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Dirac Research AB

Hansellisgatan 6
SE-754 50 Uppsala
Sweden

Web site: www.dirac.se
E-mail: info@dirac.se

Ensure your branded sound

As a high-end manufacturer, you spend a lot of money on assuring the quality and the consistency of your sound. But how do you make sure your customer experiences the same sound in his or her living room? Maintaining the sound character of your brand also in the customer's home is a challenge that many high-end manufacturers and custom installers face on a daily basis. When your customer demos his or her new high-end equipment for neighbors and friends, you need a way to assure an experience that is faithful to your brand and transparently reproduces the artists’ intentions.

No matter the amount of quality assurance while building the equipment, there is still a big piece of the puzzle that is impossible to take into account from the factory – namely, the listening room. Even the best speaker sounds bad in a listening environment it was not built for. Traditional room treatments help to a certain extent, but sometimes they are out of the question for aesthetic reasons. Traditional room correction systems or equalizers can be used to remedy the worst room modes, but most high-end manufacturers are worried about the time-domain artifacts they introduce as well as inconsistent frequency-domain results. In addition, they typically equalize the system to a pre-set target that is not consistent with your branded sound identity.

Dirac Live® is the only digital room correction technology on the market that addresses all these problems. It optimizes the impulse response and the stationary frequency response in a large listening volume, and is proven to work in listening rooms ranging from large venues such as cinemas (as evidenced by the AP20 professional cinema processor from DTS Digital Cinema), and in small spaces such as luxury cars (as can be experienced in the BMW Individual High End Audio Systems). It can be integrated in the audio chain either built into a preamplifier or as a stand-alone pre-processor. We offer hardware solutions that can be integrated in your audio equipment but it is also often possible to simply add a software update in your current processor. With Dirac Live® you will eliminate the distortions caused by the room and maintain fidelity to your sound.
Please contact us to learn more about high end room correction
The following is what makes Dirac Live® a high-end solution.


True impulse response correction


Dirac Live® is the only system on the market which provides true working impulse response correction as measured over a large listening region. The impulse response is critical for stereo perception. Localization and stereo hearing, in general, depends on the similarity between and the quality of the left and the right channel impulse responses. Only Dirac Live® improves the precision and the clarity of the stereo image.


Superior magnitude response optimization


Dirac’s patented methods offer just the right resolution. Based not only on an average response, the stationary frequency response correction looks at the variations between different measurement positions and carefully makes a correction whose level of detail depends on the frequency-dependent spatial variations.


Mixed-phase Dirac filter technology


Dirac's mixed-phase filter technology provides the highest performance available. Loudspeakers measured in rooms are mixed-phase and consequently only a mixed-phase correction can restore the intended impulse response. Minimum-phase filters only consider the magnitude response and fail to address time-domain problems. Some room correction systems employ FIR filters, others IIR. Regardless of which, as long as they only provide minimum-phase or linear-phase correction, they fail to improve an aspect with determines the perceived localization and clarity of a sound event.


Effective correction in a large listening volume

Dirac’s comprehensive research and development in this area has yielded a stable method that can effectively be applied in volumes as large as big cinemas, without compromising the performance. The time- and frequency-variable resolution, depending on the amount of spatial variations, always strike the right balance between resolution and robustness.


Early reflections from the same direction as the speaker are reduced


These are the type of reflections that are known to cause smearing and shifting of the stereo image as well as reduced distinctness. The effects of side-reflections are quite different. They give a certain coloration of the sound, but actually make it easier to localize and distinguish different sound events. Dirac Live® only reduces the stationary spectral coloration that such side-reflections cause, but no attempt is made to remove them.


Efficient and flexible implementations

The Dirac Live filters can be implemented in terms of pure FIR filters or by an unorthodox combination of FIR and IIR filters. We always strive for the most computationally efficient implementation and work closely with our customers to tailor our filters to their needs and requirements. Various signal processors can be used.


Easy-to-use PC software room correction wizard

We have developed an easy-to-use wizard, which helps you to achieve the results you want fast and easy. It can be tailored to the customer’s requirements and graphical profile. It is possible to strip out features or add them to strike the balance you desire between flexibility, performance and ease of use.


Flexible options for customers


We offer customers a range of solutions relying on partners in the US and Europe for hardware design and manufacturing: ready-made solutions that range from full hardware and PC software solutions including microphone, I/O, DSP, and even chassis, to pure software licenses, and anything in between. Most customer demands can be fulfilled without new development, whereas others may require some tailoring. We are flexible and work hard to keep our customers happy not just before the purchase but also afterwards. Our customers can testify to this.
See also
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