Every speaker, receiver and amplifier maker in the world has a common enemy: your room. No matter how well designed a piece of audio equipment is, it is guaranteed to sound different (usually worse) when it gets unboxed and placed into an actual living room, bedroom or home theater. Walls have different textures and reflective or absorptive properties. Ceilings may be arched or angled or textured in a way that the speaker manufacturers never expected. And speakers themselves don't provide perfect sound, even when placed in a "perfect" room. And as more speakers interact with the room, and with each other, it becomes difficult to get the highest quality sound out of your system.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a tool that could measure the performance of your actual system in your actual room and make whetever adjustments were necessary in order to make everything sound better? Well there are such systems and one of the best of them is made by a company called Dirac.
Dirac's "DIRAC Live" room correction system has been used by audio professionals and audiophile hobbyists for years to create better sound, both in the studio and in the home. But using Dirac has previously been a challenge. You'd need to run software on a laptop, buy an expensive microphone, and do painstaking manual measurements and analysis in multiple positions in your room. Then you'd need to insert a device into your playback system that could implement the actual fix.
In a few months, that whole complicated process is going to get a whole lot simpler as Sound United just announced that two of their popular A/V receiver brands - Denon and Marantz - will be getting a software update in March that will include Dirac Live Room Correction. The upgrade will require the owner to pay a separate licensing fee for the Dirac software and technology, but it will greatly simplify the room correction and calibration process by embedding the whole measurement and correction process right into the A/V receiver.
Five new home theater receivers and one preamp/processor were announced by Denon and Marantz this week that are "Dirac-ready." This means they already have the necessary hardware for Dirac Live room correction, and the software upgrade to enable Dirac Live will be available in just a few months.
Pricing has not yet been announced for the Dirac live license on these products, but the software-based product for PCs currently sells for $349 for a 2-channel license (stereo) and $499 for the multi-channel (home theater) version. The Dirac solution automatically addresses audio issues that all home audio systems have, but hardware alone can't address - or takes too much time, expertise, and cost to do so. Dirac Live allows users to easily achieve dramatically enhanced sound experiences to hear the best possible sound from their home theater systems.
According to Erik Rudolphi, Dirac's Vice President of Home & Pro Audio, the integration of Dirac Live into Denon and Marantz home theater units is a testament to the market-leading innovation that drives both Dirac and Sound United. "Dirac and Sound United have long been leaders in their respective areas of audio engineering - pioneering many of the solutions and technologies that have created, and continue to create, the home theater industry," said Rudolphi. "Now, with the release of Dirac-enabled Denon and Marantz units, we're showcasing the combined engineering leadership to the benefit of home theater owners and enthusiasts across the world. It's a seminal moment for our companies and the industry and we look forward to the first-ever release of Dirac Live-enabled Denon and Marantz home theater devices."
Dirac Live Room Correction works its magic through a patented mixed-phase impulse response correction technology that corrects not just magnitude response, but also time domain. Ths combination is exclusive to Dirac Live and critical for creating accurate sound staging, clarity, and tight bass.
Dirac Live Room Correction generates an "auto target curve" based on the sound system's unique measurements, making it easier for users to get even better sound quality from their system automatically. This curve is fully customizable by the user in order to tailor the system's sound to their unique tastes. Want more boom in the room or greater dialog intelligibility? No problem. Dirac can do that.
Denon's Dirac Ready units include the AVR-A1H, AVR-X4800H and AVR-X3800H A/V receivers. Marantz' Dirac Ready units include the AV 10 preamp/processor, CINEMA 40 A/V receiver, and CINEMA 50 A/V receiver.
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