Most consumers pay very little attention to the impact of their listening space on the overall audio experience for movie watching and music listening. It sadly does not occur to them that the room is the most critical component they own. The best system can underperform in a room with acoustic issues; which describes almost every room that exists.
There are a number of things that you can do to fix that; acoustic treatments, floor coverings, proper setup of loudspeakers, and strategically placed items of furniture that interfere with reflection points in your room.
Most consumers don’t want to look at ugly panels or rearrange their room for the best possible sound quality, so the solution needs to come from within the equipment itself.
Dirac have been pioneers in room correction software for over a decade and we are firm believers in what they offer. The Swedish developer have just unveiled access to Dirac Live Bass Control for select Denon and Marantz AVRs.
The models include:
- Denon:
- Marantz:
What Dirac Live Bass Control Does
Using machine learning and AI, Dirac Live Bass Control is designed to assist users in managing subwoofers by aggregating measurement and location data from each subwoofer in your system to determine how the bass is distributed throughout the room.
It then identifies inconsistencies in the low-frequency response and compensates to distribute bass evenly throughout the room.
In addition to measurement and location data, Dirac Live Bass Control corrects the time alignment of subwoofers with the main speaker pair, assuring that the entire spectrum of audio is accurately reproduced.
All of this processing enables the subwoofers to be positioned anywhere in the room – wherever most aesthetically pleasing – without sacrificing performance.
Dirac Live Bass Control enables smooth and evenly distributed bass that goes beyond the tuning that can be done when setting up subwoofers manually.
Benefits of Dirac Live Bass Control:
- Smoother low-frequency transition at the crossover point between subwoofers and speakers.
- Consistent low-frequency response throughout the listening area.
- Bass management on multiple subwoofers.
- Allows for Flexible subwoofer placement.
Dirac Live Bass Control and Dirac Live Room Correction
Dirac Live Bass Control is part of the Dirac Live family of audio processing, which also includes the Dirac Live Room Correction, which was made available for the Denon and Marantz AVRs earlier in 2023.
Dirac Live Room Correction benefits include improved localization of sound sources, improved clarity and intelligibility in music and speech, and a deeper and tighter low-frequency response free of resonances throughout the entire listening area.
From Rikard Hellerfelt, Dirac’s VP of Consumer & E-commerce: “The integration of Dirac Live Room Correction into Denon and Marantz units was a significant step forward in both deepening Dirac’s market penetration and elevating product performance for each brand’s large and loyal customer base…Now, we’re going even further by making high-quality bass accessible to everyone from professional integrators and audiophiles to the broader consumer market. This is an important moment for our teams and the industry as a whole.”
Price & Availability
To activate Dirac Live Bass Control in the selected AVRs, you must pay a license fee of $349 (for the single-subwoofer version) or $499 (for the multi-subwoofer version) via the Dirac Online Store (Denon AVR/AVC-A1H, AVR/AVC-X3800H, AVR/AVC-X4800H, AVR/AVC-X6800H. Marantz AV 10, CINEMA 40, CINEMA 50)
Tip: There is also a $259 charge to activate Dirac Live Room Correction (limited bandwidth version). There is a $99 charge to upgrade to the full bandwidth version from the limited bandwidth version. You’ll also need a microphone as the Audyssey mic included in the box with these products is not compatible with DIRAC Live. The company recommends either the UMIK-1 ($132 at Amazon) or UMIK-2 ($289 at Amazon) microphones from a company called Mini DSP.
Related Reading
