Dirac ART is now running on beta FW for Denon Xx800H AVRs!

[Frank207be]

Yes, this means you do not need BC.

So with BC and 4 subs it would probably be overkill?

 

[tetragrammaton]

But would you be willing to pay as much as you paid for the 3800, for the Dirac software ? (right now the cost for the whole Dirac suite including ART looks like US$1100)

I would, easily

 

[Aaronb1138]

I would, easily

I bought a 3800 and all the licensing through multi-sub DLBC (during 30% discount) purely on the basis of prepping for ART at the beginning of this year (Jan/Feb). Literally the first time I looked at a technology and thought it was worth upgrading from my Harman AVR 347 that had performed so well for so long. Sure, I was already looking at DL / DLBC capable receivers towards an upgrade, and it would be nice not to be tethered to piping DD/DTS out S/PDIF from devices, but ART was entirely the motivation to pull the trigger.

If not for ART, I likely would have cobbled together stuff with a PC + REW + multi-channel DACs + class D amps for room correction and multi-sub support. Dirac Live and Audyssey are not sufficiently beyond what can be done with off the shelf software on a PC to be compelling for a DIYer like myself. ART is outside what I could reasonably build on my own even understanding how it conceptually works and having access to F/OSS software and code for noise cancellation and such. The full Dirac stack makes more sense over a homebrew setup with ART because it's genuinely a novel application.

 

[sweetchaos]

The ART beta testing phase is completed. ART is fully compatible with AVRs starting from X3800H and up and It's now up to Masimo to decide when to release the FW (It should be sometime this year after April).

This was posted in January.

It's the end of June now and still no news of this, eh?

 

[dlaloum]

This was posted in January.

It's the end of June now and still no news of this, eh?

Reading the StormAudio ART forums, the product does work as designed, but it seems to me that there is a lot of potential optimisation still to come in the user interface, and the bass management area...

Things like where should the primary bass signal come from? a single LFE sub? Every bass capable speaker (including full range speakers) ? what about bass in the individual base channels - should it be reproduced by full range speakers, and be directional, or should it be mixed into all bass capable speakers and treated as non directional?

How many of these questions / options are in the hands of Dirac, and how many in the hands of AVR/AVP manufacturers is unclear - also how best to optimise given the many possible configurations, and which speakers to have as support (or not)...

And how to make all this reasonably easy to use, for a wide consumer marketplace, rather than a specialised tool for audio consultants.

I am certain Dirac is struggling with this (and perhaps delaying due to some software redesigns as a result) - but manufacturer involvement/beta program may also be driving some of this.

 

[pogo]

still no news of this, eh?

The problems are explained transparently here:

 

[just1n]

The problems are explained transparently here:

Anything for those of us who don’t speak French to take away from it?

 

[Oddball]

Wait and see is always a prudent approach . When ART comes to other brands, we will hear what they eventually managed to achieve.

I am not really interested where they are with development, rather just the final outcome. Would rather spend 90 minutes doing something useful. If some non-French speakers are interested, one could set the Youtube interface to generate sub-titles and auto-translate them to the language of your choice. Will not be entirely accurate, but you will get most of it.

 

[virusinho]

The problems are explained transparently here:

Fed this video to neural networks and listened to what it was about. To be honest - it gives almost no answers to our questions, all the words said in this video are just speculations of the participants of this stream.

Here's a small excerpt of what I realized:
1) A Stormaudio specialist is confident that ART won't appear on other brands until the end of 2024.
2) ART processing requires more resources from AVR processing side.
3) The problem of other brands may be the low level of technical support for users. (The Stormaudio expert tried to variously say marketing nonsense about their company providing the highest level of support and working with Dirac to refine ART).

My concerns are only with point 2. I really hope that the processor power of the X800 will not be a problem for ART processing, otherwise D\M may introduce support only in the conditional x900.

 

[Oddball]

Eventually it will depend on Dirac what they include in terms of processing features and how they write the code will translate into DSP processor load. I am definitively for advancement and new room correction software, but the whole ART story shows how difficult it is for small companies to support such process even when they have some kind of "core" tech to develop.

It is in Dirac's best financial interest to take our money, but it does not seem like that is going to happen soon. I am patient though, and appreciate the time it takes to develop a solid product. I would rather have a complex ART that can do all that Audy can (including import of REW filters) plus the phase/timing alignment of all speakers and the famous cancelations. Anything short of that would really not meet my expectations after all this time this thing was being developed.

 

[Aaronb1138]

Fed this video to neural networks and listened to what it was about. To be honest - it gives almost no answers to our questions, all the words said in this video are just speculations of the participants of this stream.

Here's a small excerpt of what I realized:
1) A Stormaudio specialist is confident that ART won't appear on other brands until the end of 2024.
2) ART processing requires more resources from AVR processing side.
3) The problem of other brands may be the low level of technical support for users. (The Stormaudio expert tried to variously say marketing nonsense about their company providing the highest level of support and working with Dirac to refine ART).

My concerns are only with point 2. I really hope that the processor power of the X800 will not be a problem for ART processing, otherwise D\M may introduce support only in the conditional x900.

I would doubt #2 since beta ART firmware is already running on D&M x800 and A1 platforms. Frankly, I would expect the x800 and Storm Audio gear use the same DSP / SoC model for processing Dirac / Audyssey, especially given the timing of the Stormaudio vs D&M betas. IIRC, the D&M beta firmware is already running ART about an octave higher bandwidth of correction than the originally targeted 150Hz. It's always been a thing with the boutique brands / tiers to say they use higher end components which usually turns out to be bs when it comes to the silicon / digital side of things.

Any pivot to "needs a new AVR model / line" with ART working in the field on existing x800s is because vendors perceive the current models as cannibalizing future sales they feel entitled to of their new models. Me personally, I'll dump ever buying anyone's AVR ever again and just go the PC + DAC + class D amps route for EQ and RC and never touch the rest of the industry again. Market segmentation and forced obsolescence are both pet peeves of mine. I'm good with the 3800 having worse SINAD and lower power amps than the 4800 or A1H for example, but with the same processors in both, it would be unacceptable to have fewer software driven features, like ART functionality.

The PC route was the direction I was leaning to build out when ART showed up and was a compelling offering for me to upgrade to a more modern AVR since it will be some time before an ART analog is worked out with current filter creation software or a competing commercial offering. Everything else up through bass management is solved with multiple different software options available. This setup IMO should be the DIYer reference piece and primer for how far you can go with off the shelf components.

 

[Frank207be]

I saw the whole video and found it educational except the Storm fanboy-ism and them looking down on the other brands.

One change that I've already decided for my personal HT is building a stronger sub section in front of the room to get deeper infrasonics. I'll build 6x 18" in V-shape boxes so they fit in the space from floor to ceiling. They'll be accompanied with 6x 15" of the LCR speakers from 40Hz, all sealed. Both my dual 21" rear subs will do support from about 25Hz to 100Hz to avoid localisability. The surround speakers will also be much beefier with targeted support frequency of 50Hz.

 

[Oddball]

I saw the whole video and found it educational except the Storm fanboy-ism and them looking down on the other brands.

One change that I've already decided for my personal HT is building a stronger sub section in front of the room to get deeper infrasonics. I'll build 6x 18" in V-shape boxes so they fit in the space from floor to ceiling. They'll be accompanied with 6x 15" of the LCR speakers from 40Hz, all sealed. Both my dual 21" rear subs will do support from about 25Hz to 100Hz to avoid localisability. The surround speakers will also be much beefier with targeted support frequency of 50Hz.

I would not build anything in expectation of ART as we simply have no clue what it will do. As of now it does not support EQ below 20hz. I have a really nasty room mode at 15hz (+15dB) and to me any system that can't handle this mode is pretty much useless as my room can't handle mega SPL at 15hz. Even with Audy, I have to extend the cut-down range to 25dB to get rid of it completely.

Gene the Audioholics had Storm 24 for 2 or more years now, and is not running either DLBC or ART as it does not cater to his mega bass fronts system. I have two friends in ME with even bigger HT systems and they also run it on PEQ REW filters with Storm bass management options.

Obviously, there are other solutions for bass management and getting more capable speakers and more subs was always the name of the game for the high-end systems.

If I was doing a substantial investment in subs right now and had a dedicated HT room, I would probably go Trinnov and Waveforming as that seems to work based on the feedback on the forums and reviews. It is also based on the double-bass array concept that has been around for a while. I am to audition it later in July and really interested in how it will sound, although currently don't have a room to accommodate this kind of setup.

 

[pogo]

News (use YT translator, if necessary):

 

[Frank207be]

News (use YT translator, if necessary):

So we still need to wait more than a year

 

[Frank207be]

From an interview with Mathias Johansson on July 2nd:

ART coming out to more accessible systems step by step.
ART is very advanced tech and Dirac wants to make sure it's easy enough to set up for everyone.
ART is getting very good feedback on the results and Dirac is looking forward to seeing more systems out there with it.

Meanwhile DLBC is really really useful and it's less computational demanding.

So in short the delay is because they're working on the software AND buying stronger computers?

 

[PHD]

News (use YT translator, if necessary):

Summary of the Dirac ART part of the video (starting at 29:18):

Dirac ART certification is currently not possible. Denon & Marantz
will resume implementation once certification is possible again. Most
likely this will be the case in H2 2025.

Other interesting Dirac improvements are coming later this year
but he didn't give more details.

3800, 4800, and 6800 are confirmed to be able to run Dirac ART.
The best guess for Dirac ART availability on Denon & Marantz: fall 2025.


So there is a slight delay but it is coming and most likely once it does, ART will be more developed and a mature technology with the correction being extended to 250Hz.

 

[AudioJester]

Summary of the Dirac ART part of the video (starting at 29:18):

Dirac ART certification is currently not possible. Denon & Marantz
will resume implementation once certification is possible again. Most
likely this will be the case in H2 2025.

Other interesting Dirac improvements are coming later this year
but he didn't give more details.

3800, 4800, and 6800 are confirmed to be able to run Dirac ART.
The best guess for Dirac ART availability on Denon & Marantz: fall 2025.


So there is a slight delay but it is coming and most likely once it does, ART will be more developed and a mature technology with the correction being extended to 250Hz.

Dirac ART had me thinkinh of upgrading my AVR, but did not commit till confirmed and available. Was thinking of getting a 3800/4800.
If we are now looking at Fall 2025 (probably more delays?) for dirac ART on D&M, when will the next gen Denon x900 appear?

 

[TimoJ]

when will the next gen Denon x900 appear?

Fall 2025...? Maybe D&M will include basic Dirac on their next models? Current price for full Dirac package (inc. future ART) is too high vs. what 3800/4800 costs.

 

[PHD]

Again, the X900 series will not be announced before Q4 2025. It will bring some major updates, especially to the HEOS system, which will carry a new marketing name (HEOS+ ?) and will add Roon-ready multichannel support including lossless quality to all major streaming services as well as Atmos music and multichannel PCM and DSD over network.