AV20 vs. Tide16 vs. APR-16

[Littletycoon]

How do you know what we need?

How would you know what a full fledged AVP is.

 

[EWL5]

How would you know what a full fledged AVP is.

Both the APR-16 and the AV20 have a full set of unbalanced RCA connections in addition to the XLR outputs. These connections and additional circuitry costs money that the Tide16 no doubt has saved by not having them. Not everyone has amps that can take XLR so I'm really not sure where your confusion is.

 

[Dj7675]

My needs are similar to the OP, and I need and enjoy dynamic EQ and Auromatic 3D.

The list gets really short if you need dynamic EQ or loudness functionality with Dirac ART… Storm or Monoprice HTP1 I think are the choices. That is a shortcoming on Denon/Marantz… no loudness, no treble/bass with Dirac enabled.

 

[Littletycoon]

Both the APR-16 and the AV20 have a full set of unbalanced RCA connections in addition to the XLR outputs. These connections and additional circuitry costs money that the Tide16 no doubt has saved by not having them. Not everyone has amps that can take XLR so I'm really not sure where your confusion is.

You are severely confused, now the Tide-16 in your opinion is not a full fledged AVP because it does not have both xlr and rca. Many top AV processors do not have both (i.e. lyngdorf, trinnov, etc.), nobody would dare to call those "not full fledged AVP's".

 

[EWL5]

You are severely confused, now the Tide-16 in your opinion is not a full fledged AVP because it does not have both xlr and rca. Many top AV processors do not have both (i.e. lyngdorf, trinnov, etc.), nobody would dare to call those "not full fledged AVP's".

Yes, owners with eARC/ARC TVs can benefit by those inputs but consider the following:

ARC: came out ~2009, so no older than 16 years (won't support high bandwidth mch PCM)
eARC: came out ~2017, so no older than 8 years

How many folks who haven't updated their TVs in a while has invalidated this strategy? As this product is clearly geared towards audiophiles, it wouldn't surprise me if the TV tech falls by the wayside in favor of audio.

My first AVR that included HDMI was the Pioneer 84TXSi from nearly 20 years ago and it had 4 HDMI inputs. The fact that this so-called full fledged AVP only has 3 HDMI inputs is laughable by any metric you go by. I already estimated how much miniDSP stands to profit from the Tide16 in the other long thread. The $3500 they're asking is either about right or slightly more expensive for what you get. If we're being honest, the closest comp is the HTP-1 and even that has no less than 8 HDMI inputs!

I have nothing against miniDSP or the Tide16 itself (it's not for me). Frankly, I find miniDSP's responses and community interaction honest and refreshing. My beef is with folks who keep elevating it into something it's not. What bespoke AVP has only 3 HDMI inputs (don't give me the Lyngdorf example unless you are arguing folks should be paying more for less)?!!!

 

[Oddball]

That's what I would do too if ART is used, but if not, I would say in some cases, it is quicker to do fine tuning using the PEQ features post calibration. For example, if there is for some reason, a couple bumps remained in the very audible range, a couple of PEQs might bring it down without playing with the target curve that would involve a little more work. Again, in general, I would just play with the target curve. If ART is used, I would most likely not mess around with PEQ/BIQUAD even if miniDSP makes it possible, and as ban25 seems so sure, miniDSP might just lock it (the PEQ feature) out and he is likely correct on that, except I still see no good reason for that if ART is not used.

Having used ART for 5 months now, I don't think you would need any PEQ after the fact. And that would throw off balance of the calibration from all the channels. Whatever you "fixed" would ripple to "unfix" other channels. The only right way to deal with ART is to try other configurations until you hit the one that sounds best to you. While ART does not have crossovers per se, playing with support range and intensity will give you different outcomes if you have flexibility and right resources in your system.

You might want to do some PEQ before to present a cleaner case to ART - but that will also depend on a system. I did not find it useful to pre-EQ subs via their DSP. Pretty much the same outcome as without any thinkering.

Now Dirac Live is another matter. I can clearly see a need to fix Dirac Live and that should generally just impact the channel one thinks needs correction. Also don't see a need for Dirac to lock all the settings after calibration. That is just too inflexible. People could have legitimate needs to adjust things after the fact and they paid pretty penny to be able to do so if they feel it is needed.

 

[peng]

Having used ART for 5 months now, I don't think you would need any PEQ after the fact.

I agree, even when used without ART, I found that the best results would be to customize the target curve, as I mentioned, I only used PEQs only if I could see the need for just a few PEQs that could be done precisely, easily and quickly vs playing with the TC. And again, if ART is used, there is no point, not so much about the effectiveness, but more about it would make things worse (throw of the balance) as you mentioned.

I bet one of the challenge miniDSP faced during their R&D of the Tide was to find the best, or right balance (features to offer and to skip/give up) that they felt would help selling the product at the targeted price. As EWL5 alluded to, the 3 HDMI inputs is something that I wish he had not chosen, I wouldn't mind paying $100 for just 2 more, but I also understand to a lot of people would only need 1 or 2 inputs would not want to pay even $10 more for an additional input. It really is tough to find the right balance when the budget is strictly limited.

 

[Oddball]

It's quite an effort and cost to R&D an in-house RC. I think choosing an industry-accepted RC like Dirac was the right business move. Only time will tell if ART is enough of an attraction to create demand for their first AVP. Based on the confusion in this and other similar threads, I think the outcome could go either way (especially w/the current conflict tanking the market and less than rosy US job report).

I agree that times are challenging and people might have their minds focused on more existential things than AVPs. We are still OK, but unfortunately bottom is not yet in sight.

I do think that Tide is a great product, and hope it will prove to work well. It is not so great that it could afford significant issues in use. Addition of ART is essential though - it will likely show to most that whatever you can do manually with lots of effort, ART can do better with minimal effort. Kind of why AI impact is finally showing in the job market and makes all a bit uneasy at least.

 

[kifeep]

Having used ART for 5 months now, I don't think you would need any PEQ after the fact. And that would throw off balance of the calibration from all the channels. Whatever you "fixed" would ripple to "unfix" other channels. The only right way to deal with ART is to try other configurations until you hit the one that sounds best to you. While ART does not have crossovers per se, playing with support range and intensity will give you different outcomes if you have flexibility and right resources in your system.

You might want to do some PEQ before to present a cleaner case to ART - but that will also depend on a system. I did not find it useful to pre-EQ subs via their DSP. Pretty much the same outcome as without any thinkering.

Now Dirac Live is another matter. I can clearly see a need to fix Dirac Live and that should generally just impact the channel one thinks needs correction. Also don't see a need for Dirac to lock all the settings after calibration. That is just too inflexible. People could have legitimate needs to adjust things after the fact and they paid pretty penny to be able to do so if they feel it is needed.

I agree that there aren't many reasons to adjust the output settings after applying Dirac, but it's more than zero.

A first example is to apply broad tone controls. These are typically low-Q and if applied equally to every channel, wouldn't affect Dirac.

Similarly, dynamic loudness compensation. It appears that this will not be included in the initial release of the Tide16. They might (or might not) add it later, but even then the implementation might (or might not) suck. There will supposedly be an official API that would allow programming the unit remotely, but what's the use if all the filter slots are locked?

Some folks like to boost the mids in the center channel to help with dialog. This obviously could interfere with Dirac, but if the Q was low enough, it probably wouldn't be a big problem. And in any case, why can't I be the judge of that?

(I've always thought it was kind of silly that we're expected to bake this kind of thing into room correction target curves. The stuff we're most likely to adjust shouldn't require re-running the correction.)

Or what if you just don't like the way atmos is mixed on a lot of titles and want to adjust height speaker levels?

To me, the feature that's really missing (based on our limited knowledge at this point) is any kind of processing upstream of dirac. Volume adjustment plus, say, 4 PEQ channels on the input side would solve all these problems, and probably more. Surely Dirac can't object to changing the signal before they even see it, as every engineer makes similar changes when mixing.

In my opinion, one of the best things about minidsp products is the openness. You can generally muck about as much or little as you like. Locking down all processing options just feels icky to me.

 

[middlemarch]

I agree that there aren't many reasons to adjust the output settings after applying Dirac, but it's more than zero.

A first example is to apply broad tone controls. These are typically low-Q and if applied equally to every channel, wouldn't affect Dirac.

Similarly, dynamic loudness compensation. It appears that this will not be included in the initial release of the Tide16. They might (or might not) add it later, but even then the implementation might (or might not) suck. There will supposedly be an official API that would allow programming the unit remotely, but what's the use if all the filter slots are locked?

Some folks like to boost the mids in the center channel to help with dialog. This obviously could interfere with Dirac, but if the Q was low enough, it probably wouldn't be a big problem. And in any case, why can't I be the judge of that?

(I've always thought it was kind of silly that we're expected to bake this kind of thing into room correction target curves. The stuff we're most likely to adjust shouldn't require re-running the correction.)

Or what if you just don't like the way atmos is mixed on a lot of titles and want to adjust height speaker levels?

To me, the feature that's really missing (based on our limited knowledge at this point) is any kind of processing upstream of dirac. Volume adjustment plus, say, 4 PEQ channels on the input side would solve all these problems, and probably more. Surely Dirac can't object to changing the signal before they even see it, as every engineer makes similar changes when mixing.

In my opinion, one of the best things about minidsp products is the openness. You can generally muck about as much or little as you like. Locking down all processing options just feels icky to me.

I think it's useful to keep in mind that Dirac ART today is version 1.0 for all practical purposes. In addition, what they're doing is incredibly difficult and resource intensive, and they're not a huge operation. So it's a matter of doing something really hard with limited resources for a limited market. In that light I suspect that many of these limitations will be addressed in time. The other factor is real limits in signal processor horsepower on most of these platforms. It is what it is in the current generation and adding features simply may not be doable until processing power increases, no matter how smart the software development team.

I don't think it's useful to imply nefarious motivation.

 

[kifeep]

I think it's useful to keep in mind that Dirac ART today is version 1.0 for all practical purposes. In addition, what they're doing is incredibly difficult and resource intensive, and they're not a huge operation. So it's a matter of doing something really hard with limited resources for a limited market. In that light I suspect that many of these limitations will be addressed in time. The other factor is real limits in signal processor horsepower on most of these platforms. It is what it is in the current generation and adding features simply may not be doable until processing power increases, no matter how smart the software development team.

I don't think it's useful to imply nefarious motivation.

I don't think there's anything nefarious about it, just an unfortunate divergence between commercial and DIY interests that minidsp might have balanced batter - and still might in future updates.

With the caveat that the product isn't available and my assumptions might be wrong:

Minidsp stated (on the minidsp forum) that Dirac licensing requires that the output configuration to be locked out once the Dirac-generated filters are loaded. I'm sure this is just brand management on Dirac's part. I mentioned a few ways one might adjust things after Dirac that wouldn't ruin their tuning, but it would also certainly be very easy to screw it up completely by changing delays, adding multiple high-Q filters, etc. Dirac doesn't want their brand associated with systems that sound terrible, and I can't blame them.

It appears that the TIDE16 can handle somewhere near 20 PEQs per channel in addition to Dirac, provided they are all set before loading the Dirac filters. So I don't think it's a resource management issue in this case. (Although, again, I could be wrong and the output configuration could be not only locked , but cleared out when Dirac is loaded. I doubt this is the case, as this would make using multiway speakers with active crossovers impossible, which is a core use case for the unit.)

My suggestion that minidsp provide some user-facing dsp upstream of Dirac was really just a proposal for a better way (imho) to accommodate the interests of people like me within Dirac's licensing requirements. I hope it's something they consider for future updates (assuming, as I think is reasonable, that there won't be any input-side dsp on release).

 

[jhaider]

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

IMO you won’t get max benefit from ART unless you upgrade your subs. JL subs do very low bass well, but they roll off too low up top to be ideal for ART. (E series are markedly better than Fathom/Gotham, but neither one is ideal.) I prefer subs that are flat well beyond 150Hz generally, but ART makes the top end even more important. So subs based on lower inductance drive units really shine for ART.

 

[Lsc]

IMO you won’t get max benefit from ART unless you upgrade your subs. JL subs do very low bass well, but they roll off too low up top to be ideal for ART. (E series are markedly better than Fathom/Gotham, but neither one is ideal.) I prefer subs that are flat well beyond 150Hz generally, but ART makes the top end even more important. So subs based on lower inductance drive units really shine for ART.

I thought ART works below 150Hz. Are your conclusions based on the spec sheets or from actual results with JL subs?

Based on the specs it does look like the F113 may pose a problem with achieving 150Hz, but the Gotham V1 based on JL specs goes to 200Hz (-3dB) and the F112 goes to 150Hz (-3dB). My preference on subs are how deep they go and how musical they are ie accurate. But we will see how ART works with what I have because I dont plan on switching my subs out. I do understand what you are saying from a pure spec standpoint but I’m not even sure how big of a factor it is to have subs that are flat to 150Hz. Especially since my fronts and surrounds are full range towers.

 

[jhaider]

I thought ART works below 150Hz. Are your conclusions based on the spec sheets or from actual results with JL subs?

Experience with a Fathom sub as well as knowledge of the W7 drive units used in them.

My preference on subs are how deep they go and how musical they are ie accurate.

“Musical” and “accurate” are mostly integration concepts. But certainly some subs are better than others, and that’s material. One thing that IMO distinguishes the best ones are long and linear throw combined with smoothness and headroom at the top of their passband where there’s a lot of program material. A high inductance drive unit such as the JL W7 falls down there.

But we will see how ART works with what I have because I dont plan on switching my subs out. I do understand what you are saying from a pure spec standpoint but I’m not even sure how big of a factor it is to have subs that are flat to 150Hz. Especially since my fronts and surrounds are full range towers.

No offense, but all that just shows a basic lack of understanding of what ART does. The only benefit you’ll get from ART with your current subs is probably greater headroom in the 30-60 Hz octave, where the subs would be supporting the Salon2. Getting max benefit from ART (headroom and smoothness of response over a wide area) would require better (tried to avoid saying it, but…) subs.

 

[Lsc]

Experience with a Fathom sub as well as knowledge of the W7 drive units used in them.

“Musical” and “accurate” are mostly integration concepts. But certainly some subs are better than others, and that’s material. One thing that IMO distinguishes the best ones are long and linear throw combined with smoothness and headroom at the top of their passband where there’s a lot of program material. A high inductance drive unit such as the JL W7 falls down there.

No offense, but all that just shows a basic lack of understanding of what ART does. The only benefit you’ll get from ART with your current subs is probably greater headroom in the 30-60 Hz octave, where the subs would be supporting the Salon2. Getting max benefit from ART (headroom and smoothness of response over a wide area) would require better (tried to avoid saying it, but…) subs.

I have to admit that I only have a very high level understanding of ART. i.e. active room correction that uses “support” speakers to negate room resonance. It’s not very clear to me how ART will work when I listen to 2 channel music vs. my existing setup where I am using duals subs with mains. Also, I have to admit that I am out of my depth discussing “high inductance” with you as I have no idea what that means. I thought ART used support speakers that include surrounds and subs vs just subs. When I get the Tide16, I’ll know a little better.

I wanted to try ART out of curiosity along with the need to dump this XMC2 so the goal is to improve my existing system vs maximizing ART effectiveness. Well, I actually have no argument against your educated guess but these two are committed to go the distance and said they will not be separated.

 

[EWL5]

I have to admit that I only have a very high level understanding of ART. i.e. active room correction that uses “support” speakers to negate room resonance. It’s not very clear to me how ART will work when I listen to 2 channel music vs. my existing setup where I am using duals subs with mains. Also, I have to admit that I am out of my depth discussing “high inductance” with you as I have no idea what that means. I thought ART used support speakers that include surrounds and subs vs just subs. When I get the Tide16, I’ll know a little better.

I wanted to try ART out of curiosity along with the need to dump this XMC2 so the goal is to improve my existing system vs maximizing ART effectiveness. Well, I actually have no argument against your educated guess but these two are committed to go the distance and said they will not be separated.

I think your energies are better suited towards understanding how your current system would operate under ART, address any shortcomings (if any), and then decide if the the Tide16 is right for you (preferably after pro reviews and customers using it for 2 channel music).

There's nothing companies love more than audiophiles that jump on specs and hope everything "works out"!

 

[Lsc]

I think your energies are better suited towards understanding how your current system would operate under ART, address any shortcomings (if any), and then decide if the the Tide16 is right for you (preferably after pro reviews and customers using it for 2 channel music).

There's nothing companies love more than audiophiles that jump on specs and hope everything "works out"!

This is sound advice, thank you. It’s a bit of a conundrum for sure but I have thought about this. Currently, my system only has Dirac Live so I’m expecting DLBC and ART to improve the bass for movies. The only thing here is that I don’t need any improvements in bass for movies. The sound quality including bass is as good as I need for movie watching.

Also, my 2 ch music via a separate preamp, DAC and active crossover ie no room correction and no room treatment also sound as good as I’ve ever hoped for. So what’s my deal? It’s a first world problem but since I don’t have a very good room for room treatment, I figured I’d give this a shot.

If it works I’ve achieved what I wanted which was a single system solution that’s equally excellent for music and movies. Then I can sell my preamp, DAC and active crossover which means my net cost is pretty small.

Btw, I just spent a few minutes reading about ART and subs. Seems like I have a lot of preferred requirements. While not identical, the subs are close in design and they are all sealed. The sub group is recommended to keep under 90Hz which works for me. My mains and surrounds are full range so they can be used as support speakers. Obviously ART is the main topic with Dirac but with the Tide16, it seems to be the all in one unit that I wanted when I first bought the XMC1 and XMC2 with the “rethink high-end” slogan. And yes, I don’t prefer to be a guinea pig.

 

[Oddball]

Btw, I just spent a few minutes reading about ART and subs. Seems like I have a lot of preferred requirements. While not identical, the subs are close in design and they are all sealed. The sub group is recommended to keep under 90Hz which works for me. My mains and surrounds are full range so they can be used as support speakers. Obviously ART is the main topic with Dirac but with the Tide16, it seems to be the all in one unit that I wanted when I first bought the XMC1 and XMC2 with the “rethink high-end” slogan. And yes, I don’t prefer to be a guinea pig.

I don't think there is a consensus as to the sub support range or intensity. From pre-ART experience I also preferred to steeply roll off the subs after 100hz, but with ART it seems that default 20-150hz range works pretty well, with subs still doing some heavy lifting in above 90hz area. Measurements are a bit different but good in both cases. My LCR are 30hz F3 in room, but ART is not really using them in below 50hz range, which seems right as 4 subs are better suited to cover that range. I support my subs with all bed channels in 50-150hz range, but according to the filters, most heavy lifting is done by the subs in below 100hz range.

You will need to experiment, measure and listen to determine what works best for your room and system.

 

[RichB]

I'd also like to try ART with my 4 Salon2s and dual Ryhmik E22 subs assisting in smoothing or improving bass frequencies.
But like @Lsc I wont be changing my speakers but perhaps my processor.
I have a good room and sit equidistant from the Salon2s so today, I just use bass-management on the Voice2 and the EQ on the Rythmik subs.

While some do extensive after-measurements with REQ, that seems even more complex with ART.
So, in the end, there is trial and error and subject assessments. I am fine with that.

What I hope to find the in Tide16 is excellent processing with less side-effects than chip-based DSPs.
I might even be able to apply crossovers to my bi-amping. Yet, another of my unclean practices

- Rich