AV20 vs. Tide16 vs. APR-16

[PGAMiami]

The question of waveforming or ART at least in my situation is a simple answer. ART because I can actually afford it .

In my 2 channel I use a high crossover point for low-pass: 105 Hz but a low crossover point for high-pass: 45 Hz. You situation seems different with the mighty TAD but in my case while the salon2 has very very good bass, the Gothams’ bass is superior especially with deep bass. There is no way that I would have achieved this quality bass with just the lowly XMC2 and the simple HT xover. Since you have ART things are probably a lot different on your neck of the woods based on your comments. This “limitless” bass (for music) where when you turn the volume up it just scales up with zero compression and zero listening fatigue and fills the room to the point it’s scary…it’s so satisfying. I think you probably understand what I’m saying but to even a higher scale…that super tight musical bass that I’m sure the TAD has in droves.

If the XMC2 wasn’t such a dog with the occasional no sound issue, I really don’t need to change anything. But in this hobby curiosity always kicks in and hopefully the Tide16 can equal or even improve on it with ART. Plus my good old Theta Casanova just started dying.

The TADs are great, but the room rules below the Schroeder frequency. Prior to my R1s I had TAD M1s. These were even better speakers with a 4 way design and a mid bass woofer between the coax and the 2 10”. Andrew Jones even came to my home to set them up, and he had his twin brother custom make Belcanto digital amps so we could actively biamp them. This was back many years ago, well before DSP. But the room still ruled!. Unfortunately the M1s all literally cracked and TAD replaced them with R1s. Long long story, but bottom line is TAD service is AAA.

Fast forward a couple decades. Dirac ART is incredibly powerful and almost fool proof to set up. In a way what you’re doing with overlap between the LPF and HPF is what ART is doing in my room, but ART does this “more better”. In my system the TADs are only being tasked to reproduce sound from 40hz up. That is the crossover point I set on the 4800h. But in ART I set the subs to support them from 20hz to 120hz. And the TADs also support themselves from 20hz to 150hz. So what does that do? If there are any dips or bumps in the TADs reponse versus the target curve, then ART will use all 4 subs and the two TADs to correct that, in a time/phase aligned way. And also ART will use the 4 subs and the two TADs to reduce ringing and resonance. In addition, I have my center and surround supporting from 80hz to 120hz. My room is 12x18x8.5, so it has issues in the frequencies 33, 46, 90s and 120s. You can also tell ART to weigh the support of your front subs more heavily for the front speakers and vice a versa for the rear. It’s truly amazing what it does.

I expect your Revel Gotham set up will be fantastic with ART. Don’t recall, do you have rear subs also? That helps quite a lot.

 

[peng]

Y'all are more than welcome to prove me wrong once you get your hands on it. I really don't want to hear "Tide16 doesn't do this" or "Tide16 doesn't do that" once you get a couple of hours in...

Edit: by the way, this was already covered in the longer 65-page thread so we really didn't need another one...

I would agree that it is a niche product to a larger extent, but it is also an AVP with features comparable to that of something like an Anthem AVM, except it has only 3 HDMI inputs and lacks full 2.1 capabilities. Anthem's $7,500 AVM90 does not have Roon yet, it also has no Auro 3D and users may still be waiting for DTS: X Pro for a long time and as to RC, it offers only their own ARC G, the Tide at least has the possibility to do manual EQ, on top of DL. So, to a lot of users, this thing could be considered a full, or near full featured AVP, while also a niche product as you described.

 

[Lsc]

The TADs are great, but the room rules below the Schroeder frequency. Prior to my R1s I had TAD M1s. These were even better speakers with a 4 way design and a mid bass woofer between the coax and the 2 10”. Andrew Jones even came to my home to set them up, and he had his twin brother custom make Belcanto digital amps so we could actively biamp them. This was back many years ago, well before DSP. But the room still ruled!. Unfortunately the M1s all literally cracked and TAD replaced them with R1s. Long long story, but bottom line is TAD service is AAA.

Fast forward a couple decades. Dirac ART is incredibly powerful and almost fool proof to set up. In a way what you’re doing with overlap between the LPF and HPF is what ART is doing in my room, but ART does this “more better”. In my system the TADs are only being tasked to reproduce sound from 40hz up. That is the crossover point I set on the 4800h. But in ART I set the subs to support them from 20hz to 120hz. And the TADs also support themselves from 20hz to 150hz. So what does that do? If there are any dips or bumps in the TADs reponse versus the target curve, then ART will use all 4 subs and the two TADs to correct that, in a time/phase aligned way. And also ART will use the 4 subs and the two TADs to reduce ringing and resonance. In addition, I have my center and surround supporting from 80hz to 120hz. My room is 12x18x8.5, so it has issues in the frequencies 33, 46, 90s and 120s. You can also tell ART to weigh the support of your front subs more heavily for the front speakers and vice a versa for the rear. It’s truly amazing what it does.

I expect your Revel Gotham set up will be fantastic with ART. Don’t recall, do you have rear subs also? That helps quite a lot.

Wow on Andrew Jones setting the speakers up personally at your home! That’s pretty cool. The salon2 is also a 4 way speaker with a 6.5 inch midbass driver that supposedly makes a difference over the studio2 per Kevin Voeks. But I’d take the TAD over my salons any day as it’s next level.

I do have one rear sub - JL F112 that I only use for movies. I can swap this with the F113 in my man cave when my son comes back from school. So 3 subs. Very interesting on how ART works! Better results that doesn’t require hours of tweaking at different times to dial things in.

Now I may have to buy the Tide16 right away lol

 

[Oddball]

Have not been following forum as too busy? Did we get any hands-on review on Tide?

Another thing to consider is that both Tide and APR are quite new products. Reasonably to expect some glitches. AV20 is quite established (with AV10 being out for a while) and for multi-channel people offers full 13 channels plus 4 subs which is probably as far as many will go. Tide and APR will do 13 channels with 3 subs - which is still awesome and probably more than anyone needs.

 

[Lsc]

Have not been following forum as too busy? Did we get any hands-on review on Tide?

Another thing to consider is that both Tide and APR are quite new products. Reasonably to expect some glitches. AV20 is quite established (with AV10 being out for a while) and for multi-channel people offers full 13 channels plus 4 subs which is probably as far as many will go. Tide and APR will do 13 channels with 3 subs - which is still awesome and probably more than anyone needs.

Here is what the MiniDSP product guide said…

“Decoding up to 16channels, Flexible Subwoofer configuration (up to 4)”.

 

[Oddball]

Here is what the MiniDSP product guide said…

“Decoding up to 16channels, Flexible Subwoofer configuration (up to 4)”.

16 channels top so 13+3 or 11+4. Can't do 13+4 as AV 20. Not a biggie but once you go to this level, 4 subs are not uncommon. Could do with 2 smaller subs up front and bigger sub behind MLP though. Back and front configuration will help ART as it works on canceling principle and thus leverages best on front-back sub configuration in most rooms.

 

[peng]

One feature I like that the Tide has, is the A USB input, hopefully they would upgrade it to play multichannel. For now it is 2ch iiuc, I don’t think too many avps have the AUSB feature.

 

[rolfrander]

Did we get any hands-on review on Tide?

No, not shipping yet

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nel-atmos-dts-x-high-sinad.68883/post-2535100

 

[ban25]

I would agree that it is a niche product to a larger extent, but it is also an AVP with features comparable to that of something like an Anthem AVM, except it has only 3 HDMI inputs and lacks full 2.1 capabilities. Anthem's $7,500 AVM90 does not have Roon yet, it also has no Auro 3D and users may still be waiting for DTS: X Pro for a long time and as to RC, it offers only their own ARC G, the Tide at least has the possibility to do manual EQ, on top of DL. So, to a lot of users, this thing could be considered a full, or near full featured AVP, while also a niche product as you described.

Statements from minidsp seem to indicate that it is not possible to layer EQ on-top of Dirac. I assume any PEQ controls are locked out if Dirac is engaged.

Source:

Tide16

Sorry gents, I thought I was clear in my post when I included the caveat: Next time I will try to be clearer, for now I hope the bolded part, if notices when reading, would have been okay. I don't think we were pointing any fingers at you, only the strange objective to use a highly...

www.minidsp.com

- You can't modify a filter post Dirac ART as it's their IP/method and they don't want it to be modified. That's a rule from Dirac to be able to pass certification. Not from us.

 

[EWL5]

Statements from minidsp seem to indicate that it is not possible to layer EQ on-top of Dirac. I assume any PEQ controls are locked out if Dirac is engaged.

Source:

Tide16

Sorry gents, I thought I was clear in my post when I included the caveat: Next time I will try to be clearer, for now I hope the bolded part, if notices when reading, would have been okay. I don't think we were pointing any fingers at you, only the strange objective to use a highly...

www.minidsp.com

This is what I suspected. I'm sure the DIY crowd are giving a collective "WTH?!!!"

 

[Oddball]

This is what I suspected. I'm sure the DIY crowd are giving a collective "WTH?!!!"

Well people are always drawn to the new. Even if it is not fully understood what new is. But those are generally ones that would not put their wallet where their mouth is.

 

[Lsc]

16 channels top so 13+3 or 11+4. Can't do 13+4 as AV 20. Not a biggie but once you go to this level, 4 subs are not uncommon. Could do with 2 smaller subs up front and bigger sub behind MLP though. Back and front configuration will help ART as it works on canceling principle and thus leverages best on front-back sub configuration in most rooms.

Ah! I see what you mean! That’s important to some for sure.

 

[PGAMiami]

This is what I suspected. I'm sure the DIY crowd are giving a collective "WTH?!!!"

Don’t see them targeting the DIY crowd with this. Instead I see this opening a different market segment for them, surround for audiophiles.

 

[PGAMiami]

One feature I like that the Tide has, is the A USB input, hopefully they would upgrade it to play multichannel. For now it is 2ch iiuc, I don’t think too many avps have the AUSB feature.

Agreed. Or even better if they can make it a multichannel Roon endpoint via WiFi or Ethernet. Here I see the Tide16 more to my liking than an APR-16 that doesn’t have a usb audio input. I guess both could accept multichannel via hdmi from a Roon NUC or Mac endpoint.

 

[PGAMiami]

Wow on Andrew Jones setting the speakers up personally at your home! That’s pretty cool. The salon2 is also a 4 way speaker with a 6.5 inch midbass driver that supposedly makes a difference over the studio2 per Kevin Voeks. But I’d take the TAD over my salons any day as it’s next level.

I do have one rear sub - JL F112 that I only use for movies. I can swap this with the F113 in my man cave when my son comes back from school. So 3 subs. Very interesting on how ART works! Better results that doesn’t require hours of tweaking at different times to dial things in.

Now I may have to buy the Tide16 right away lol

Two rear subs is better than one but I didn’t find the difference to be that big. And both Dirac and Trinnov say the rear subs don’t need to be as powerful as the front. In my case my front subs support is set at -20db and rear at -14db. Default is -18db. This keeps the soundstage firmly in front. Btw -14 is less than -20 regarding the support settings.

 

[kifeep]

Statements from minidsp seem to indicate that it is not possible to layer EQ on-top of Dirac. I assume any PEQ controls are locked out if Dirac is engaged.

Source:

Tide16

Sorry gents, I thought I was clear in my post when I included the caveat: Next time I will try to be clearer, for now I hope the bolded part, if notices when reading, would have been okay. I don't think we were pointing any fingers at you, only the strange objective to use a highly...

www.minidsp.com

I read that to mean the Dirac-generated filters can't be modified. Screenshots posted on the product page suggest you can add additional filters later in the signal chain:

I looking forward to reading the manual and getting more clarity on a few questions like this.

 

[Oddball]

Two rear subs is better than one but I didn’t find the difference to be that big. And both Dirac and Trinnov say the rear subs don’t need to be as powerful as the front. In my case my front subs support is set at -20db and rear at -14db. Default is -18db. This keeps the soundstage firmly in front. Btw -14 is less than -20 regarding the support settings.

Right, that might be best for your room. Many other rooms around.

And keeping the soundstage firmly in front is what happens most of the time due to content, but then there are surrounds and surrounds backs, if we count FW as front stage as they probably are. Soundstage in good mixes is everywhere, including Atmos. In poor mixes it does unfortunately end up all up front, which has nothing to do with ART.

 

[ban25]

I read that to mean the Dirac-generated filters can't be modified. Screenshots posted on the product page suggest you can add additional filters later in the signal chain:

I looking forward to reading the manual and getting more clarity on a few questions like this.

And yet there's comments from the company like this:

Tide16

Dear All, Thanks much for all the feedback and questions.. We're still pushing forward on the user manual so appreciate your patience to maybe wait a bit for it so it can hopefully answer most of your questions? We're also doing an FAQ here with some of the comments we see out there. Tide16...

www.minidsp.com

Please wait for manual for full DSP signal flow. Same as above, on first build no custom FIR. Let's ship something stable before we start making things complex.. ;-)

Tide16

Dear All, Thanks much for all the feedback and questions.. We're still pushing forward on the user manual so appreciate your patience to maybe wait a bit for it so it can hopefully answer most of your questions? We're also doing an FAQ here with some of the comments we see out there. Tide16...

www.minidsp.com

hahah.. Let's see.. Once again don't want to promis. We do know that Dirac has some specific requirements when it comes to ART.. Everything need to be locked up (i.e. can't edit settings on output section once ART loaded as per certification). So we need to see if they consider Loudness compensation as something that would affect their ART solution.. Too early to say.

 

[peng]

Statements from minidsp seem to indicate that it is not possible to layer EQ on-top of Dirac. I assume any PEQ controls are locked out if Dirac is engaged.

Source:

Tide16

Sorry gents, I thought I was clear in my post when I included the caveat: Next time I will try to be clearer, for now I hope the bolded part, if notices when reading, would have been okay. I don't think we were pointing any fingers at you, only the strange objective to use a highly...

www.minidsp.com

As you said, you "assume.....". The info in your link referred to FIR. FIR filters are not the same as PEQs. Based on their Flex device, PEQs can be used post Dirac, but not FIR, so it is possible that the same may apply to the Tide as well.

For me, it is quite clear that manual EQ is doable with Dirac enabled per their product brief:

https://www.minidsp.com/images/documents/Product%20Brief%20-%20miniDSP%20Tide16.pdf

Dirac Live® 3.x Full Range correction (20 Hz – 20 kHz) Dirac Live Bass Control license (DLBC) Dirac Active Room Treatment license (ART) Advanced Bass Management toolbox miniDSP’s flexible Digital Signal Processing toolbox for Matrix/Crossovers/EQ/Delay with Device Console software. Configures multiway speakers as required

It does not say anything about "lock out" if Dirac is in use. It is a $3,500 investment so if one needs to know with certainty before deciding, then one should contact minidsp and ask the specific question, or as others mentioned, wait for manual that is supposed to be ready soon, though the manual may not spell everything clearly for the most curious person, so it is better to ask minidsp the question. Obviously to some, they likely don't care, because Dirac can do its job well enough without any need to use PEQs in parallel.

 

[ban25]

As you said, you "assume.....". The info in your link referred to FIR. FIR filters are not the same as PEQs. Based on their Flex device, PEQs can be used post Dirac, but not FIR, so it is possible that the same may apply to the Tide as well.

For me, it is quite clear that manual EQ is doable with Dirac enabled per their product brief:

https://www.minidsp.com/images/documents/Product%20Brief%20-%20miniDSP%20Tide16.pdf

Dirac Live® 3.x Full Range correction (20 Hz – 20 kHz) Dirac Live Bass Control license (DLBC) Dirac Active Room Treatment license (ART) Advanced Bass Management toolbox miniDSP’s flexible Digital Signal Processing toolbox for Matrix/Crossovers/EQ/Delay with Device Console software. Configures multiway speakers as required

It does not say anything about "lock out" if Dirac is in use. It is a $3,500 investment so if one needs to know with certainty before deciding, then one should contact minidsp and ask the specific question, or as others mentioned, wait for manual that is supposed to be ready soon, though the manual may not spell everything clearly for the most curious person, so it is better to ask minidsp the question. Obviously to some, they likely don't care, because Dirac can do its job well enough without any need to use PEQs in parallel.

False. Let's revisit the statement from the minidsp team again:

hahah.. Let's see.. Once again don't want to promis. We do know that Dirac has some specific requirements when it comes to ART.. Everything need to be locked up (i.e. can't edit settings on output section once ART loaded as per certification). So we need to see if they consider Loudness compensation as something that would affect their ART solution.. Too early to say.