Sound United U 30 Update (Denon X3800H / X4800H / A1H, Marantz Cinema 50 / 40 / AV 10)

[multisport4me]

The license is tied to you and the unit. You can transfer the "you" part to the new owner of the unit. In my case, when I log into Dirac, I still see the DLBC license but it says that it was transfered to the email address of the owner that bought my HTP-1.

If I were to sell my AV10 to you I suppose I could do it without selling the license and/or simply not requesting Dirac transfer the license to you. But even if I did, to my knowledge, I will not be able to re-apply that to a C40 if I decided to buy one of those to replace my AV10.

It sucks but it is what it is. Leading edge software cost real money to develop and that means a premium is likely to be commanded when they sell licenses for that software. Especially in a niche, low volume market like these high end AV processors and AVRs.

 

[multisport4me]

I'm agreeing with you. I was hoping that DLBC was somehow earlier than promised, so that we'd get ART potentially early next year. If DLBC is still next year, who knows how long it'll be until ART comes out.

I'm holding out hope they'll surprise us and release DLBC by end of 2023. They were way ahead of initial ship-dates on the Cinema Series and have hit Dirac spot on the promise date. And it seems we're saying the same thing - we hope they use this window of time where Storm has exclusivity to accelerate getting DLBC rolled out. Fingers crossed as I love DLBC multi. ART is too early for me to tell that I want it so badly I'll pay whatever premium we'll need to pay to have it.

 

[ArturoKiwi]

In another thread someone wrote that Dirac request the MAC address of the unit. So I think that is as per Audessey license (the 200€ one), that is binded to the unit

 

[peng]

The license is tried to the unit. They will transfer it to the new owner if you sell the piece. I did it with my HTP-1 with no issues.

I am not trying to contradict you, but if you have to transfer it to the new owner, then isn't it really tied to the owner/person. As Flavio said, it is associated "also" to the unit, but he has an "if" there..

That is, if you want the new owner to be able to use DL, you have to ask Dirac to reassign, i.e. transfer the license. I supposed the original owner has the option to sell the unit but keep the license, so that he can used it on another D+M unit such as the C40, or Denon's 4800? Flavio, please confirm if this is an option (that is, sell without the license, and use it on another compatible model/unit but not necessarily the exact same model?), thank you.

 

[enricoclaudio]

I am not trying to contradict you, but if you have to transfer it to the new owner, then isn't it really tied to the owner/person. As Flavio said, it is associated "also" to the unit, but he has an "if" there..

That is, if you want the new owner to be able to use DL, you have to ask Dirac to reassign, i.e. transfer the license. I supposed the original owner has the option to sell the unit but keep the license, so that he can used it on another D+M unit such as the C40, or Denon's 4800? Flavio, please confirm if this is an option (that is, sell without the license, and use it on another compatible model/unit but not necessarily the exact same model?), thank you.

+1 and also, what about if the original unit gets damaged and it's replaced by D&M under warranty? A replacement unit will have for sure a different Mac address. @Flak ?

 

[Music707]

I wish I were wrong, but it seems to me that one cannot use one Dirac profile for stereo and one Dirac profile for surround on the same AVR. Wanting separate profiles for stereo/surround would require to use Dirac for one and Audyssey for the other.

Edit: Wrong idea. My bad.

 

[enricoclaudio]

I wish I were wrong, but it seems to me that one cannot use one Dirac profile for stereo and one Dirac profile for surround on the same AVR. Wanting separate profiles for stereo/surround would require to use Dirac for one and Audyssey for the other.

2ch Playback should work for both, Dirac and Audyssey:

 

[multisport4me]

I am not trying to contradict you, but if you have to transfer it to the new owner, then isn't it really tied to the owner/person. As Flavio said, it is associated "also" to the unit, but he has an "if" there..

That is, if you want the new owner to be able to use DL, you have to ask Dirac to reassign, i.e. transfer the license. I supposed the original owner has the option to sell the unit but keep the license, so that he can used it on another D+M unit such as the C40, or Denon's 4800? Flavio, please confirm if this is an option (that is, sell without the license, and use it on another compatible model/unit but not necessarily the exact same model?), thank you.

Oh trust me, I hope you're right - I can keep the Dirac Live full range license and use it for another D&M product.

As far as license transfer - I'm only telling you what I experienced when I sold my HTP-1. Dirac wanted the email address of the buyer and I'm guessing he received something from them confirming that his HTP-1 has a DLBC multi license attached to it and assigned to his email. I'm guessing the email is just for him to be able to log in to his own account but the license is attached to the hardware. When I log into my Dirac account I still see the license for DLBC but it says something like "transfered to [email protected]"

 

[peng]

Oh trust me, I hope you're right - I can keep the Dirac Live full range license and use it for another D&M product.

As far as license transfer - I'm only telling you what I experienced when I sold my HTP-1. Dirac wanted the email address of the buyer and I'm guessing he received something from them confirming that his HTP-1 has a DLBC multi license attached to it and assigned to his email. I'm guessing the email is just for him to be able to log in to his own account but the license is attached to the hardware. When I log into my Dirac account I still see the license for DLBC but it says something like "transfered to [email protected]"

Okay thanks.

 

[Music707]

2ch Playback should work for both, Dirac and Audyssey:

View attachment 272028

Thank you for the reply, but that was not my concern. I would like to use Dirac for stereo and for surround and I am afraid that this is not possible.

Edit: Obviously Dirac will work correctly in stereo when the measurements have been done for multichannel. It took me a bit too long to understand. Thank you for the photo!

 

[multisport4me]

Thank you for the reply, but that was not my concern. I would like to use Dirac for stereo and for surround and I am afraid that this is not possible.

Really? I guess I'll have to try this. So if you change from DD Sur (for example) to stereo - without changing the speaker/amp config - the Dirac menu item is no longer selectable? I would think the measurements for the mains would still be there and Dirac would only get blown out by a change to the speaker/amp config (or bass changes like switching to LFE+Main).

 

[multisport4me]

Subjective comparison session one. As I suspected, the Audyssey and Dirac calibrations were very close to my ear. For some reason my center channel and mains sound much less muddied with Dirac. I will have to look at the Audyssey cal again to see if I mucked something up. I was expecting to hear tighter bass but instead the most noticeable differences were in the center channel and DTSX upmixer. Very odd. The ease of use and ability to whip up a Harman curve, etc. with Dirac is just a next level user experience over MultEQ-X...to me anyway. It's possible I did something wrong with the various filter tabs in MultEQ-X (e.g. tilt, low pass, etc. filters) that caused unintentional issues. I found MultEQ-X a PITA to create custom curves or import them.

That said, I was listening to various pieces of music (and couldn't stop...just couldn't stop smiling ear to ear) and then settled in to watch Ted Lasso. While doing that I remembered that Auro3D now support top heights, which I prefer vs. front heights. So I changed my front heights to top heights in custom speaker config and of course Dirac was no longer applicable. However, when I changed it back to front height, both Dirac cals were gone. Audyssey doesn't do this if I recall - as long as the speaker config matches what was measured, the Audyssey cal is available once again. Not a huge deal - likely a small bug that most people would never notice because the calibration is no longer valid if you change the speaker config....and who would do that other than me playing around with the AV10 while I'm supposed to be watching a show.

So first pass at comparing is inconclusive. There are many that can get good results from Audyssey. I simply don't have the patience for MultEQ-X and find Dirac just so much more intuitive and able to deliver consistently good results. It's worth the extra bucks to me. My first subjective listening comparison didn't do anything to change my opinion about the two - I prefer Dirac. I just didn't hear massive differences....and the center channel and improvement with DTSX neural perplex me. Not sure how this can be tested empirically but it sure would be cool if Amir or Gene could come up with a way to test the two techs head to head using their APs.

 

[enricoclaudio]

If my memory serve me well, what I liked the most about Dirac is that it makes my speakers sound more natural. Like there is no processing or DSP applied. Audyssey makes music sound processed and unnatural.

 

[Descartes]

Hopefully we will see DIRAC vs Anthem ARC Genesis comparisons

 

[multisport4me]

If my memory serve me well, what I liked the most about Dirac is that it makes my speakers sound more natural. Like there is no processing or DSP applied. Audyssey makes music sound processed and unnatural.

Much better said than I. I tried to avoid the "sounded like someone removed a wet blanket" type analogies - but you hit the nail on the head. There is something more natural about the Dirac calibration and something overprocessed sounding about Audyssey. But again, I'm sure I mucked up the custom curve with MultEQ-X.

 

[QSi]

+1 and also, what about if the original unit gets damaged and it's replaced by D&M under warranty? A replacement unit will have for sure a different Mac address. @Flak ?

I asked support that and they replied:
Flavio Fellah commented:

Hello,

thanks for reaching out.

No, in case the receiver is broken and is replaced by warranty you can contact us here and we will assign a license to your new AVR.

Kind regards and... good listenings

 

[peng]

Much better said than I. I tried to avoid the "sounded like someone removed a wet blanket" type analogies

I would use that to describe Dirac vs nothing, but not Dirac vs Audyssey. The difference between Dirac vs nothing is so apparent that it could be comparable to having a speaker upgrade, but that depends a lot on the contents. My experience is only with 2 ch Dirac pc standalone, have not compare it in multi-channel yet.

 

[PHD]

From a first-hand experience with a friend's X3800H, if you compare Audyssey with Dynamic EQ OFF to Dirac, you'll favor Dirac, but if you compare Audyssey with Dynamic EQ -ON to Dirac, you'll be biased to favor Audyssey because DEQ applies an EQ tweak, thus introducing a psychological factor. Only careful critical listening will reveal that although less dynamic and pronounced, bass is tighter and cleaner with Dirac and imaging is better (listened to Watter's Amused to death album which is Q-sound encoded and sounds much more spacious with Dirac than with Audyssey... Also bear in mind that Dirac does not apply any bass management yet until DLBC becomes available. Dirac offers 4 available slots for the X3800H, so you could create your own manual Dynamic EQ using 4 presets (the 5th preset is preserved for Audyssey).

 

[stren]

I wish they'd hurry up with DLBC. For me that's a gate to upgrading as I'm not going to bother buying until it's ready (in case the next gen product is out by then or they change their mind lol)

 

[multisport4me]

Thank you for the reply, but that was not my concern. I would like to use Dirac for stereo and for surround and I am afraid that this is not possible.

I checked this last night. While using a Dirac cal on Speaker Preset 2 I was easily able to pick either Stereo or simply push Direct (playing an 2-channel source) and the Dirac filter is still being used on both modes. I toggled between DD, DTS and Direct with no issues - Dirac is in fact still applied in stereo/2-channel direct modes.