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.
Last edited:
