dirac doesn't decide to crash or display creative error messages yet again like yesterday. So I am leaving it as is the next months.

 

[smygolf]

F3 of LS 50 Meta ist 79 Hz. I took the frequency measured by Dirac where 0 dB is reached and then added 5–10 Hz. I listened at a somewhat high volume (for my taste)—around 90 dB—and couldn't detect any cone movement in the LS50's coaxial driver, let alone perceive any distortion.
I (and my neighbors!) don't need as much headroom as you do.

Yep, i was looking at in room respons, not anechoic.

My bad...

 

[Nathan2823]

So I decided to run 3 subs for a 7.3.6 setup.
The subs are two SVS Pb17ultras and one Pb3000…
Dirac bass control vs art… so after watching several demo scenes what’s the difference?
Art gives me better clarity, better imaging, tighter bass…. But… bass control gives me more rumble…a little less tight. I like Art better but it seems
To cut infrasonic lows ..you “feel” less… yes I have the box checked to allow pass through. But like I said Art has amazing “impact” bass. Definitely going to mess with it more

 

[RenPa]

Thank ya.. I’ve been debating about the SVS auto eq.. the techs at SVS told me to run it before Dirac… that it makes it easier for Dirac since the auto eq
Is flattening the curve in the room

I tried it with my 2 SVS PC2000 Pro and Art. After a while, I cancel prequing the SVS befare to measure with dirac . It seems to sound better like this than with EQ in SVS. IMHO.

 

[Nathan2823]

I tried it with my 2 SVS PC2000 Pro and Art. After a while, I cancel prequing the SVS befare to measure with dirac . It seems to sound better like this than with EQ in SVS. IMHO.

I didn’t use the SVS eq this time as well. It seems to be unanimous on these boards not to run it before Art

 

[a_ron]

So I decided to run 3 subs for a 7.3.6 setup.
The subs are two SVS Pb17ultras and one Pb3000…
Dirac bass control vs art… so after watching several demo scenes what’s the difference?
Art gives me better clarity, better imaging, tighter bass…. But… bass control gives me more rumble…a little less tight. I like Art better but it seems
To cut infrasonic lows ..you “feel” less… yes I have the box checked to allow pass through. But like I said Art has amazing “impact” bass. Definitely going to mess with it more

Yup, I've found that I much prefer a target curve with lots more LF lift with ART. It just sounds so good that I almost can't get enough bass with ART.

I've seen on some iterations of my system that enabling infrasonic bypass creates a nasty dip around 20Hz. This article gives the suggestion to make target curve adjustments to deal with small peaks or dips around 20Hz when bypass is enabled.

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

In my case, it's a BIG dip so I didn't even bother trying to adjust the curve to compensate. I personally am not worried about infrasonic, but I would love to hear how others have maybe dealt with such a situation. Maybe I need to adjust the phase of some subs prior to Dirac so the phase in the infra range aligns with the phase ART has set on the other side of 20Hz?

 

[Satanica]

Yup, I've found that I much prefer a target curve with lots more LF lift with ART. It just sounds so good that I almost can't get enough bass with ART.

For what it is worth, I run ART with -9dB Support Level on both speakers and subwoofers instead of the nominal -18dB Support level as I find things a bit too lean out of the box. So, perhaps try reducing the Support Level to get a bit more perceived bass.

 

[smygolf]

For what it is worth, I run ART with -9dB Support Level on both speakers and subwoofers instead of the nominal -18dB Support level as I find things a bit too lean out of the box. So, perhaps try reducing the Support Level to get a bit more perceived bass.

That is what we in the tread call "wet" bas, a good way to tweak it

 

[Satanica]

That is what we in the tread call "wet" bas, a good way to tweak it

Maybe I have it currently configured somewhere between "dry" and "wet" bass, let's call it "damp".

 

[RenPa]

In my case, it's a BIG dip so I didn't even bother trying to adjust the curve to compensate. I personally am not worried about infrasonic, but I would love to hear how others have maybe dealt with such a situation. Maybe I need to adjust the phase of some subs prior to Dirac so the phase in the infra range aligns with the phase ART has set on the other side of 20Hz

The phase adjustments before Art is not the solution because of how Art works. I tried and it didn't worh either.
About the dip 20Hz infrabass it is a klnow problem by Dirac. Is a solution possible? Acoustic science may not permit it. Waiting for Dirac later this fall.
About the dip the best way is to lower all your prefered targe curve at the level of the bottom or so and then calculate the filters. Ther is a long discussion about this in
this thread of an other forum

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/audyssey-to-dirac-art-transition-on-d-m-systems.

 

[ASharma]

Hi folks…I’m trying to better understand how I should be managing my filters when I click “show filters”…I don’t have a pic but default shows a couple of my sub filters are close to 0 and the bedlayer of speaker filters is below -10. I can get all the filters fairly level by backing off the support level for the 2 subs which then lowers those filters and raises the bedlayer filters…What is the best practice? Should all filters be as even as possible without pushing any of the bedlayer too hard or is there a downside to having sub filters up near 0 and the bedlayer below -10? Thanks

 

[Denon545]

Hi folks…I’m trying to better understand how I should be managing my filters when I click “show filters”…I don’t have a pic but default shows a couple of my sub filters are close to 0 and the bedlayer of speaker filters is below -10. I can get all the filters fairly level by backing off the support level for the 2 subs which then lowers those filters and raises the bedlayer filters…What is the best practice? Should all filters be as even as possible without pushing any of the bedlayer too hard or is there a downside to having sub filters up near 0 and the bedlayer below -10? Thanks

Think about it like this… which is the more capable bass speaker in this scenario?

The subwoofer or the bed layer speaker?

I would rather have my subs playing closer to the 0db line than my other speakers. The subs are more capable.

 

[ASharma]

Think about it like this… which is the more capable bass speaker in this scenario?

The subwoofer or the bed layer speaker?

I would rather have my subs playing closer to the 0db line than my other speakers. The subs are more capable.

Thank you…Understood however AI is saying that having more tightly clustered filters closer to the bedlayer is actually more beneficial as long as the SL’s are not lowered too much. For my 3 subs I created 3 groups with group one SL -18, group 2 SL -9 and group 3 SL -24. This pulls the sub filters closer to the bedlayer which AI says will create a more uniform experience and maximize dynamic headroom

 

[levimax]

Thank you…Understood however AI is saying that having more tightly clustered filters closer to the bedlayer is actually more beneficial as long as the SL’s are not lowered too much. For my 3 subs I created 3 groups with group one SL -18, group 2 SL -9 and group 3 SL -24. This pulls the sub filters closer to the bedlayer which AI says will create a more uniform experience and maximize dynamic headroom

DIRAC is a closed algorithm which gives AI free reign to make up whatever it wants. I would take anything AI says about DIRAC with healthy skeptism.

 

[ASharma]

DIRAC is a closed algorithm which gives AI free rein to make up whatever it wants. I would take anything AI says about DIRAC with healthy skeptism.

100% agree and I’ve learned that the hard way…That’s why I’m wanting to know from the experts what the best practices would suggest