Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac

[RenPa]

It worked in cars where they know the exact shape of the environment, listening position and reflection coefficients. I bet they are struggling to adapt it to home cinemas and I doubt they will ever be able to come up with a robust solution.

The basic «sophisticate» option DLBC doesn't work on many brands (Harman/Arcam/JBL see in AvsForum) or when it works an update firmware destroys what was working (Onkyo). Can we seriously believe that Dirac can does Art working in mass market receivers? Not me.

 

[RenPa]

Reports by StormAudio ART users and reviewers are consistently positive....

If I had paid 30 000$ for a receiver maybe I would suffer of a personal bias believing it is good. More seriously, it seems to really work with Storm but it is very very expansive to get good results.

 

[Goodfellas27]

Dirac ART is coming for Marantz AND Denon

 

[just1n]

Wouldn’t it be great if this were in an official press release and make mention of a compatibility list? International company announcing through YouTube seems silly to me.

 

[kyuu]

Wouldn’t it be great if this were in an official press release and make mention of a compatibility list? International company announcing through YouTube seems silly to me.

Is it silly? Seems pretty normal for the times. Honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it was announced on TikTok. Hell official government communications are often done on Twitter/X nowadays (much to the annoyance of those of us who don't use the platform).

 

[Magnus]

Wouldn’t it be great if this were in an official press release and make mention of a compatibility list? International company announcing through YouTube seems silly to me.

Traditional media is dead. Lying propaganda killed it. People trust sites like Joe Rogan more than any major media outlet so why are you surprised they'd avoid traditional news?

 

[kyuu]

Traditional media is dead. Lying propaganda killed it. People trust sites like Joe Rogan more than any major media outlet so why are you surprised they'd avoid traditional news?

WTF are you on? No one is talking about this being covered by a newspaper. Trusting Joe Rogan... that's a good one, though. Got me laughing.

 

[Goodfellas27]

They should announce it in the newspaper and magazines . You really cannot make everyone happy.
I'm just happy they're bringing it up after they got bought out. SMH.

 

[just1n]

WTF are you on? No one is talking about this being covered by a newspaper. Trusting Joe Rogan... that's a good one, though. Got me laughing.

Before this goes sideways, I mean a press release/statement on their website which more thoroughly explains the release. It’s fairly standard practice. To do so along with other online media/social platform is typically from what I understand.

Don’t want to detract from the positive news that ART is coming to Denon/Marantz. I, for one, hope I can purchase it for my X3800h.

 

[kyuu]

Before this goes sideways, I mean a press release/statement on their website which more thoroughly explains the release. It’s fairly standard practice. To do so along with other online media/social platform is typically from what I understand.

Sure, that's normal practice. But again, it's not surprising to see it out on a social media platform first these days. Way more eyeballs there than a press release on the website.

 

[dlaloum]

Of note: No release target date is actually mentioned, and the only timeline talked of is "as we move towards the end of the year..." - which indicates that the previous target of 3Q is slipping (or has already slipped)

 

[Keith_W]

How interesting.

First, Mathias Johansson (co-founder of Dirac) resigns from Dirac and goes to Harman. Now Denon/Marantz are bought by Harman. AFAIK, Dirac remains a separate entity.

ART coming out on Denon/Marantz probably has nothing to do with the Harman acquisition. It's something they have been working on for longer than that.

I wondered what Harman wanted with Mathias. I mean, it would take a lot to resign from a company you co-founded and was apparently doing quite well. There is something going on there that we don't know about

 

[Magnus]

WTF are you on? No one is talking about this being covered by a newspaper. Trusting Joe Rogan... that's a good one, though. Got me laughing.

There used to be traditional magazines (press). Stereophile and other rags ruined trustworthiness. It's snake oil pushing garbage.

WTF are YOU on?

 

[Goodfellas27]

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment is Coming to Denon and Marantz

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment will be made available in select Denon and Marantz devices in the second half of 2025.

www.dirac.com

 

[Fidji]

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment is Coming to Denon and Marantz

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment will be made available in select Denon and Marantz devices in the second half of 2025.

www.dirac.com

In my humble opinion - Storm Audio in its 16CH iteration and with analogue outputs has lost most of the reasons to be purchased. AV10/20 can do 90% for 30% of price.

I will wait until we can see ART really implemented [still struggle to understand why is ART not available at product launch] but it looks very compelling alterntive for mid-to-upper mid cinemas. 9.4.4. should be enough for most of real life scenarios. Maybe until then Dirac solves only real put-off which is inability to handle frequencies below 20Hz and then it is perfect product.

So probably I will go for AV10 for my weekend/summer house cinema, utlizing my stash of HYPEX amps. I am OK with all the Denon/Marantz limitations. For 5k eur + ART license it is great value proposition.

 

[Curvature]

In my humble opinion - Storm Audio in its 16CH iteration and with analogue outputs has lost most of the reasons to be purchased. AV10/20 can do 90% for 30% of price.

The expensive Bryston and Storm units have excellent external UI and channel management software. Consumer units don't come close.

I contacted Storm and asked if they would ever release low channel count units. They said they have been considering that, but I doubt they will go through with it. They have a clear niche, which I don't see them relinquishing.

The other issue is that consumer software is terrible. And it's the hardware manufacturer's responsibility to make sure that Dirac works without problems. Consumer AVPs have a poor track record there.

I have low expectations for Marantz and Denon units performing well. I would very much like to be wrong.

 

[Goodfellas27]

In my humble opinion - Storm Audio in its 16CH iteration and with analogue outputs has lost most of the reasons to be purchased. AV10/20 can do 90% for 30% of price.

I will wait until we can see ART really implemented [still struggle to understand why is ART not available at product launch] but it looks very compelling alterntive for mid-to-upper mid cinemas. 9.4.4. should be enough for most of real life scenarios. Maybe until then Dirac solves only real put-off which is inability to handle frequencies below 20Hz and then it is perfect product.

So probably I will go for AV10 for my weekend/summer house cinema, utlizing my stash of HYPEX amps. I am OK with all the Denon/Marantz limitations. For 5k eur + ART license it is great value proposition.

I just purchased the A10.
I think it has everything you'd need, plus five years warranty.
You could address issues below 20hz in Dirac if your subwoofer is able to go below. Just move the curtains below 20hz. You would also need a calibrated microphone that accurately reads below 20hz. The UMIK1 does not unfortunately.

 

[Magnus]

The expensive Bryston and Storm units have excellent external UI and channel management software. Consumer units don't come close.

I contacted Storm and asked if they would ever release low channel count units. They said they have been considering that, but I doubt they will go through with it. They have a clear niche, which I don't see them relinquishing.

The other issue is that consumer software is terrible. And it's the hardware manufacturer's responsibility to make sure that Dirac works without problems. Consumer AVPs have a poor track record there.

I have low expectations for Marantz and Denon units performing well. I would very much like to be wrong.

D&M are some of the the most reliable AVR/AVPs out there, IMO.

I've had a perfectly working Marantz SR7012 for 7 years now, purchased brand new as the 7013 came out (inferior unit as it had that can't use Neural X with Dolby sources nonsense on it) for a mere $1100.

It's now expanded to 11.1.8 (plus optional SH and optional 4 floor speakers plus front stage "lift" to gone from the screen using Scatmos, speaker switches and a mixer) for a mere $1800 with none of the Atmos renderer issues (like no Front Wide output for fixed and/or bed objects despite correlated info).

25 speaker home theater for $2900 (3 sub output with Mini-DSP correction using multi-sub optimizer plus seat shaker channel) for a total of 11.4.10.4.

Screw Trinnov and Storm's overpriced crap! Yeah, consumer equipment doesn't come close. LOL. Keep buying into that audiophile snake oil marketing!

I've even got Logic 7 courtesy of a Lexicon MC-1 plugged into the 7.1 inputs of the 7012. With Scatmos expansion it's really Logic 11 (plus front stage lift and the 4 floor ambient speakers taken from the Front Wide Scatmos Surround outputs) has 11.4.2.4 in operation with Logic 7 for truly holographic 2-channel music.

There's also a Carver Sonic Holography option for 2-channel output as well that's particularly interesting in Multi-Channel Stereo mode with some albums.

Books Shade's Dear Future Self and Yello's Point are mind blowing in Dolby Atmos on it (24 foot long room).

 

[Goodfellas27]

The expensive Bryston and Storm units have excellent external UI and channel management software. Consumer units don't come close.

I contacted Storm and asked if they would ever release low channel count units. They said they have been considering that, but I doubt they will go through with it. They have a clear niche, which I don't see them relinquishing.

The other issue is that consumer software is terrible. And it's the hardware manufacturer's responsibility to make sure that Dirac works without problems. Consumer AVPs have a poor track record there.

I have low expectations for Marantz and Denon units performing well. I would very much like to be wrong.

Not sure where are you getting "consumer units don't come close" but you could see on the linked video how mixing studios use the Marrantz AV10 as their reference and test bed platform. That speaks volume on how things really are.

 

[Curvature]

Screw Trinnov and Storm's overpriced crap! Yeah, consumer equipment doesn't come close. LOL. Keep buying into that audiophile snake oil marketing!

I meant specifically that the benefits come from the UI and channel mapping software, as well as the reliability of Dirac implementation.

There's no snake oil to these products.