We need your insights...

[Flak]

Hi everyone,

I’m here from Dirac. We’re always looking to improve our products and better understand the needs of audio enthusiasts like you. If you own compatible hardware but haven’t yet purchased Dirac Live, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’ve put together a quick survey to understand what’s holding you back. Your feedback will directly help us make Dirac Live more accessible and appealing to users like you.
All responses are anonymous and greatly appreciated!
Here's the link: https://netigate.se/ra/s.aspx?s=1308102X548098660X92169

Thanks in advance for your time. Looking forward to your insights!

 

[Oddball]

I have purchased Dirac including ART, and all things considered pretty happy.

Hanging around the forums, it is quite obvious what is the holdback. Price. Also, with people hearing stories about Bass Control and ART performance, standalone Dirac Live has lost a bit of its appeal.

My advice would be to lower the price of Dirac Live and accelerate development of new version of Dirac Live that would work even better with bass module handovers and tighten the spreads above that. New and improved version of Dirac Live could command the pricing at current levels, or few cents above it.

 

[Timcognito]

Dirac Dongle DAC size of a of deck of cards or smaller <$200.

 

[aedagnino]

I'm waiting for DIRAC Art to be available as a plugin...

 

[MarkS]

I don't have compatible hardware, but would buy some if I could get a system that does dual sub integration with the option of stereo bass.

 

[-Matt-]

How about attempting to increase range of hardware that is compatible? Could it be possible for (a possibly cut down version) of Dirac to run on older generations of Denon/Marantz AVRs? (They all support firmware updates and therefore have the potential for new functionality to be added).

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

@Keith_W

 

[TheKoC]

Have DLBC on PC, and like others hopefully awaiting ART support. The cost is not really siginificant for me, but I know is a hurdle for others, especially as free / low cost software is getting better and more enduser-friendly.

 

[Redacted]

In my other interest - guitars - a recent big thing has been amp and speaker modelling, in particular "NAM captures" but also IR files.
Obviously this all uses DSPs to do the work once the filters are determined. It kinda works, and lots of DSP-based kit is available (as low as£65) than can use the NAM files. I assume it's not a million miles from Dirac-type systems, and my point is that forum members who are curious may want to go and check it out for fun.

 

[Oddball]

I don't have compatible hardware, but would buy some if I could get a system that does dual sub integration with the option of stereo bass.

ART will have the option to do stereo bass - in its own way. Let's take example of 2.2 system. ART does not have traditional crossover based bass management (like all other room correction systems, bass control included), so there is no step to summon the subwoofer output to mono.

Full stereo bass setup would be to group each speaker separately, and then support L with L sub and R with right sub - without any cross support. This should provide complete separation of L/R and support of subs just for the co-located speaker.

Is this the best way? Not sure and it will depend on the room. Problem is that you are supporting speaker with co-located sub that would probably suffer from same room modes. If that does not work optimally (as e.g. in my setup), you can extend the support and have e.g. L supported by both subs and R with both subs. There are also parameters of support like range and intensity to play with and fine-tune. Lots of people with multi-channel systems opt for further support from other speakers and like that option better as both FQ response and decay tend to be better.

 

[Keith_W]

@Keith_W

Don't get me started. I'll tell you what I think privately, but not in the open forum.

 

[danadam]

My only insight is that the topic of this thread should be "We need your insights about Dirac"

 

[Sokel]

Silly remark, but true as I have seen around and talk to the average enthusiasts:

(remember, silly)

Absent of really high samplerate and DSD support, by far from the one side, the black-box nature of the corrections from the opposite, scrutinizing side.

I'm at no side, automated corrections is not my thing, so my opinion is a good as dirt.

 

[Snarfie]

Hi everyone,

I’m here from Dirac. We’re always looking to improve our products and better understand the needs of audio enthusiasts like you. If you own compatible hardware but haven’t yet purchased Dirac Live, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’ve put together a quick survey to understand what’s holding you back. Your feedback will directly help us make Dirac Live more accessible and appealing to users like you.
All responses are anonymous and greatly appreciated!
Here's the link: https://netigate.se/ra/s.aspx?s=1308102X548098660X92169

Thanks in advance for your time. Looking forward to your insights!

I’m curious how Dirac views the current and emerging competition in room correction DSP.

Tools like REW & Equalizer APO (free) and MathAudio Room EQ (for free with Foobar an a low cost systemwide solution) seem to achieve broadly similar correction results compared to commercial solutions, at least based on various user reports and measurements.

Comparison of DRCs: Dirac Live for Studio, IK Multimedia ARC System 3 and Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio edition

[MOD EDIT: This is a member contribution] Hi all, Lately I was playing a bit with digital room correction (DRC) SW to see if I can tame the bass in our living room with a pair of Revel M16 (no subs) so I thought it could be useful to share my findings. Some of my in-room measurements are...

www.audiosciencereview.com

At the same time, ASR is now seeing (for now) free solutions like Gsonic Reference, which lowers the barrier to entry for system wide room correction.

GSonic Reference – Free Stereo Room Correction Tool (Measurement + FIR Export)

I released a new tool yesterday and wanted to share it here: https://github.com/ObsessiveCompulsiveAudiophile/GSonic GSonic Reference is a cross-platform room/speaker correction tool for stereo systems. It includes built-in measurement capability and generates convolution filters (FIR) that...

www.audiosciencereview.com

How does Dirac differentiate itself in this increasingly open and partly free DSP systems?

Also, with the rise of AI based or user generated DSP tools in the near future, does Dirac see its approach evolving, or being challenged in a fundamental way?

 

[just1n]

I’d love auto updates to the Mac/PC application. I was having trouble getting it to work only to learn I was using an older versions and had to go online and download manually. Surprised there is no way to natively update within the app itself.

 

[MarkS]

ART will have the option to do stereo bass - in its own way. Let's take example of 2.2 system. ART does not have traditional crossover based bass management (like all other room correction systems, bass control included), so there is no step to summon the subwoofer output to mono.

Full stereo bass setup would be to group each speaker separately, and then support L with L sub and R with right sub - without any cross support. This should provide complete separation of L/R and support of subs just for the co-located speaker.

Is this the best way? Not sure and it will depend on the room. Problem is that you are supporting speaker with co-located sub that would probably suffer from same room modes. If that does not work optimally (as e.g. in my setup), you can extend the support and have e.g. L supported by both subs and R with both subs. There are also parameters of support like range and intensity to play with and fine-tune. Lots of people with multi-channel systems opt for further support from other speakers and like that option better as both FQ response and decay tend to be better.

So neither Dirac ART nor DLBC will do sub+speaker integration in each channel, correct?

If so, then I have no interest.

My subs would NOT be co-located with the main speakers, but would be in room-mode optimized locations that are still seperate enough for the stereo effect.

At a live symphony concert, double basses are clearly on the right. I want my system to reproduce that.

I don't think this is too much to ask.

 

[Oddball]

So neither Dirac ART nor DLBC will do sub+speaker integration in each channel, correct?

If so, then I have no interest.

My subs would NOT be co-located with the main speakers, but would be in room-mode optimized locations that are still seperate enough for the stereo effect.

At a live symphony concert, double basses are clearly on the right. I want my system to reproduce that.

I don't think this is too much to ask.

It looks like you have a bit different requirements that standard "stereo bass". What I said is that ART will do integration in each channel, according to your parameters, so you will get exactly what you wish for.

EDIT: BTW I don't work for free so at least you can like my post if you are asking me for my repeat opinion. Otherwise, I consider that a bit rude.

 

[kemmler3D]

Not an owner of compatible hardware unless a PC counts, but price is the single biggest obstacle. I'd be willing to spend some money to get ART, I think it's super interesting, but the price of entry is well into 4 figures (edit: I was confused because none of the "supported hardware" dropdowns mentioned computers... it's less than that). I also don't have space for any of the equipment that runs it, even if the money were a non-issue.

For context: My house was renovated in 2022 (before I bought it), and now has a ~8" alcove cut into the wall that's about exactly the size of a 77" LCD. There is no place to put an AVR or anything else. I have LS60s connected. There was a goofy little electric fireplace thing below the TV spot, I removed it and made a small cabinet out of it... it's got just enough room for a Nintendo Switch and a WiiM pro. Form factor is an issue, not just price.

If I could just run it on my PC and the price were closer to $100, I'd probably have bought it already.

As it is, I make do with simple PEQ for room correction.

If you want my opinion, at some point a PhD or Master's student is going to code up a free alternative to ART, and while the UX will inevitably be rougher, it's going to pull away everyone like me who doesn't own an AVR, is never going to buy one, but isn't scared of a little tinkering. Especially in the era of AI-driven software development...

And let's be clear, I'm 41 and I own a home, if I'm too young with too modern of a setup for Dirac, you might have a demographics problem? Partnerships with AVR brands an albatross? Dunno, just spitballing.

 

[MarkS]

EDIT: BTW I don't work for free so at least you can like my post if you are asking me for my repeat opinion. Otherwise, I consider that a bit rude.

I consider this quite rude, so I won't be engaging with you further.

 

[theREALdotnet]

At a live symphony concert, double basses are clearly on the right. I want my system to reproduce that.

I don't think this is too much to ask.

Double basses will not move to the left in the stereo image, just because you place the subwoofer on the left.