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Marantz Cinema 50 AVR Review
- Thread starter thin bLue
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Yes i have DIRAC Live now along with Audessy . Please check my comments in another forum.
I haven't tried my 2 subs with Dirac live directly, instead used minidsp HD to make it a s a single sub. I guess DLBM is still missing and hence it wont perform multisub corrections now. It might perform some gain level adjustments, but not time alignment between subs(this is my guess).
I tried with Audessy and it did a decent job but in crossover regions i had big problems, but minidsp was better in that case.
To my understanding in cinema series , minidsp is the way if we want a good alignement between subs for now.
Don't know audessy will improve on that, but DIRAC DLBM will be on Q2 2024 which might help.
With Audyssey, I found that you have to try different crossover for the smoothing response at below 100 Hz. In my case, 80 and 90 Hz crossover works much better than 60 and 70 Hz, no comparison. Found the same even with DLBC, have to change crossover from it's default 70 Hz to 85 or 90 Hz to avoid a major suck out. minidsp works but I have not try different mic position, though in theory it would work well at the mmp but could be worse than Audyssey/Dirac if you move your head even just a few inches.
Do you know which version of Dirac Live are they using (2 or 3)? Does it have bass control?
Dirac Live 3. No it dont have bass control in cinema 50.
I tried and it didnt helped. Please see some plots in another forum.
That's just another example that shows one cannot generalize, as performance could vary between different setups! In my case, 60 hz and 80 Hz made a big difference, with much less suck out in the deep base with XO=80 Hz. Will post graphs if I can find them.
Below is mine, variable smoothing, front right channel with two subs:
I used variable smoothing just so I could see the response up to 500 Hz.
You can see that if restricted the 200 Hz, there really not much difference between Audyssey and Dirac, based on the "as found" results, that is, no manual tweaks.
By the way, since you seem to have the LS50, we can compare, kind of...
I got rid of my AV8801 already at the time so I couldn't do the Audssey vs DL. but I might have some older graphs that I did compare the LS50 that way, only if I could find the graphs though.
Just found one for the LS50 (two channel setup), Audyssey vs DL, that's when I still have the Marantz, demoted to one of my two channel set up:
It seems consistent, in my experience in both the HT and two channel systems, that Audyssey would do better at the two range (say, below 150 Hz) but DL did better at the upper mid bass range. With DLBC, the gap will likely narrow, even reversed, in the lower mid bass range as well but I have limited collection of graphs for those comparison done way back and can't do more, since I traded in the Denon already.
It seems consistent, in my experience in both the HT and two channel systems, that Audyssey would do better at the two range (say, below 150 Hz) but DL did better at the upper mid bass range. With DLBC, the gap will likely narrow, even reversed, in the lower mid bass range as well but I have limited collection of graphs for those comparison done way back and can't do more, since I traded in the Denon already.
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It would be super interesting to add DLBC to check how the subwoofer integration works compared to Audyssey, but alas, we´ll have to wait for that.
Peng´s results perhaps can explain why many users say that they get a better detail as all the response looks a lot more even.
Peng´s results perhaps can explain why many users say that they get a better detail as all the response looks a lot more even.
I posted the DLBC vs no DLBC graphs but only with two subs acting as one. Given what I have, it is not possible to do it with .2 subs, not without more work that I don't want to do.
With Dirac, and with some contents, I felt like I just upgraded my speakers when used with Dirac on my desktop LS50 system.
Definitely go with Dirac but with two subs in my not too easy room, I would probably wait for DLBC, edit: except for experienced users who should be able to do some manual tweaking even without DLBC, to help integrating the subs . Until then, one can also invest $20 on the App and use Ratbuddyssey. That way I think anyone can invest less than two hours to dial in two subs, or four if can be grouped into two, equidistantly and can expect smoothing response than Dirac without DLBC. I think @chych7 (who also compared DL to Audy, and included more graphs) might share my view on this. Depending on the room and speakers, one may prefer to limit Audyssey to below 1,000 Hz or even 200 Hz and may have to experiment with different roll off for the highs to tame the often reported brightness introduced by Audyssey.
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I posted the following elsewhere, you can clearly see the effects of DLBC. I am sure that suck out can be improved if I spend more time adjusting the crossover. Based on the default crossover, while it still improved the suck out but probably not as good as Audyssey but I can't be sure because as at the moment it would not be an apples to apples comparison for reason I mentioned earlier.
I'd stick with Audyssey for now. DLBC is not available in Sound United brands until 2024 and will be priced at $500 for multisubs plus the cost of a Umik mic at a minimum. XT32 is free and at least has some sort of sub correction for up to 2 subs (although far from ideal) besides massively customizable with just a $20 app.
However, in the future when DLBC for multisubs is introduced into the lines and if you have 4 subs, this will be quite a sonic difference. Still, nothing you cannot manage with a miniDSP unit and a Umik with lots of manual labour.
And, unless something has changed and/or something I missed, Audyssey, Dirac ARCG etc., all work on the "listening bubble" basis so while the minidsp with REW/PEQ could help achieve a smooth/flat curve for the bass in the mlp, I am not sure if it helps much or at all in other spots, even a few inches to the left/right/up/down directions. I wish had measured such setup a few years ago when I played with that, now I don't feel like spending time on it to find out, got spoiled by today's much better RC, whether it is DL, Audy, or ARCG.
Am I understanding correctly that the DLBC is using one sub instead of 2 independent subs and Audyssey is using 2 independent subs in the comparison above?
Exactly my point about not being able to compare the two in apples to apples. Those graphs are for DL disabled versus DL without no BC versus DLBC, but because in my setup I cannot have my DLBC mapped to the AVM70 in .2 (two independent sub feeds), so the two subs were operating as one., still two subs but both got the same signal.
Audyssey's is not shown in that comparison graph but you can see the one in post#328, those two (green for Audyssey) are still not apples to apples because a) Audyssey's were .2 and b) Dirac's were the base version so no BC at all, and therefore it was basically hybrid, FL/FR corrected by Dirac while Sub1/Sub2 corrected by Audyssey.
For owners of the X4800H, they can easily use REW to compare the two on apples to apples basis, and Audyssey would have the edge in the case of multiple subs, at least in theory. I suspect Dirac, without BC, will still sound better overall, especially for music listening.
Thanks.
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