Game Changer! Dirac Officially Unveils Active Room Treatment (ART) Technology

(January 5, 2023). Just a few short days into the new year and Dirac, makers of the popular Dirac Live Room Correction suite, has launched a game-changing home audio technology. Its new “Active Room Treatment” or ART delivers a layer of room correction designed to hone and control frequencies up to 300Hz by leveraging each speaker deployed in a room. The company is debuting and demoing the technology at CES, and says it will begin shipping ART on StormAudio products during spring of 2023. The technology will ultimately find its way to other brands and platforms, but a timetable has yet to be released.

ART is born from nearly 15 years of car audio research and Dirac’s use of Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) mixed-phase impulse response. The company’s first commercial MIMO-enhanced product, Dirac Dimension, was employed by BMW and Rolls Royce to give passengers access to a “more spacious” audio experience. Years later, a second version called Dirac Unison honed impulse response alignment within a car’s cabin, essentially allowing every speaker to contribute to each individual speaker’s output capabilities.

Dan Roemer (Perlisten), Rikard Hellerfelt (Dirac), Dr. Nilo Casimiro Ericsson (Dirac), Matt Trinklein (Storm), Olivier Thumerel (Storm)
Dirac says ART brings those automotive technologies to the home theater environment, but with a focus on low frequencies. The reasoning behind a frequency limitation is speaker position variability. ART-like technologies can correct up to 4kHz within a car's cabin because speaker positions are consistently fixed and known. Home theater environments are far less predictable and widely varied, which has led Dirac to limit ART’s application to 300 Hz and below (ART will only correct up to 150Hz at launch).

Mathias Johansson, Dirac’s Chief Product Officer explains, “Now, with Active Room Treatment we are moving beyond traditional room correction to actually reduce bass decay times digitally, without needing bass traps or thick layers of wall absorption. By actively optimizing and coordinating bass response characteristics from all the speakers in a system, our latest Dirac Live feature reduces decay times to provide an incredibly dense and transparent audio experience in any room."

Dirac says ART isn’t a standalone product, but rather a third layer to the Dirac Live experience. Users will still need to employ Dirac Live and Bass Control to manage both impulse response and subwoofer integration. ART then enters the picture to attack decay and reverb. The technology is capable of using every speaker, from bookshelf models to full-sized floorstanders, to achieve overall effectiveness.

Dirac Live Active Room Treatment will be included, at no additional fee, in all StormAudio Processors and AVRs ordered from January 1, 2023 onward and will be made available through a firmware update in Spring 2023. StormAudio products ordered before January 1st will be upgradeable with Dirac Live Active Room Treatment after the Spring 2023 firmware update and by purchasing a license from Dirac’s online store at $299.

“We have been a close Dirac partner since 2017 and have always been a pioneer in implementing their cutting-edge technologies successfully,” explained Olivier Thumerel, StormAudio’s CEO. “We were the first to introduce the Dirac Live Bass Control in 2020 and are now proud to be leading again with the release of Dirac Live Active Room Treatment. Our users have always praised the performance and results of calibrating with Dirac tools on our platform, and now we are able to raise it to the next level again in partnership with Dirac.”

As for equipment manufactured by other brands, the company says legacy gear running Dirac Live and Bass Control should have no issues running the technology.

Dirac is showcasing ART at CES 2023 using a 5.3 Perlisten speaker array directed by a StormAudio ISP MK3 processor. AV NIRVANA is scheduled for an opening day demo session, so stay tuned for more information.

 

[Todd Anderson]

 

[JStewart]

Did the folks at Dirac mention if the decay time is user adjustable?
It’s been said that even decay times are desirable, but perhaps that was because without this technology, having the lowest frequencies decay at the same rate as the upper was the best that could be achieved, and the psychoacoustic preference is actually unknown.

This video offers an opinion addressing my question, from a beta tester, Joe N Tell.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

what you’re hearing is a lack of lingering sound waves. That initial bass, however, still has power.

Similar to cardioid bass?
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13120
https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conferences/?elib=17270

 

[Kal Rubinson]

This video offers an opinion addressing my question, from a beta tester, Joe N Tell.

Can you tell me/us what is his opinion?

 

[JStewart]

He said it works.

@ 6:30 He said the first time he set it up it was uncomfortable. He goes on to say it made the room sound smaller and opined that he likes some reflections. He said it was a. similar experience in a 2nd, but treated room, but to a lesser degree.

@ 15:20 he actually posed the question “just because you can do something, should you?” Referring to ART.

@16:30 “Here’s my opinion, my personal opinion… It’s cool that it works, but my brain doesn’t like it.”

Before the end of the video there’s discussion of adding a slider to adjust the effect.

Of course this is one person’s opinion and not a trend.

In the video in the OP that Todd posted at 8 min in, Matthew from Storm Audio opined that a first time listener might find it “disorienting”. Still, not a trend and a couple of comments don‘t remotely resemble a proper double blind study.

It’s also important to remember these betas are not the final version and it appears in my reading that everyone with a firsthand listen believes the concept has benefits such as similar/same response throughout the listening area, tight clear bass, eliminates/reduces the need for thick room treatments.

 

[dlaloum]

He said it works.

@ 6:30 He said the first time he set it up it was uncomfortable. He goes on to say it made the room sound smaller and opined that he likes some reflections. He said it was a. similar experience in a 2nd, but treated room, but to a lesser degree.

@ 15:20 he actually posed the question “just because you can do something, should you?” Referring to ART.

@16:30 “Here’s my opinion, my personal opinion… It’s cool that it works, but my brain doesn’t like it.”

Before the end of the video there’s discussion of adding a slider to adjust the effect.

Of course this is one person’s opinion and not a trend.

In the video in the OP that Todd posted at 8 min in, Matthew from Storm Audio opined that a first time listener might find it “disorienting”. Still, not a trend and a couple of comments don‘t remotely resemble a proper double blind study.

It’s also important to remember these betas are not the final version and it appears in my reading that everyone with a firsthand listen believes the concept has benefits such as similar/same response throughout the listening area, tight clear bass, eliminates/reduces the need for thick room treatments.

My impression of the comments, was that it was disorienting in the sense that it eliminated the Room as a preceptible space...

So the cues that normally tell us where the walls are, how big the room is etc... were all off...

But then that is indeed the intent of surround sound - the intent is to place the listener (viewer) - in the virtual space of the movie...

So far from being a negative, it is in fact proof of its success and effectiveness.

It opens up a different question, which is, do ALL listeners want to be Transported to that audio virtual reality, or do some users prefer to view that virtual reality through a specific "window" rather than being immersed in it?

My wife, does not like to be "immersed" and prefers the "looking through a window" perspective.... (which sometimes requires my toning down existing effects, let alone what will be achievable with DL-ART!)

I look forward to trying this out!

 

[JStewart]

My impression of the comments, was that it was disorienting in the sense that it eliminated the Room as a preceptible space...

So the cues that normally tell us where the walls are, how big the room is etc... were all off...

But then that is indeed the intent of surround sound - the intent is to place the listener (viewer) - in the virtual space of the movie...

So far from being a negative, it is in fact proof of its success and effectiveness.

It opens up a different question, which is, do ALL listeners want to be Transported to that audio virtual reality, or do some users prefer to view that virtual reality through a specific "window" rather than being immersed in it?

My wife, does not like to be "immersed" and prefers the "looking through a window" perspective.... (which sometimes requires my toning down existing effects, let alone what will be achievable with DL-ART!)

I look forward to trying this out!

Then you too may like the idea of being able to adjust the effect, if only to keep the mrs. happy

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Seems like the effect could also be limited by keeping it low-ish in frequency

 

[Todd Anderson]

Here's my take based on what I heard. Most enthusiasts have taken the time to properly place their sub(s) and have likely applied some sort of electronic correction to help tame bass. We know what poorly deployed/EQed bass sounds like and our efforts have definitely made bass in our rooms sound significantly better. By that, I mean tighter and properly aligned with the rest of our systems. Despite these efforts, there's still a lingering boominess (for lack of a better word) that likely sounds normal and we all assume its part-and-parcel of the bass experience because we've done everything we can to control it.

ART knee caps that boominess, leaving the initial punch of LFE. Your mind certainly expects to hear more (lingering bass waves) but ART subdues that, leaving the initial bass impact to stand much more on its own. I understand what Matt Trinklein was hinting at when he said that some may find it disorienting, but I think that adjective has a fairly negative connotation. Perhaps it's too strong of a descriptor to properly relay what's happening?

My take is that bass sounds cleaner and a tad more naked. It doesn't eliminate a deep, hard hitting factor that you like from LFE in the 20s, 30s, and 40Hz range, but it makes it far more controlled to the point that it might sound strangely tamed.

I've read some comments that folks think it might be too restrictive. Based on what I heard, I wouldn't say that was accurate. And I know that Dirac says it can be difficult to properly dial-in... so keep that in mind as you read these early experiential impressions.