Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[tjcinnamon]

I don't understand why you'd want to modify the delays post-calibration. Doing so essentially nullifies the point of the calibration, and it would likely cause ART to stop working as the support channels would no longer be phase-aligned.

Do you actually sit precisely in between--as in down to the micrometer--your front speakers? Maybe you have a vise you put your head in while watching TV? Because if not, the delays measured by Dirac will be more precise.

I have stereo dimensional array speakers which using phase cancellation and the sound stage moves dramatically if the room correction gets it wrong.

Also, I may be making my own using which is on a thread here.

So the calibration below 500hz is not impacted much by head movement and yes… it’s comically rigid where I keep my head.

The price I pay to avoid interaural crosstalk

Edit, it would only ruin it if I had LR as support speakers.

 

[IamJF]

I suppose it could be a personal preference thing, but no I have not experienced that. In fact the opposite. Because the bass sounds so good I have increased the bass in dirac. I believe it is +8dB under 100hz. So there is actually more bass and more impactful than it has ever been.

That's normal. When you get rid of the peaks you "have to" rise the over all level to get the same "amount". And when decay get's less it's the same (but less intense).
And yes, when bass sounds really good you are attempted to give it "just a little more" ...

 

[TimoJ]

Is it possible to adjust the timings post calibration? On the Denon, once bass control is engaged the timings can’t be modified. I need to make sure the timings are aligned on my fronts (by that I mean they same) and I want to avoid having to run 3 measurements of 14 speaker calibration until I get one perfect…

I’ll get an HTP-1 over the Denon if modifying the timing after the calibration is allowed.

Basically: I have a X6800 waiting for pickup at Best Buy but I’ll return it before taking it home because of the timing issue based on speaker constraints I have

Yes with Dirac and DLBC, not with ART. And DLBC may also lose this in future firmware.
But you really shouldn't adjust delay trims after calibration. With ART it will totally ruin the calibration. I have noticed that also with Dirac/DLBC it may cause imaging issues if main L/R delays are adjusted after calibration.

 

[onenameonevision]

I've just received 4 Definitive Technology Dymension DM80 Floor-Standing Bipolar Tower Speakers with Built-In 12" Powered Subwoofers, 2 Dymension DM60 Floor-Standing Bipolar Tower Speakers with Built-In 8" Powered Subwoofers, and a single Dymension DM30 Center Channel Speaker with Integrated Powered Subwoofer and Bass Radiators. I already own 4 Descend Series DN15 15” Subwoofers. There are 4 Atmos speakers installed in the ceiling. Everything is installed in my 40l x 20w x 9h room using a Denon AVR-X3800H as a processor with 14 channels of outboard amplification.

The room EQ is Dirac Live Bass Control. I've bought the Definitive Technology speakers because I'm trying to prepare for Dirac Live Active Room Treatment (ART) and hope to have it as soon as it is available for the Denon AVR.
I'm looking for advice or suggestions as to how to best position the rest of the speakers in order to really be ready for ART one its available. The display is a 150-inch Diagonal, 16:9 Aspect Ratio floor rising projector screen pulled 6 feet into the room with the center channel placed in low in front and 2 DM80 speakers on either side, both angled toward the listener. The other DM80's are on opposite sides of the prime seating position, and the D60's are positioned similarly behind the seating. The Subs are positioned in pairs 2 and 2 on opposite sides and behind the seating, so its rears, subs, sides, fronts, in that order. I did a close mic Dirac Live Bass Control measurement after the installation, and based on the readings I've set the crossovers for the fronts to 50hz, the sides to 50hz, the backs and the center to 50hz. The subs are eq'd by Dirac to default setting. Last night I watched the Barbie 2023 4K UHD Blu-ray and I'm pretty happy with the Dirac results; to be perfectly honest, the sound in my room was amazing.

But, if anyone has any thoughts on what might improve this config, especially with the future addition of Dirac Art in mind, I'm be interested to hear about it.

 

[IamJF]

In your situation I would suggest - get a bigger, acoustic transparent screen with masking!
You can put it close to the front wall and don't loose room, put the center in the correct position, put main speakers behind it, maybe 2 of your subs and a LOT of absorption in between to get a better sounding room.
You could try to put your 4 subs in the 4 corners of the room, theoretical that should give a more even SPL distribution in your room. Dirac will do the EQing to get it more linear but position of the woofers define how good spl distribution is.

 

[onenameonevision]

there are room related reasons for the screen placement (viewing distance & projector requirements) but it also allows the for the front speakers to be pulled into the room and away from the side and back wall. These Dymension DM80 and DM60 speakers feature a Bipolar Array so its also a benefit the there is room for the rear firing drivers to 'breath' before interreacting with the walls. The rear back DM60 speakers have at least 10 feet before they reflect off the rear wall. In addition to that I don't believe Definitive Technology has recommended placing the center channel speaker behind an acoustically transparent screen.

 

[IamJF]

In addition to that I don't believe Definitive Technology has recommended placing the center channel speaker behind an acoustically transparent screen.

Every serious home cinema installation has the center behind the screen. Cause the screen is big and you want the people on the screen talk to you - not their feet or the sky
A good transparent screen has surprisingly little influence - just don't buy these micro perforated ones.

 

[GXAlan]

Every serious home cinema installation has the center behind the screen. Cause the screen is big and you want the people on the screen talk to you - not their feet or the sky
A good transparent screen has surprisingly little influence - just don't buy these micro perforated ones.

Netflix installs new Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex & Sony’s Crystal LED pair

Meyer Sound recently announced its new patent-pending Ultra Reflex sound solution which has been pai

www.hiddenwires.co.uk

The future is large direct view displays and the only high end solution is see involves reflecting the sound off the screen!

 

[Dj7675]

Netflix installs new Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex & Sony’s Crystal LED pair

Meyer Sound recently announced its new patent-pending Ultra Reflex sound solution which has been pai

www.hiddenwires.co.uk

The future is large direct view displays and the only high end solution is see involves reflecting the sound off the screen!

With display sizes getting larger and larger and pricing continuing to fall for these larger sizes, it is hard to ignore. There are many advantages for sure of large displays over projectors such as brightness, better HDR etc. But figuring out how to get good sound in a theater room with a large display such as a 115” 16:9 display is certainly challenging.
The reflective sound referenced above sounds like a very interesting solution. Does Meyer Sound have a demo room featuring this technology? It would seem to be similar in concept to Dolby Atmos speakers where they bounce the sound off the ceiling. I would love to hear from anyone that has heard the Meyer solution and what there impressions were or if they had demos available. Otherwise it sounds like you would need to do 2 centers (above/below) and deal with those issues or something like that.

 

[IamJF]

These LED pannels are the next step, no question. But you know the prices? Saw a video of installer PROs discussing that and they estimate it will take 3-5 years to be able to use them in VERY high end installations, more to 10 years before these are suitable in bigger home cinemas. (that means it probably starts at 200k over all cost) So screen and projector will be there for pretty long time.

Reflecting of the displays - that's genius. But will need pretty special speakers for that. Meyer sound ... you know their prices ... the speakers we are talking here are 1500-2500 ...
And you loose the benefit of an absorbing baffle wall which improves the sound of the whole room.

Looking forward to this new tech comming and the challenges it brings to solve. But for the next 10-15 years I will stick with a good screen and speakers behind it.

That's only a part of all the gear I hide behind my screen and it adds 40cm of absorption at the size of a whole wall. The whole system benefits from this solution.

2 center speakers up and down ... brings new challenges of course. Will only work well for one seat. These ATMOS reflection speakers have a BIG problem - they would need STRONG directivity over most of the audio band. You would need a BIG horn or a proper working linearray (also - BIG). A small coax or 2way ... will give more direct sound as reflection from the ceiling. It's a gimmick in my eyes.
And of course in a good room you would have absorption at the ceiling

Back to the topic - you still need to control reverb >150Hz with ART and the screen will help with that and make the design of the rest of the room easier/more people friendly/cheaper.

 

[tjcinnamon]

Netflix installs new Meyer Sound Ultra Reflex & Sony’s Crystal LED pair

Meyer Sound recently announced its new patent-pending Ultra Reflex sound solution which has been pai

www.hiddenwires.co.uk

The future is large direct view displays and the only high end solution is see involves reflecting the sound off the screen!

I hope this gives Netflix an opportunity to view their bitrate starved content on a large format TV. They really should be putting out at least 40Mbps instead of the 9Mbps they usually do.

 

[tjcinnamon]

@TimoJ With ART, is it possible to drag the curtain for the subs to dictate what Dirac will correct? Basically, I have nearfield and I'd like to avoid correcting everything below 57Hz but still want the support speakers to address the decay times.

 

[GXAlan]

The reflective sound referenced above sounds like a very interesting solution. Does Meyer Sound have a demo room featuring this technology? It would seem to be similar in concept to Dolby Atmos speakers where they bounce the sound off the ceiling. I would love to hear from anyone that has heard the Meyer solution and what there impressions were or if they had demos available. Otherwise it sounds like you would need to do 2 centers (above/below) and deal with those issues or something like that.

Not that I know. I assume they have it set up in their Berkeley, CA headquarters for potential customers to evaluate and I imagine that the Netflix studio is a good place too. @Mr. Widget works for a company that does Meyer Sound installs, so maybe he can add commentary.

These LED pannels are the next step, no question. But you know the prices? Saw a video of installer PROs discussing that and they estimate it will take 3-5 years to be able to use them in VERY high end installations, more to 10 years before these are suitable in bigger home cinemas. (that means it probably starts at 200k over all cost) So screen and projector will be there for pretty long time.

Agree, but 10 years is fater than you think. Think about the TV you have right now, what you had before. The current LED wall setups are 200+ inches, but 100” TVs are now available at $2000.

Reflecting of the displays - that's genius. But will need pretty special speakers for that. Meyer sound ... you know their prices ... the speakers we are talking here are 1500-2500 ...
And you loose the benefit of an absorbing baffle wall which improves the sound of the whole room.

Probably need to add an extra zero. At retail, their Acheron is about $10k a pop. If you search Google, you can find a 2016 PDF with part costs, and you can see that the drivers themselves don't see out of line with premium compression drivers, tweeters, and woofers, but the DSP amps are super expensive.

The 4" full range MM4XP has a driver that's in line with a high-end Fostex full range ($150) but the DSP amplifier is $680! It's a 440W peak (short term) Class D amp.

 

[Mr. Widget]

The last time I was at Meyer they had the reflecting system set up for demo/testing. I have not heard them, but they are not simply taking a set of speakers and bouncing them off a hard surface, the speakers are specialized and there is a fair amount of DSP processing utilized.

Other companies also have solutions for direct view LED walls. Some require a top and bottom center channel speaker to create a phantom image centered vertically in the middle of the screen and there are other solutions as well using different techniques for "steering" the audio.

Direct view LED is currently the highest performance video solution, but for the best audio, a projected image on a woven screen is currently the best. When I throw out the term "best", I mean cost no object situations. As soon as real world economics enter the equation we need to step back and reevaluate the options.

 

[Mr. Widget]

These LED pannels are the next step, no question. But you know the prices? Saw a video of installer PROs discussing that and they estimate it will take 3-5 years to be able to use them in VERY high end installations, more to 10 years before these are suitable in bigger home cinemas. (that means it probably starts at 200k over all cost) So screen and projector will be there for pretty long time.

I have quoted them in several projects (have yet to deploy one) and you are right they are expensive, but there are several sub $200K displays currently on the market.

 

[TimoJ]

@TimoJ With ART, is it possible to drag the curtain for the subs to dictate what Dirac will correct? Basically, I have nearfield and I'd like to avoid correcting everything below 57Hz but still want the support speakers to address the decay times.

There seems to be no left side (low) curtain, so Dirac will correct to 20Hz. But you can limit ART support low/high frequency for each speaker (group).

 

[tjcinnamon]

There seems to be no left side (low) curtain, so Dirac will correct to 20Hz. But you can limit ART support low/high frequency for each speaker (group).

Thank you!
Can we still draw our own room curve? Basically, I could simply follow measured response and not much would be edited.

 

[pogo]

Yes

 

[TimoJ]

Thank you!
Can we still draw our own room curve? Basically, I could simply follow measured response and not much would be edited.

Room curve part is identical to regular Dirac/DLBC.

 

[tjcinnamon]

Room curve part is identical to regular Dirac/DLBC.

That would be a serviceable workaround for me.