• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Comparison of Dirac Live Bass Control (DLBC) and Dirac ART for all known AVRs/Processors

I would hope that if someone is selling something for a grand, then they would explain what exactly is sold for a grand in a pitch that does not include watching hours of videos. But anyway ART is still in a galaxy far far away from where my Marantz is
 
As a minor update that could be referenced in the main post, there's an answer from Marantz in their Q&A section on the AV 10:

When will Dirac ART can be activated on this processor ?​

Hello nortja, We always strive to incorporate the latest technologies into our products, and we anticipate offering Dirac ART support in the future. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA to provide at this time.
Sincerely,
Marantz

So no timeline listed there, but it seems the AV10 should offer Diract ART at some point.
 
As a minor update that could be referenced in the main post, there's an answer from Marantz in their Q&A section on the AV 10:




So no timeline listed there, but it seems the AV10 should offer Diract ART at some point.
Dirac themselves pulled back on a wider release of ART... although there has been no official commentary, it appears that they are using the substantial experience from the launch with StormAudio, to take at least some parts of the Dirac ART product, back to the drawing board for a redesign...

IMO that involves some bug fixes & improvements, but most importantly, I believe they are focusing on the user interface and making it easier to use for the less technically minded (ie: most people!)

With StormAudio - a large part of the installs are done by custom installers... and the user base for those who set it up themselves is highly technical.
But the mass market launch will be Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Integra, NAD, etc.... with users ranging from the completely non technical all the way to custom installers - a much more varied field!

Rumours are for a late 2025 release...

In the meantime it will be worthwhile monitoring the Storm Audio Dirac-ART forums / threads, as I expect we will see some progressive testing of the new software as it develops...
 
Agreed. It needs to be simple interface with separate advanced settings screen. Sweep determines range of support for all speakers based on their extension with possibility to manually adjust. Level slider determines level of support for all speakers, pairs or individual speakers. Most importantly, it should have overall bass level setting as people actually have different tastes in bass levels and there is really no such thing as reference. Calibrated reference obviously exists, but varied bass levels and ranges in the mixes ideally require adjustments to calibrated level based on individual preferences. ART does everything else and all speakers support all speakers. Range needs to be at least 10hz to whatever they manage to do above 150hz. Sure some people will argue that it needs to be 5hz up :D.

Advanced screen, well should have more than the above, including slopes to phase in/out the support from the individual speakers.
 
Dirac themselves pulled back on a wider release of ART... although there has been no official commentary, it appears that they are using the substantial experience from the launch with StormAudio, to take at least some parts of the Dirac ART product, back to the drawing board for a redesign...

IMO that involves some bug fixes & improvements, but most importantly, I believe they are focusing on the user interface and making it easier to use for the less technically minded (ie: most people!)

With StormAudio - a large part of the installs are done by custom installers... and the user base for those who set it up themselves is highly technical.
But the mass market launch will be Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Integra, NAD, etc.... with users ranging from the completely non technical all the way to custom installers - a much more varied field!

Rumours are for a late 2025 release...

In the meantime it will be worthwhile monitoring the Storm Audio Dirac-ART forums / threads, as I expect we will see some progressive testing of the new software as it develops...

Regardless, I have the feeling that the effect of ART, even if perfectly implemented, will most likely not make most people's systems sound audibly better. The theory does sound good for sure. It is so unfortunate that there aren't really any credible DBT or even SBT AB comparisons done on RC/EQ systems. The only one I know of, was the one Harman did many years ago with all of the compared RC/EQ were at their almost infancy state, e.g. Audyssey MultEQ pro, at best, the very early versions of AARC etc., all with little flexible for manual tweaks so implementations were at the mercy of those setting up the systems being compared. Without more such tests, all the things users reported on the effects are so hugely subjective, though there are some REW graphs to look at, but based on those graphs, there really are no indication of ART doing significantly better, than the gradually maturing DLBC, or Audyssey MultEQ X tweaked XT32 subEQ HT. Specifically, if you can achieve +/- 1 dB 20-300 Hz already with no smoothing, is ART going to make things audibly better, I doubt it, would like to be proved wrong though. There is just so much hype about ART since day one, not sure for what reason.:D Again, based on my understanding of the theory behind it, I do believe it is a good thing to have, as there are going to be situations where it will make some improvements, at least in terms of measurements/prettier graphs, a bit like 75 dB SINAD vs 105 dB SINAD, sort of..
 
I have to agree with @peng that thus far ART has been over-advertised, over-hyped and under-performing thus far. The fact that it can't go below 20h just shows how infant the product is. Not really sure what is Dirac doing, if anything, but they are taking their sweet time. Has it been 18 mos already?

ART should ultimately help reduce the decay, which is something that now requires quite a bit of subs, repositioning and tweaks, but as far as frequency response, most bigger systems have that under control as-is.

Personally, I am totally not interested in ART, but really interested in people who are really interested in ART as would like to understand why?

BTW, no subs no HT :cool:.
 
Regardless, I have the feeling that the effect of ART, even if perfectly implemented, will most likely not make most people's systems sound audibly better. The theory does sound good for sure. It is so unfortunate that there aren't really any credible DBT or even SBT AB comparisons done on RC/EQ systems. The only one I know of, was the one Harman did many years ago with all of the compared RC/EQ were at their almost infancy state, e.g. Audyssey MultEQ pro, at best, the very early versions of AARC etc., all with little flexible for manual tweaks so implementations were at the mercy of those setting up the systems being compared. Without more such tests, all the things users reported on the effects are so hugely subjective, though there are some REW graphs to look at, but based on those graphs, there really are no indication of ART doing significantly better, than the gradually maturing DLBC, or Audyssey MultEQ X tweaked XT32 subEQ HT. Specifically, if you can achieve +/- 1 dB 20-300 Hz already with no smoothing, is ART going to make things audibly better, I doubt it, would like to be proved wrong though. There is just so much hype about ART since day one, not sure for what reason.:D Again, based on my understanding of the theory behind it, I do believe it is a good thing to have, as there are going to be situations where it will make some improvements, at least in terms of measurements/prettier graphs, a bit like 75 dB SINAD vs 105 dB SINAD, sort of..
My understanding is that ART, like Trinnov Waveforming, cancels bass reflections in the frequency range between 20 and 150 Hz. We've seen some evidence of this in REW measurements in the ART thread. Is that a game changer? Depends on the room, but probably not.
 
My understanding is that ART, like Trinnov Waveforming, cancels bass reflections in the frequency range between 20 and 150 Hz. We've seen some evidence of this in REW measurements in the ART thread. Is that a game changer? Depends on the room, but probably not.
Agreed, and I know what it is designed to do. Can you link me to one that shows 20-150 Hz within +/- 1 dB with 1/12 smoothing then? With the $20 Editor app and Ratbudyssey, or DLBC, I could achieve that already in my room, for the front left, right, with 1 or 2 subs. Again, that’s just my room(s).
 
Agreed, and I know what it is designed to do. Can you link me to one that shows 20-150 Hz within +/- 1 dB with 1/12 smoothing then? With the $20 Editor app and Ratbudyssey, or DLBC, I could achieve that already in my room, for the front left, right, with 1 or 2 subs. Again, that’s just my room(s).
@TimoJ has published several measurements:


I've also seen RT60 charts comparing DL to DLBC to ART, but I can't find them at the moment.
 
Agreed, and I know what it is designed to do. Can you link me to one that shows 20-150 Hz within +/- 1 dB with 1/12 smoothing then? With the $20 Editor app and Ratbudyssey, or DLBC, I could achieve that already in my room, for the front left, right, with 1 or 2 subs. Again, that’s just my room(s).
You are looking at the wrong measurements - frequency response is steady state... here we are talking about seperating the steady state direct signal from the time delayed reflected signals and compensating/adjusting/cancelling some proportion of the reflected room state signals (as opposed to the direct speaker signal).

ART is moving to correction in multiple domains / dimensions... looking at F/R is like looking at a square, and assuming that it is a perfect cube (ie: you are missing an entire dimension) ... ART looks at the rectangle - and adjusts to make it a cube.

Dirac Live alread works on the first dimension - the 2D square or F/R in my analogy...
ART is looking to adjust the 3rd Dimension (as does Trinnov)
 
You are looking at the wrong measurements - frequency response is steady state...

First of all, I did not say it is not steady state, and it is incorrect to say that frequency responses is a "wrong measurement" because it is clearly one of the important measurement that Dirac Live uses. If you talk about the details of how it is measured, than okay that would be a fair point for discussion.

here we are talking about seperating the steady state direct signal from the time delayed reflected signals and compensating/adjusting/cancelling some proportion of the reflected room state signals (as opposed to the direct speaker signal).

ART is moving to correction in multiple domains / dimensions... looking at F/R is like looking at a square, and assuming that it is a perfect cube (ie: you are missing an entire dimension) ... ART looks at the rectangle - and adjusts to make it a cube.

Dirac Live alread works on the first dimension - the 2D square or F/R in my analogy...
ART is looking to adjust the 3rd Dimension (as does Trinnov)

In any case, and, with due respect, you obviously have no idea about what measurements I have been looking at, so please don't make such baseless statement. Yes I mentioned frequency response as one example, but that did not imply what else I have been looking at, or measuring.

Bottom line, I am wanting to see comparisons between using ART, vs the basic DLBC only and see what are the evidence of audibly better performance in real world use, not just pretty graphs, as I also cited an example based on SINAD, in which I stated "a bit like 75 dB SINAD vs 105 dB SINAD, sort of.."

If anyone want to tell me, like just "yes", like TimoJ did, that's fine, he did not make any presumptuous response, so I only remained curious about his findings and thanks to ban25 who provided me with a link to some of TimoJ's measurements that I found useful, so thanks to @TimoJ too.

By the way, Dirac Live's website cited the effects are tighter bass, more uniform bass, extended bass response, so at the minimum, I would like to see measurements that compared using ART vs using just DLBC. All those things should be measurable, by Dirac Live, and/or by some users who have the knowledge, equipment and the necessary skills. Again, I do not doubt the theory, and I've read, and will re-read the downloadable paper on ART on the DL website, I just want to see some comparisons, to see if there are enough evidence that the benefits will be clearly audible such as, again, just one example, 60 dB SINAD vs 90 dB SINAD, that most would agree, should be audible in most use cases, while 75 dB vs 90 dB may not be.

From DL website (not sure if you've read those, and the paper itself, but I guess you most likely have, based on what you seem to know so much about ART already):

Tighter bass.​

Grouping several speakers to handle bass frequencies together decreases the bass’s lingering time.
Dirac Live Filter design on computer

More uniform bass.​

By coordinating multiple speakers to work in sync with the room’s acoustics, the distribution of bass frequencies becomes more consistent across all measured listening positions.
Dirac Live Filter design on computer

Extended bass response.​

When multiple speakers contribute together in the bass region, each one adds extra power to the lower frequencies. This collective effort broadens the range of bass sounds your system can produce, lowering the overall frequency cutoff point.
 
Last edited:
Because he has tested ART for quite some time.
Thanks, but as always, as I clearly indicated, I was looking for objective measurements, and I have now read some of his posted graphs. Without those objective measurements, I would have ignored whatever people reported from their "tests", no matter how long they have been doing it. So again, thanks to him for taking the time to do the measurements and posted some of them. To any others who simply go by their ears, I would have just said, thanks (truly, as it would still be much better than nothing), but no thanks.:)
 
Just wonder how you would know that.:D
If you were paying attention to this topic you would know that @TimoJ is running an ART beta and has posted the measurements. These contributions have been more valuable than negativity and gainsaying.
 
Back
Top Bottom