Post-DIRAC Live ART Calibration - Lack of Bass

[Oddball]

With bass, there are two aspects that affect our perception of how much bass there is: its amplitude, and its decay. The louder the bass region is, or the longer the decay, the more bass we subjectively perceive. You can probably guess where I am going with this one.

I do not have ART, but I do have different DSP profiles where I can have longer decay or shorter decay. And of course, it is a cinch for me to dial up the subwoofers and get more bass. Subjectively, increasing the volume of the subwoofers changes the tonality and the bass seems way too loud and overdone. However, increasing the decay does not have the same effect! Up to a certain point, bass feels more full and more ample. Go beyond it, and bass seems "slow" and "muddy". If the bass decays too fast, it seems "thin", as if there are no subwoofers at all. At no point does the tonality seem to change.

I am not aware of any psychoacoustic studies that have looked at this phenomenon, probably because you need an anechoic chamber that remains anechoic down to 20Hz and I don't think there are many such chambers in the world.

So I very much suspect that the reason you guys are complaining that there is a "lack of bass" with ART is because ART is working as intended. By reducing the decay, it sounds subjectively thin. I would be curious to hear what you guys think about boosting the low bass volume by 10dB to compensate, in my experience it sounded off.

Very good points as usual.

ART gives you ability to boost the low end by max +12dB. That is probably for a reason as it has been in development for many years. How I interpret it is that beyond that ART would be less effective, which Dirac does not want to offer as default. Also at that point it seems that detail in the rest of the range would be starting to get "masked" by overwhelming bass. +12dB boost seems to be plenty for many (most?) around, and +12dB curve might also be overwhelming with soundtracks that have been mastered hot in the low end.

Poor bass might be a function of not setting ART right. Setting the curve on subs will affect the subs but not when subs are assisting other channels, at least in my experience. Getting a sensible +bass curve on other channels is the other side of the coin as not all mega bass is coded in the LFE. Gets complicated as this needs to be done sensibly and in line with support range, support intensity and capabilities of those speakers. When boosting my subs by +10 or +12dB, I boost bed channels by +7dB. For lower sub boost, they are at +5dB. Support range for beds is 50-150 at -18dB. Separate topic though.

Boosting the subs post ART calibration is possible, but will slowly take away ART benefits. Perhaps a few dB added on the sub gain post calibration will not mess up things too much, but +10dB certainly would. I recently tested my system in the spur of the moment to see how loud it can get. Master volume was at max +5dB as rest is taken by Dirac as the headroom. Subs were turned up +12dB to their ART calibrated level via sub gain/DSP. It was the end of days and sounded so exciting that I was not really able to evaluate overall sound quality. The SPL was overall to high and bass so overwhelming that all you really notice is bass and perhaps dialogue. I could not even hear distortion that for sure was very present at these volumes.I could also not hear my room rattling that happens at some 23hz, but was for sure present in spades.

Theoretically in this case you would have 115dB sub peaks plus 5db from above reference level, plus 12dB from Dirac, plus 12dB from the sub boost which would take you to 145dB. Luckily my subs have DSP that limited that to max of 130-ish dB. However the bass was still more powerful with +12dB boost at sub level as the 130dB limitation did not kick in with non-peak bass signal.

People should be careful with bass boost as we did have instances of distortion and clipping somewhere in the system. I have tried to push my system many times before in small increments so was at least 70/30 sure that this would work. It did, but thinking back there was no real point for the exercise except understanding that there is a lots of headroom in the system.

EDIT: Pls don't try the extreme SPL workout in your systems, except if really confident in your system and push it gradually. Very easy way to blow up your system or at least some components. While my confidence level was high due to similar exercise at reference level, there was still was a risk.

 

[dlaloum]

ART sets the target curve to 0db in the low-end after the initial measurements and the rest of the the target curve is based on the speakers themselves(i think).
So you end up with "your speakers without a house curved low-end with a cleaned up 20-150hz".
It is a fantastic template to work with, can freely shape the the sound to how you subjectively want it.

What kinda irritates me about Denon is Direct mode.
Can't run ART with Direct mode, ie the only mode to get pure 2.0, 5.1, 7.1 etc.
I'm left with only running Upmixing mode or Stereo.

So as of right now my ART Wide calibrated setup now works great Dolby Surround Upmixing.
For pure music listening I need to make my own ART Narrow calibration and make a dedicated curve just for that and assign that to "Stereo" mode.

You can run multi channel mode... keeps ART active and each channel goes to its speaker...

 

[Vaporizer3644]

You can run multi channel mode... keeps ART active and each channel goes to its speaker...

Ey thanks!
I went through every mode and found "AUTO" under direct which does what i want!

 

[RobMedina]

I realize this is an older thread but I was having a similar issue in a way. However, I wanted more and I had read people boosting from 3-12db.

Then I started thinking if that were post ART calibration wouldn't that screw up art? I boosted 6db yesterday and of course my bass became a lot more impactful but if I understood this thread correctly, this is not the proper approach and I'm screwing up ART? For reference I have 3 JTR Captivator 4000s with upgraded amps and four nearfield 12" subsso I know it's not the subs that are lacking. Thanks in advance.

 

[Oddball]

I realize this is an older thread but I was having a similar issue in a way. However, I wanted more and I had read people boosting from 3-12db.

Then I started thinking if that were post ART calibration wouldn't that screw up art? I boosted 6db yesterday and of course my bass became a lot more impactful but if I understood this thread correctly, this is not the proper approach and I'm screwing up ART? For reference I have 3 JTR Captivator 4000s with upgraded amps and four nearfield 12" subsso I know it's not the subs that are lacking. Thanks in advance.

You increase bass levels with ART by doing curves of shelves, then exporting to AVR/AVP. That should be done to some extent for all channels/groups (assume that subs support each group) not just for subs as adjustments are independent. So for example I do have couple of presets from +2 to +12 shelf in 2 dB increments for the subs and a bit less for other speakers (+5 to +7). +12 is the max bass boost for ART. With all the subs you have, I'd be surprised if you would not be able to reach thunderous levels of bass with shelves.

Any post ART additions will screw up ART. For D&M levels are locked, but one could still boost the sub gain. However that is not the right way to do it.

 

[smygolf]

You increase bass levels with ART by doing curves of shelves, then exporting to AVR/AVP. That should be done to some extent for all channels/groups (assume that subs support each group) not just for subs as adjustments are independent. So for example I do have couple of presets from +2 to +12 shelf in 2 dB increments for the subs and a bit less for other speakers (+5 to +7). +12 is the max bass boost for ART. With all the subs you have, I'd be surprised if you would not be able to reach thunderous levels of bass with shelves.

Any post ART additions will screw up ART. For D&M levels are locked, but one could still boost the sub gain. However that is not the right way to do it.

I can change lvl on any ch post calibration if i would like to - Marantz cinema 50

Might have been patched since i last looked.

 

[Oddball]

I can change lvl on any ch post calibration if i would like to - Marantz cinema 50

Might have been patched since i last looked.

They are grayed out on my AV10, I am one or two firmwares behind the current one though. If new firmware does it then definitely worth upgrading. I usually do only when some new meaningful feature becomes available.

 

[smygolf]

They are grayed out on my AV10, I am one or two firmwares behind the current one though. If new firmware does it then definitely worth upgrading. I usually do only when some new meaningful feature becomes available.

The receiver is set to auto update and Dirac is the second newest.
I will check today if i still can do it.

 

[RobMedina]

You increase bass levels with ART by doing curves of shelves, then exporting to AVR/AVP. That should be done to some extent for all channels/groups (assume that subs support each group) not just for subs as adjustments are independent. So for example I do have couple of presets from +2 to +12 shelf in 2 dB increments for the subs and a bit less for other speakers (+5 to +7). +12 is the max bass boost for ART. With all the subs you have, I'd be surprised if you would not be able to reach thunderous levels of bass with shelves.

Any post ART additions will screw up ART. For D&M levels are locked, but one could still boost the sub gain. However that is not the right way to do it.

Thanks so much, I have a lot of learning to do but I really hate software and configuring things. I've been a hardware guy since the 90s. I will definitely be learning more.

For those with lots of experience with Dirac, does anyone know if a faster PC makes calibrations quicker? I currently borrow a laptop and it works but it's not great so I will be buying my own soon, I just wonder if it's worth spending more on a better one.

 

[TimoJ]

For those with lots of experience with Dirac, does anyone know if a faster PC makes calibrations quicker?

No. DLBC calculations are quicker with fast machine but not ART.

 

[kawauso]

I realize this is an older thread but I was having a similar issue in a way. However, I wanted more and I had read people boosting from 3-12db.

Then I started thinking if that were post ART calibration wouldn't that screw up art? I boosted 6db yesterday and of course my bass became a lot more impactful but if I understood this thread correctly, this is not the proper approach and I'm screwing up ART? For reference I have 3 JTR Captivator 4000s with upgraded amps and four nearfield 12" subsso I know it's not the subs that are lacking. Thanks in advance.

If you apply post-processing after ART, the balance will be slightly disturbed, so I do not think it is the technically ideal method. That said, I personally sometimes raise my subwoofer gain by +10 dB and simply enjoy the huge sound from the subs.

Sometimes, louder bass is more enjoyable than perfectly accurate bass.

The JTR Captivator 4000 is a wonderful subwoofer. I also use multiple JTR subwoofers, and I really like them.

Since JTR subwoofers do not have app-based adjustment, I use a miniDSP Flex HTx for setup. It is convenient because I can adjust all the subwoofers together, and it also has a remote control.

You increase bass levels with ART by doing curves of shelves, then exporting to AVR/AVP. That should be done to some extent for all channels/groups (assume that subs support each group) not just for subs as adjustments are independent. So for example I do have couple of presets from +2 to +12 shelf in 2 dB increments for the subs and a bit less for other speakers (+5 to +7). +12 is the max bass boost for ART. With all the subs you have, I'd be surprised if you would not be able to reach thunderous levels of bass with shelves.

Any post ART additions will screw up ART. For D&M levels are locked, but one could still boost the sub gain. However that is not the right way to do it.

Good day to you. I have posted here again after a long time.

In my system, with only Dirac’s shelf boost, the subwoofers do not get extremely loud even when I turn the AVR volume up to the maximum. So recently I tried adding +10 dB to the subwoofer gain, and it was really impressive.

Some tracks where I had previously felt the taiko drums were a little weak suddenly sounded as if the drums were being struck right in front of me.

 

[Oddball]

If you apply post-processing after ART, the balance will be slightly disturbed, so I do not think it is the technically ideal method. That said, I personally sometimes raise my subwoofer gain by +10 dB and simply enjoy the huge sound from the subs.

Sometimes, louder bass is more enjoyable than perfectly accurate bass.

The JTR Captivator 4000 is a wonderful subwoofer. I also use multiple JTR subwoofers, and I really like them.

Since JTR subwoofers do not have app-based adjustment, I use a miniDSP Flex HTx for setup. It is convenient because I can adjust all the subwoofers together, and it also has a remote control.


Good day to you. I have posted here again after a long time.

In my system, with only Dirac’s shelf boost, the subwoofers do not get extremely loud even when I turn the AVR volume up to the maximum. So recently I tried adding +10 dB to the subwoofer gain, and it was really impressive.

Some tracks where I had previously felt the taiko drums were a little weak suddenly sounded as if the drums were being struck right in front of me.

Welcome back Kawauso. We missed you.

I did the same exercise a while back and with +10 gain on the subs and max +5dB volume, subs were really tearing the whole place apart. As you say, not ART bass, but the sheer power of it is humbling. And of course, I only have the baby subs compared to your JTRs