What are the best full-range speakers to use with Dirac Live Bass Control?

[droid2000]

If you're using full-range speakers that can reproduce low frequencies, aren't you "wasting" the capabilities of these speakers' woofers? For example, in a 2.2 system with a Dirac crossover set at 80Hz, the woofers of the full-range speakers are mostly unused since Dirac avoids sending lower frequencies to them (I understand it’s not a sharp cutoff).

Can Dirac treat the woofers of bi-wired speakers as individual subwoofers? Then you have turned your 2.2 system into a 2.4 system. Or will the built-in crossover in the bi-wired speakers interfere?

Do active speakers have a configuration that would allow their woofers to act as independent subwoofers?

Or is the optimal solution to use full-range speakers that focus on the best reproduction of frequencies above the crossover point?

 

[Dj7675]

If you're using full-range speakers that can reproduce low frequencies, aren't you "wasting" the capabilities of these speakers' woofers? For example, in a 2.2 system with a Dirac crossover set at 80Hz, the woofers of the full-range speakers are mostly unused since Dirac avoids sending lower frequencies to them (I understand it’s not a sharp cutoff).

Can Dirac treat the woofers of bi-wired speakers as individual subwoofers? Then you have turned your 2.2 system into a 2.4 system. Or will the built-in crossover in the bi-wired speakers interfere?

Do active speakers have a configuration that would allow their woofers to act as independent subwoofers?

Or is the optimal solution to use full-range speakers that focus on the best reproduction of frequencies above the crossover point?

Dirac DLBC you set crossovers. With Dirac ART you don’t. Instead you set how low in frequency you want your speakers (and subs too) to support. Dirac handles the rest to get the most out of your speakers, subs etc. Not having to set crossovers for speakers/subs is one of the things that is really unique.

 

[droid2000]

Dirac DLBC you set crossovers. With Dirac ART you don’t. Instead you set how low in frequency you want your speakers (and subs too) to support. Dirac handles the rest to get the most out of your speakers, subs etc. Not having to set crossovers for speakers/subs is one of the things that is really unique.

That sounds perfect. But it looks like Dirac ART is only available on StormAudio devices at the moment. I need something that can run on a mac. Hopefully they will release a mac version before I have to decide on what speakers to buy next.

 

[Dj7675]

That sounds perfect. But it looks like Dirac ART is only available on StormAudio devices at the moment. I need something that can run on a mac. Hopefully they will release a mac version before I have to decide on what speakers to buy next.

That is correct but something to keep an eye on. Monoprice HTP1 and Denon/Marantz products sound like they will be added in the near future supporting ART.

 

[terryforsythe]

If you're using full-range speakers that can reproduce low frequencies, aren't you "wasting" the capabilities of these speakers' woofers?

This really depends on the speakers you are using. Some full range speakers will play low, but with a lot of distortion. Some, though, can play low with reasonable distortion levels.

The other thing to consider is the group delay of the speakers and subwoofer. If the speakers are ported, you probably are not going to be able to keep the speakers and subwoofer with proper phase alignment over the entire range they are overlapping. This will degrade the quality of the bass response of the overall system. If the speakers are sealed, it still is an issue, but not to the extent of the issue with ported speakers. You could use some DSP filtering to adjust the respective phase curves to get the speakers and subwoofer properly phase corrected, but that would take time, skill and a good DSP unit. Perhaps Dirac ART has features to do this automatically, but I don't know.