Dirac Software Limited

[Erminia Scharnberg]

Brandslike NAD, Creek Audio and Cambridge Audio replaced the more esoteric gear I used to crave for. Gone were high-end speakers with sleek marketing that actually said nothing about their real life performance; In their place, speakers from brands such as Monitor Audio, Revel, KEF and Wharfedale humbly took their place and thrived in my listening environments. Throughout this audio journey, I came to realize that good sound comes mostly from two things:

Most home audio setups have to deal with compromising the speakers locations to fit within the main purpose of the room. This can sometimes mean having to offset the speakers left or right vs. the main listening position (MLP). When the MLP is positioned offset to the centre of where the speakers are positioned, sound will arrive from one speaker earlier than the other. The speaker positioned more closely, will sound louder and will pull the soundstage towards that speaker.

For example, if the right speaker is positioned closer to the MLP, the soundstage will be shifted to the right. With modern engineering technology, we expect modern speakers to have good time alignment within the box itself, however some poorly engineered speakers can have sounds arriving earlier from the woofer than the tweeter. This also creates a diffuse soundstage and poor articulation of the intended sound.

With Dirac Live on, the magic happens. Without physically moving any speakers, you can see that the time alignment is right on now. Both speakers are sending audio to the MLP at the same time, such that the phantom centre imaging becomes rock solid in front of the MLP. The audio arrives within 0.03ms of each other; even this small difference is due to the microphone not being placed in the exact location due to taking the Dirac Live and REW measurements on different days.

Starting with the left speaker, we can see that the proportion of the highest amplitude indirect sound versus the direct sound has decreased from 85% to 70%. Subsequent indirect sounds have a much lower amplitude across the time spectrum.

In my room, Dirac Live pulled 12db out of the room mode at 47Hz. Dirac Live can completely flatten it if desired, but I prefer a target curve with some bass in it. You can also see that Dirac Live was able to fill in some dips in the mid bass area, while pulling some excess energy out of the high frequency area. The end result is like having a much better room setup and speakers than what you started with. Furthermore, you can tune the sound to what you like. Want more forward vocals? You can increase the 1-3Khz range; want a BBC sound? That can be dialled in using a Dirac Live target curve.

When Dirac Live completes the sweep of measurements, it produces a curve of what your current room looks like. You then have the responsibility to set what you want the room to sound like. The latest version of Dirac Live includes a much more intuitive interface to set your desired curve. In earlier versions, the default curve was potentially more faithful to the production of the music, but many felt was too shy in the bass, especially after becoming accustomed to the room modes.

Most amplifiers that come with Dirac Live include the limited bandwidth license which allows frequency correction up to 500Hz. For 99% of people, this will already provide a huge gain in audio performance. For those that want ultimate control and/or have speakers with non-optimal, non-linear frequency characteristics, they can consider spending the $99 on the full bandwidth version which allows frequency correction from 20Hz to 20KHz.

I am resisting the urge to give a Harman bump in lower frequencies, even though he found that the average hifi nut had got addicted to bass boom over the years and therefore need that bump. If I need more bass then I turn up the volume, assuming that the album producer knew what they were doing. After 18months or more it is my new and happy norm, especially for parties, where high frequencies get absorbed more in my living room than lower ones.

Vinyl playback is totally reformed and restored with DL. Record collections have been delighted to see the light of day in my living room. I think they had thought their day had come and gone and were destined for the local charity shops. How wrong they were.

Visiting audiophiles still get a shock and often prefer DL switched off after first AB comparisons. It took me at least 3 months to fully appreciate the astonishing immersive properties to be gained from using Dirac Live.

Hi Dave, thanks for writing in. If I recall correctly, Floyd Toole found that a speaker that measures flat in an anechoic chamber will produce a downwards sloping (elevated low frequencies and recessed high frequencies) frequency response of about 1db/octave in a typical living room.

Hello everyone I wanted to help and learn share issues about the sa 30 amp.I discovered on You Tube ,from Terrason Audio 24 april,how to update with a usb stick,they confirmed that after the update the Direc curves are gone,so you have to insert them again. Its logically that the curves are not involved with an update. My question is have anybody experience with that ???

Hello mateus, Welcome to the forum! One of the steps you have to perform after an upgrade of the firmware is a perform a factory reset. This is a mandatory step for a successful update. All configuration is set to default and all saved user data is lost. E.g. but not limited to:

In general after a upgrade all settings/ configurations are defaulted. I do not have any experience with Dirac curves, maybe these can be saved to disk and restored at a later point in time. I believe other users do have experience with Dirac.

Thanks for youre message,i assume you are a moderator,fine,Direc is awsome very nice sound ,I hope people will react ,I send also a email to luxury...@harman.com about this .The sa30 is a good sounding amp i use them with b&w 705s2 speakers ,well as you know sound is personal ! I buy this amp becouse I am lazy,just one piece that,s do it all.I only stream its like a great Juxebox everytime I am surprised ,listening is healthy for you,re mind.

Greetings from Holland - Mateus .

The manual of the Dirac software mentions a filter export (and save project) function, refer page 12 in the manual. I assume you can use one of these functions to store you Dirac configuration for later use. However as mentioned before I have no experiences with Dirac.

Thanks gryffe , so its true that you must save the direc curves on a stick ,and after a new update you must reinstall them again,that was the question ,becouse my dealer install them,i am not good with direc.I shall ask him to install the curves on a usb stick with fat 32, so i can reinstall them after a new update. Arcam is with there software difficult for new customers, i think this will go better every new divice have some problems, anyway the sound makes it all good .

Greets Mateus from Holland .

hi gryffe, when i buy the sa 30 the dealer phoned me that he make a new update with a usb stick,so he opened the box,no problem, he came with the new amp ,and make at my home the direc filter and send this with his laptop pc to the amp,but he didn,t make a copy on a stick for me, i didn,t ask him because i expect its forever stays in the amp.I told him about the issue when there is a new update the direc curves will gone,he told me that Arcam and Direc not work well together and that he also is depending of what,s really going on.There is on You tube an instruction video how to update the sa 30 with a usb stick,then i noticed that with a new update the direc curves are gone. You can see this on you tube from Terrason Audio 24 april 2020,my dealer will come again and I will ask him to save the curves on a usb fat 32 stick as arcam suggest to do.Thanks for you,re reply greets Mateus .

GoodEvening everybody,I have received an answer of Arcam support,ITS NOT POSSIBLE TO CREATE DIREC FILTERS ON A USB STICK,YOU HAVE TO USE DIREC AND SAVE YOU,RE FILTERS THERE , AFTER A UPDATE YOU MUST SEND THE FILTERS FROM DIREC TO THE SA30 AMP AGAIN that,s it ,they also said that that they work on it to make it possible with a usb stick!

They make it not easy for the owners ,you must learn to use Direc,it really helps the sound in you,re livingroom a lot - Greetz Mateus .

gryffe hello with Mateus ,Arcam support emailed me and said that,s it not possible to put filters on a usb stick I need to work with Direc save there my filters and send them to the sa 30 Amp. I don,t know how to work with Direc,my dealer makes filters after the latest arcam update,on his Laptop.d So I must download Direc on my Pc ,do I must make an account and give my divice serial number ,so they know I have a licence , can you help me out of this , my dealer must teached me how to send the filters to my amp. He comes again because I have new speakers ,thanks ahead - greets Mateus .

Scroll to the bottom of the page, and use the > at the bottom right which will take you to a link to the Dirac files, this will download in a zip file which you can install on your computer. There is also instructions on how to use Dirac within the zip file.

Gryffe thanks I download Direc Live on my Pc and make an account ,but I have to wait for my dealer, he must make new filters for my new speakers with my Pc and learn me how to send them to the sa30 amp, after a new update from Arcam . Thanks again greets Mateus !

While learning sampling theory - I noticed that examples of continuous signal sampling always achieved the goal via multiplying the signal with a "Dirac Comb".I was intrigued by the requirement to use a Dirac Comb instead of a "Ones Comb" - I.E: multiply the signal by the value '1' at the sampling times.

This made a lot of sense to me...But than, when I proceeded to learn about discrete domain sampling - I was surprised to find out that examples used a "Ones Comb" to sample a signal (not the "Dirac Comb").

Dirac combs are for sampling in the domain of continuous time while retaining a continuous time viewpoint. That's a bit tricky since as a windowing function they are not supposed to look at any values except at integral arguments, but retaining a continuous time viewpoint also means that you want to work on the results using integral transforms (like Fourier transforms). And a single point does not make a difference for an integral. So a dirac function is more or less defined by its behavior under integration, making the integral "magically" jump by 1 when including the location of the dirac pulse in the integration interval. So there is a whole new way of looking at function-like objects in the context of their extended behavior under integration.

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