Verifying Dirac Room Correction with REW

[pogo]

For me, devices with an impedance setting would generally fall out and I would prefer class-D devices, such as the upcoming NAD T799.

 

[Keith_W]

Yeah, if we ever get it. So, so annoyed at Denon and Dirac. Traded in my x3800 for a x4800 just to get Dirac ART when they promised they'd release it after the exclusive with Storm Audio ended in Oct of 2023. Almost a year and a half later and we still don't have it, yet Denon and Dirac have announced a car stereo project with Volvo that used it.

You can keep holding your breath. There was a rather entertaining thread on Audioholics where people asked Gene when they would do their Dirac ART review. Look at the date of the first post (Oct 2023). After some time, Gene replied and said that "the situation is complex" and he is working with Dirac to sort it out (a polite way of saying "I can't get the damned thing to work, and neither can Dirac"). The thread grew to some 4-5 pages long with people accusing Gene of hiding information and corruption. Bans were handed out. And it looks like some moderator has sanitised that thread so it's now only one page and all the fun stuff got deleted. That thread made arguments on ASR look tame by comparison.

Car stereo is different to homes. The listening position is always fixed, and once you dial the DSP in for one model, the acoustics remain the same for every car they sell. Furthermore, the measurements are taken by professionals with known equipment. Once the DSP profile has been created, Dirac needs to make no further effort and they collect license fees for every car that is sold with the system.

For home audio, a different DSP profile has to be created for every individual listening room. The users are normal schmucks with minimal knowledge of DSP and acoustics, and some might be using those awful puck-style microphones that come with AVR's which are absolutely worthless. People already run into problems with "normal" non-ART Dirac and write to customer support to complain. The software has to optimised to make decisions on behalf of the user, rather than have a trained tech from Dirac look at the measurements and hand-tune the optimisation as it would be for cars.

If you were Dirac, which market would you prioritise? The one that makes you a lot of money for minimum effort, or the one that makes you less money for maximum effort? I have a suspicion that Dirac aren't serious about ART for homes and HT. If they WERE serious, Gene would have his Dirac ART fixed and his review would be out by now. They may have introduced it to bump up their value in the recent Sound United and Masimo shenanigans. And then Dirac's former CEO and founder, Matthias Johanson, left Dirac and joined Harman.

I have seen some ART measurements from people who own Storm Audio products. Some can get it to work, some can't. For now, the complaints are limited to a small handful of people who can afford Storm Audio products. Just imagine what would happen if they released it to the rest of the Denon and Marantz line and suddenly thousands of people get their hands on it. They are right to be cautious. I would keep an eye on Audioholics since Gene would probably be one of the first to write about it ... if he can get the damned thing to work.

 

[gorman]

You can keep holding your breath. There was a rather entertaining thread on Audioholics where people asked Gene when they would do their Dirac ART review. Look at the date of the first post (Oct 2023). After some time, Gene replied and said that "the situation is complex" and he is working with Dirac to sort it out (a polite way of saying "I can't get the damned thing to work, and neither can Dirac"). The thread grew to some 4-5 pages long with people accusing Gene of hiding information and corruption. Bans were handed out. And it looks like some moderator has sanitised that thread so it's now only one page and all the fun stuff got deleted. That thread made arguments on ASR look tame by comparison.

They published this, though: https://www.audioholics.com/outdoor-speaker-reviews/focal-1000-utopia-speaker-review

 

[dlaloum]

You can keep holding your breath. There was a rather entertaining thread on Audioholics where people asked Gene when they would do their Dirac ART review. Look at the date of the first post (Oct 2023). After some time, Gene replied and said that "the situation is complex" and he is working with Dirac to sort it out (a polite way of saying "I can't get the damned thing to work, and neither can Dirac"). The thread grew to some 4-5 pages long with people accusing Gene of hiding information and corruption. Bans were handed out. And it looks like some moderator has sanitised that thread so it's now only one page and all the fun stuff got deleted. That thread made arguments on ASR look tame by comparison.

Car stereo is different to homes. The listening position is always fixed, and once you dial the DSP in for one model, the acoustics remain the same for every car they sell. Furthermore, the measurements are taken by professionals with known equipment. Once the DSP profile has been created, Dirac needs to make no further effort and they collect license fees for every car that is sold with the system.

For home audio, a different DSP profile has to be created for every individual listening room. The users are normal schmucks with minimal knowledge of DSP and acoustics, and some might be using those awful puck-style microphones that come with AVR's which are absolutely worthless. People already run into problems with "normal" non-ART Dirac and write to customer support to complain. The software has to optimised to make decisions on behalf of the user, rather than have a trained tech from Dirac look at the measurements and hand-tune the optimisation as it would be for cars.

If you were Dirac, which market would you prioritise? The one that makes you a lot of money for minimum effort, or the one that makes you less money for maximum effort? I have a suspicion that Dirac aren't serious about ART for homes and HT. If they WERE serious, Gene would have his Dirac ART fixed and his review would be out by now. They may have introduced it to bump up their value in the recent Sound United and Masimo shenanigans. And then Dirac's former CEO and founder, Matthias Johanson, left Dirac and joined Harman.

I have seen some ART measurements from people who own Storm Audio products. Some can get it to work, some can't. For now, the complaints are limited to a small handful of people who can afford Storm Audio products. Just imagine what would happen if they released it to the rest of the Denon and Marantz line and suddenly thousands of people get their hands on it. They are right to be cautious. I would keep an eye on Audioholics since Gene would probably be one of the first to write about it ... if he can get the damned thing to work.

Gene pointed out at one point, that ART was working fine with typical bass limited main speakers, but had issues when integrating full range speakers.... and that as full range mains is what he has in his main system, he is waiting for those issues to be resolved...

An important detail for me, as I run full range speakers for 4 of my 5 base layer speakers

However, as you point out, I too doubt that Dirac are throwing all the resources they could at "AV" Art... the best RoI is elsewhere, so our part of the market is probably getting starved of resources...

Still there have been consistent mentions of a 2025 release....

 

[dlaloum]

They published this, though: https://www.audioholics.com/outdoor-speaker-reviews/focal-1000-utopia-speaker-review

Two things worthy of note (with regards to ART)

1) The main base layer speakers are bass constrained and dependent on subs... not full range
2) A perfect complement for Dirac ART...

Which is not inconsistent with his previous reporting of issues with full range speakers