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

[enricoclaudio]

Regarding Audyssey DEQ, I was a big fan of DEQ because I listen mostly at low volume, like between -25dB to -35dB. With Dirac I haven't missed DEQ not even a single millisecond. I watched yesterday the whole S2 of Shadow and Bone and it sounded FANTASTIC with Dirac. Bass was plenty strong and very well define. Dialogs are crips and sharp without causing ear fatigue. Also listened to music while biking indoors, and same feeling. AURO 3D sounds amazing with Dirac, much better than with Audyssey. BTW, I'm not trying to convince anyone that Dirac is better than Audyssey but in my case, it is. I have ZERO regrets about paying $350 for the Dirac License. In fact, I think it was worthy and I will do it again if I decide to change my living room X4700H with another X4800H.

 

[peng]

No, they are NOT switched. That's what I get in my room. For Audyssey, I have mid range compensation turned OFF in all my speakers.

Good thing you clarified this, I thought they might have been reversed too, by mistake. Still, yours look very different than mine. I have never seem my Audyssey curve roll "up" instead of down, even Audyssey flat would not do that.. Very weird indeed. The green one looks more typical.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Good thing you clarified this, I thought they might have been reversed too, by mistake. Still, yours look very different than mine. I have never seem my Audyssey curve roll "up" instead of down, even Audyssey flat would not do that.. Very weird indeed. The green one looks more typical.

Audyssey: GREEN
Dirac: RED

 

[chych7]

Good thing you clarified this, I thought they might have been reversed too, by mistake. Still, yours look very different than mine. I have never seem my Audyssey curve roll "up" instead of down, even Audyssey flat would not do that.. Very weird indeed. The green one looks more typical.

My Audyssey curve rolled up with the stock mic I had. Switched to the calibrated ACM-1X and it fixed that. My stock mic was quite off from the base mic calibration.

In any case, I'd be more concerned with the Dirac curve and it rolling up, which is creating a bright response. The default curve should be sloping down, i.e.

Would also be good to include an uncorrected FR curve.

 

[peng]

My Audyssey curve rolled up with the stock mic I had. Switched to the calibrated ACM-1X and it fixed that. My stock mic was quite off from the base mic calibration.

In any case, I'd be more concerned with the Dirac curve and it rolling up, which is creating a bright response. The default curve should be sloping down, i.e.

View attachment 273384

Would also be good to include an uncorrected FR curve.

Okay then may be some of the stock mic would cause that but not mine. I have such mics, two from D and two from M, none behaved like that.

I have many Dirac curves (REW measured), none rolled up either, his seems even more weird in that sense, but he likes the sound so much so great for him regardless.

 

[Dj7675]

Audyssey: GREEN
Dirac: RED

View attachment 273383

I assumed green was Dirac too and Red was Audyssey. Interesting. One of the biggest flaws I always had with Audyssey is it just didn’t follow the target curve when verifying with post REWmeasurements. Even when I had a downward sloping target curve, it didn’t follow it and usually looked more like your red results. All of my post Dirac measurements have followed the target curve. I wonder if you did a spatially averaged measurement if it would show something different. Maybe a MMM measurement of the MLP head position (I am assuming the above is a single point measurement).

 

[enricoclaudio]

I assumed green was Dirac too and Red was Audyssey. Interesting. One of the biggest flaws I always had with Audyssey is it just didn’t follow the target curve when verifying with post REWmeasurements. Even when I had a downward sloping target curve, it didn’t follow it and usually looked more like your red results. All of my post Dirac measurements have followed the target curve. I wonder if you did a spatially averaged measurement if it would show something different. Maybe a MMM measurement of the MLP head position (I am assuming the above is a single point measurement).

Single measurement for each at MLP ear level. Same mic position as the first measurement for Audyssey and Dirac. I did 8 points calibration for Audyssey and 9 points calibration for Dirac. Audyssey with stock mic and Editor app and Dirac with UMIK-2 mic calibrated by CSL. REW measurements were taken with the same UMIK-2 mic. I will take some measurements today with my UMIK-1 mic from CSL to compare both mics measurements.

 

[Dj7675]

Single measurement for each at MLP ear level. Same mic position as the first measurement for Audyssey and Dirac. I did 8 points calibration for Audyssey and 9 points calibration for Dirac. Audyssey with stock mic and Editor app and Dirac with UMIK-2 mic calibrated by CSL. REW measurements were taken with the same UMIK-2 mic. I will take some measurements today with my UMIK-1 mic from CSL to compare both mics measurements.

Thanks for the info. It will be interesting with a MMM measurement to see if the results are the same in the high frequencies.

 

[broncogr]

The issue with the delays (distances) on Denon and Marantz should have been caught early on.
The way Dirac works with delays is that it sets the speaker with the highest delay, usually a subwoofer, at 0 then delays all other speakers to sync with it.
If you have a wireless adapter on a sub, the immediate delay is 15-25ms depending on the brand without taking into account physical distance and further DSP.
So, as can be easily derived, as Denon and Marantz, at the time, only offer a maximum delay of 20ms for a Dirac calibration, ALL speakers will be misaligned in the case that a wireless adapter is used for a sub or for any other speaker.
If this isn't fixed, Dirac will never be able to optiimize distances between speakers and is therefore unusable, as distances are wrong on the AVR

P.S. See the following that used to occur with Dirac on Onkyo receivers
Troubleshooting: By Firmware raise the 20ms delay limit on Onkyo - Dirac Live Support - Confluence

 

[enricoclaudio]

Having wireless adapters in subwoofers is not good. Convenience for some? Yes. Good idea? No. Wireless adapters can add as much as 40ms latency to the whole system. The best ones, will add as much as 10ms. Adding 45ms latency (delay) to the system will cause limp sync issues which with modern receivers can't be fixed because video processing is almost gone so there is no video processing latency, meaning, no need for Audio Delay function anymore as video and audio will sync properly. So best thing to do is getting rid of any wireless adapter and run a cable.

 

[broncogr]

Understood but,
Lets watch the Dirac tutorial from Storm audio

Fast forward to 14:39 (sorry for the blurry screenshot).

Dirac Delay column
Could you tell me how these delays can be achieved when D&M can only set a delay of up to 20ms?

 

[enricoclaudio]

Understood but,
Lets watch the Dirac tutorial from Storm audio

Fast forward to 14:39 (sorry for the blurry screenshot.

View attachment 273417

Dirac Delay column
Could you tell me how these delays can be achieved when D&M can only set a delay of up to 20ms?

I didn't say they can't be archived. What I said is that it's NOT a good idea having a system delay that high because it will introduce other issues like limp sync that can't be fixed.

 

[enricoclaudio]

My system is about 10ms delayed audio wise which is very good. I'm not noticing any audio/video off sync issues so far. BTW, I have a miniDSP 2x4 HD in the chain between the X4800H and my pair of Rythmik Audio E22s. The miniDSP 2x4 HD adds about 3ms latency.

 

[multisport4me]

I didn't say they can't be archived. What I said is that it's NOT a good idea having a system delay that high because it will introduce other issues like limp sync that can't be fixed.

Maybe a good rule of thumb. However, I use an REL Airship II on my back left rear sub and it doesn't seem to add much (No choice...there is a pool table in the way and no way to get cable over there in finished basement). Since Dirac distances are broken right now, I checked Audyssey and my back right sub is 25 ft via XLR wire and the back left sub connected via the REL is 28 ft wireless.

 

[multisport4me]

My system is about 10ms delayed audio wise which is very good. I'm not noticing any audio/video off sync issues so far. BTW, I have a miniDSP 2x4 HD in the chain between the X4800H and my pair of Rythmik Audio E22s. The miniDSP 2x4 HD adds about 3ms latency.

View attachment 273422

Wow so the values work with Dirac if its less than 20ms? Mine are all 20ms so I thought that was part of the bug and that it wasn't calculating distance at all. Interesting. Hoping they fix it soon.

 

[broncogr]

Maybe a good rule of thumb. However, I use an REL Airship II on my back left rear sub and it doesn't seem to add much (No choice...there is a pool table in the way and no way to get cable over there in finished basement). Since Dirac distances are broken right now, I checked Audyssey and my back right sub is 25 ft via XLR wire and the back left sub connected via the REL is 28 ft wireless.

My back wireless sub is 24 feet (7.44m ) as measured in audyssey and produces the issue with the 20ms cap in Dirac

 

[broncogr]

Wow so the values work with Dirac if its less than 20ms? Mine are all 20ms so I thought that was part of the bug and that it wasn't calculating distance at all. Interesting. Hoping they fix it soon.

Yes, if all your values in Dirac are less that 20ms then there is no issue with delays

 

[enricoclaudio]

It's not a bug, it is just a limit Dirac put on delay. Like miniDSP does with the 2x4 which max delay is 8ms. The miniDSP 2x4 HD and FLEX delay limit is 80ms.

 

[broncogr]

It's not a bug, it is just a limit Dirac put on delay. Like miniDSP does with the 2x4 which max delay is 8ms. The miniDSP 2x4 HD and FLEX delay limit is 80ms.

It is a limit Denon and Marantz have put on the delay

 

[broncogr]

Once again from the Dirac FAQ regarding Onkyo

Troubleshooting: By Firmware raise the 20ms delay limit on Onkyo​

• Created by Daniel Larsen, last modified on Sep 29, 2022

Problem:​

Several of us have been wondering why our delay values weren't matching up to what the Impulse Response view showed they should be during the DL filter design process.
This is a huge problem for anyone running DSP or wireless transmitters in their sub channel, as delays easily can exceed the 20.0 ms value after DL correction. Then DL attempts to delay the other speakers to match this value, and they all get capped at the exact same 20.0ms amount. Leaving aside the problems in getting good sub/mains integration (where there's probably a little room for error), the bigger problem is that none of the rest of the speakers are correctly time aligned with each other, as they all need slightly different delays above 20 ms but all end up with the exact same values.


Finding out: If you select all speakers in the impulse response view (ctrl+ left click) it can be seen how large the delay of the subwoofer is.
The after response shows how Dirac Live would want to align the speakers. This will however not be possible due to the 20ms limitation.
The maximum 20 ms delay is assigned by the manufacturer and unfortunately, we cannot help with that, Onkyo needs to change this.

Solution:​

In the firmware on Onkyo devices there was a set limit on 20ms. We pushed Onkyo about this since Onkyo users had complained about this famous "bug" in the system.
Through the new firmware this limit it set to 50ms and the problem was solved.