Doesn't the target curve provide the same capability as PEQ? (or is ART tripping over its own smarts?)
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Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac
- Thread starter Flak
- Start date
Target curve is what you get with ART support enabled. In some cases it may not do much for the actual speaker's bass response, it just adds more "ART signals" from the other speakers. Maybe this is the correct way, but I'll test what happens with PEQ before Dirac.
Using PEQ before Dirac with bass control on Storm was often used to apparently get better results and steer bass control in the right direction. That will likely not be possible on D&M gear, unless they include PEQ support in their implementation which is possible but unlikely.
I completely understand the cancelations concept at conceptual level and see how that could work to tame peaks and decay with out of phase signals from support speakers. There were some posts noting that such signals should not be loud enough to be audible, which is true, but this lead me to believe that such signals should be relatively low in volume. Not so sure about that any more especially if I compare it to principles under which double bass sub arrays operate. Cancelation signals for DBA are actually emitted at quite high volume, but overall they are not "audible" beyond their effect on the overall bass response which is both to smoothen the frequency response and reduce decay - similar to ART. In that respect, subs in the back are support speakers for the front subs, much like in ART. Not saying DBA is superior, just trying to compare.
Additions are a bit more difficult part of the equation. They would address the nulls which were traditionally not boosted (except to very modest extent and commensurate with available excess power needed). With respect to subs, multiple subs were used to fill each other's nulls and provide smoother response. With ART, I see the opportunity to fill in the nulls with support speakers other than subs to the extend they cover the frequency range that needs to be boosted. For subs it would be pretty much the same although would expect that placement would be less of an issue at least to a degree, however placement will remain important. 4 subs with null in 50hz won't do much for that frequency. What comes fresh is that bed channels will get support and ability for other speakers to fill in the gaps without resorting to solutions like LFE+Main that helped in the past, but then created a bunch of additional issues to deal with.
Additions will be subject to localisation though, so might not work beyond the frequency that people find offending. I find 80hz optimal, but live with 100hz as that is compromise between 120hz LFE spec and 80hz that I find optimal. Pushing additions beyond that could potentially cause localisation issues. Could, because best is to hear it as it might not be a significant issues in narrow bands of bass are filled in by supporting speakers.
Traditional room EQ was cutting and not really able to fill in the nulls. ART can apparently do both. Also, as I understand, decay control was not a separate target even for Dirac bass control, which is now present in ART. Finally, correcting the low end response of individual bed channels was a significant issue in the past and ART apparently offers the most elegant solution to that (LFE+Main being the historic way to address this but with long list of side effects).
The above is not fully baked, so please do point out to things that don't make sense
.
I completely understand the cancelations concept at conceptual level and see how that could work to tame peaks and decay with out of phase signals from support speakers. There were some posts noting that such signals should not be loud enough to be audible, which is true, but this lead me to believe that such signals should be relatively low in volume. Not so sure about that any more especially if I compare it to principles under which double bass sub arrays operate. Cancelation signals for DBA are actually emitted at quite high volume, but overall they are not "audible" beyond their effect on the overall bass response which is both to smoothen the frequency response and reduce decay - similar to ART. In that respect, subs in the back are support speakers for the front subs, much like in ART. Not saying DBA is superior, just trying to compare.
Additions are a bit more difficult part of the equation. They would address the nulls which were traditionally not boosted (except to very modest extent and commensurate with available excess power needed). With respect to subs, multiple subs were used to fill each other's nulls and provide smoother response. With ART, I see the opportunity to fill in the nulls with support speakers other than subs to the extend they cover the frequency range that needs to be boosted. For subs it would be pretty much the same although would expect that placement would be less of an issue at least to a degree, however placement will remain important. 4 subs with null in 50hz won't do much for that frequency. What comes fresh is that bed channels will get support and ability for other speakers to fill in the gaps without resorting to solutions like LFE+Main that helped in the past, but then created a bunch of additional issues to deal with.
Additions will be subject to localisation though, so might not work beyond the frequency that people find offending. I find 80hz optimal, but live with 100hz as that is compromise between 120hz LFE spec and 80hz that I find optimal. Pushing additions beyond that could potentially cause localisation issues. Could, because best is to hear it as it might not be a significant issues in narrow bands of bass are filled in by supporting speakers.
Traditional room EQ was cutting and not really able to fill in the nulls. ART can apparently do both. Also, as I understand, decay control was not a separate target even for Dirac bass control, which is now present in ART. Finally, correcting the low end response of individual bed channels was a significant issue in the past and ART apparently offers the most elegant solution to that (LFE+Main being the historic way to address this but with long list of side effects).
The above is not fully baked, so please do point out to things that don't make sense
.Here are some measurements of how all the support speakers are used to match the prescribed target curve. In Stormaudio it is possible to measure each speaker individually simply by switching all other speaker off.
Here you see the resulting total sum signal (red) of the center channel (which includes the sum all support speaker and center speaker) and solely the signal of the center speaker (purple).
You can see that center speaker must not provide 100% of the SPL - the rest is done by all other support speakers. Hence, it is not just about cancellation, they are used to support each other to achieve the SPL.
Here are the frequency response of all other support speakers that are used to fullfill the sum signal / target curve of the center speaker.
Here you see the resulting total sum signal (red) of the center channel (which includes the sum all support speaker and center speaker) and solely the signal of the center speaker (purple).
You can see that center speaker must not provide 100% of the SPL - the rest is done by all other support speakers. Hence, it is not just about cancellation, they are used to support each other to achieve the SPL.
Here are the frequency response of all other support speakers that are used to fullfill the sum signal / target curve of the center speaker.
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Using PEQ before Dirac with bass control on Storm was often used to apparently get better results and steer bass control in the right direction. That will likely not be possible on D&M gear, unless they include PEQ support in their implementation which is possible but unlikely.
I completely understand the cancelations concept at conceptual level and see how that could work to tame peaks and decay with out of phase signals from support speakers. There were some posts noting that such signals should not be loud enough to be audible, which is true, but this lead me to believe that such signals should be relatively low in volume. Not so sure about that any more especially if I compare it to principles under which double bass sub arrays operate. Cancelation signals for DBA are actually emitted at quite high volume, but overall they are not "audible" beyond their effect on the overall bass response which is both to smoothen the frequency response and reduce decay - similar to ART. In that respect, subs in the back are support speakers for the front subs, much like in ART. Not saying DBA is superior, just trying to compare.
Additions are a bit more difficult part of the equation. They would address the nulls which were traditionally not boosted (except to very modest extent and commensurate with available excess power needed). With respect to subs, multiple subs were used to fill each other's nulls and provide smoother response. With ART, I see the opportunity to fill in the nulls with support speakers other than subs to the extend they cover the frequency range that needs to be boosted. For subs it would be pretty much the same although would expect that placement would be less of an issue at least to a degree, however placement will remain important. 4 subs with null in 50hz won't do much for that frequency. What comes fresh is that bed channels will get support and ability for other speakers to fill in the gaps without resorting to solutions like LFE+Main that helped in the past, but then created a bunch of additional issues to deal with.
Additions will be subject to localisation though, so might not work beyond the frequency that people find offending. I find 80hz optimal, but live with 100hz as that is compromise between 120hz LFE spec and 80hz that I find optimal. Pushing additions beyond that could potentially cause localisation issues. Could, because best is to hear it as it might not be a significant issues in narrow bands of bass are filled in by supporting speakers.
Traditional room EQ was cutting and not really able to fill in the nulls. ART can apparently do both. Also, as I understand, decay control was not a separate target even for Dirac bass control, which is now present in ART. Finally, correcting the low end response of individual bed channels was a significant issue in the past and ART apparently offers the most elegant solution to that (LFE+Main being the historic way to address this but with long list of side effects).
The above is not fully baked, so please do point out to things that don't make sense
Just keep in mind that whatever issue ART will try to solve, it will try to solve by getting a separate speaker to play a delayed signal from another speaker. All the mixed phase PEQ/FIR mumbo jumbo to actually get a desired target curve and get subwoofers and speakers to phase align is covered by the Dirac Live and Bass Control licenses and I feel should be kept separate in this discussion.
So basically all the corrections done by ART will be "boosts" so to say, so having a distinction between boosts that increase the amplitude response at a certain frequency and boosts that decrease the amplitude response at a certain frequency, doesn't make sense to me.
Audibility of the "boosts" is not really relevant to their effect on the amplitude response, but rather their relative volume and delay from the main signal.
I honestly could care less which part of Dirac package does what, nor did Dirac specify that in their white paper. We do know exactly what ART brings on top of bass control, which was the previous talk of the town. I never personally used bass control as it was not able to use my system to full extent, which ART could, and hopefully will, change. If not, I will be the first one to call it as what I have now is pretty darn good.
As far as phase alignment, that is a separate issue. Some of the signal should be phase aligned, but some should be emitted at different phase, including inverted. That is not something that Live or Bass control could do. Amplitude response? IMO comes distant third to frequency response and decay. Would have to to cause a real havoc to jump tiers.
Otherwise, I don't really understand what is the point you are trying to make. Some of us, like myself, might be simple minded and not able to read deep enough between the lines.
It seems odd then that you expect ART to offer a "max boost" and "max cut" value when the base Dirac license doesn't?
Amplitude response (db on one axis, frequency on the other) is the frequency response by the way.
Many thanks for sharing - exactly what I would expect from ART.
Do you note any issues with localising support signals beyond 80-100hz? In your case it seems like ART would not be needed for those as Live/DLBC could take care of the minimal issues up to 150hz - just a cut needed?
Base Dirac also requires crossovers but ART does not. Max boost and max cut value is not unfortunately what ART offers - just intensity slider. Kind of sad as ancient Audy offers that in MultiEQ-X package. This is where Storm might have an edge with PQ before ART.
Trying to eliminate dB discussion and limit to calibrated level. Lots of generally bad things are happening when extending dB to reference like support speaker group might get really thin due to compression.
No, i had no issues regarding any localisation effects.
By doing these measurements for each support speaker, I could literally listen and see how much theses speakers need to work. In my case / for my setup it is not really signifcant.
Some other general findings:
- ART uses the uncorrected in-room response of each speaker. This means you can use the roomgain for a certain frequency range in order to extend the support range and level.
However, it can also mean that if there is a broad dip / null, you should limit the support range and level.
Hence, it make sense to analyze the in-room response of each speaker before running ART.
- Since ART corrects the response of each channel which is now comprised of the corresponding speaker and all of the other support speakers, you have a problem if you want to add some equalization (< 150 Hz) to a specific speaker after ART. Every speaker now depends on each other.
Many thanks for sharing. If you are on Storm, then PEQ before ART is an option, which could help steer ART in the right direction. Imagine not if you are D&M beta tester?
Here you see the uncorrected (no Dirac) in-room response of the surround right speaker (purple). The green curve represents the amplitude response after Dirac ART.
Support range: 30 - 150 Hz.
You can see that the uncorrected amplitude response shows a roomgain of > + 10 db in the range of 30 - 60 Hz. That's why I use mainly the SR speakers as the main support speakers and down to 30 Hz.
Support range: 30 - 150 Hz.
You can see that the uncorrected amplitude response shows a roomgain of > + 10 db in the range of 30 - 60 Hz. That's why I use mainly the SR speakers as the main support speakers and down to 30 Hz.
What surround are you using if I can ask ? I was thinking of buying a tower in the long future
Neumann KH420
Fancypants
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Did they provide a timeline somewhere for the rollout to Denon A10h? I’ve been so excited to try it!
NanoGuidingStar
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Sorry, I have a possibly silly question. One major difference between StormAudio and D&M regarding ART is that StormAudio allows detailed PEQ adjustments before using ART. If I'm using a subwoofer that supports PEQ adjustments via its app—such as SVS, Perlisten, MK Sound, etc.—can I achieve the same result?
In other words, can I use REW together with the subwoofer's app to adjust the PEQ and flatten the low-frequency response curve before running Dirac?
Yes - but there is much debate as to whether this is beneficial or not .... the answer to which question, like so many, appears to be "it depends"
In some cases you sacrifice headroom by using PEQ, which in turn limits what Dirac can achieve.
All of these possibilities provide a huge possible number of permutations and combinations - of which one can almost guarantee, there will be multiple "good" configurations.
And as seen in the Storm forums on AVS, that in turn results in differing balancing acts, with different configurations being preferred by differing individuals.
There is NOT one single answer to the RoomEQ/Tuning question, instead there are likely to be multiple answers...
Take a look at those Storm forums - some people have done exactly what you are proposing... and you might be able to leverage their experiences.
I would try without PEQ and see how ART deals with it. If result is not flat-ish, then I would try to cut bigger peaks with PEQ and see how that goes. Would definitively not try to boost. It's tricky to say how much to cut - would first try couple dB and see if that works before increasing. Generally better to let ART deal with EQ if within its range - although not sue what that is.
Audy will generally fix 10dB nulls (by cutting peaks), but could be set to do more if needed. Not sure how ART works in that respect.
Till 150hz art would be using all the speakers+subs for the nulls
Apparently could work to 300hz as well - but not sure under what circumstances.
I hope it does, but then would not really want to hear filling the nulls above 80-ish hz. Luckily the support range flexible in that respect.
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