Print from www.dirac.se, generated by TRIGGERWEBTM from Triggerfish 09/08/2010 10:33 AM
Dirac Research AB

Hansellisgatan 6
SE-754 50 Uppsala
Sweden

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

Advanced designs and digital sound optimization

Due to their mechanical nature, speakers are probably the greatest challenge in the audio chain. Even the most purely designed loudspeaker will produce distortions due to slightly suboptimal designs, sometimes significant. This is true particularly with today’s aesthetic requirements. The speaker has become as much a piece of furniture as it is a sound reproduction device.

However, there is normally a contradiction between designs that are aesthetically appealing and that are acoustically optimal. With Dirac Live® there need be no more contradiction.

Just as the best fighter jets are built slightly unstable and then controlled with software for optimal performance, you can use the same principle for your speakers. You will be able to fulfill the most advanced design requirements to make the speakers look good in your customer’s eyes, while at the same time, by using Dirac Live®, making them sound perfect in the customer’s ears by compensating for the acoustical imperfections.

Dirac Live® is available in two versions

  • Dirac Live® room correction
  • Dirac Live® speaker optimization

Dirac Live® speaker optimization is specially designed to be smoothly integrated into your production procedure. Only one set of measurements per model will be required, enabling a fast implementation. This also eliminates the problem of time consuming manual tuning. Dirac Live® will do a perfect and objective tuning based on a target designed by you, or provide a superb basis for your final tweaks.

The same technology can be used for one speaker to mimic the sound of another. This can be useful to keep a consistent sound within your product lines. For instance, lower-end products such as docking stations can be tuned to be more faithful to the sound of your brand by adopting the characteristics of your higher-end products. Everything is, of course, streamlined into your production.

Dirac Live® is easily integrated in the audio chain, either as a preprocessor or integrated into the amplifier.

With Dirac Live® room correction you can also compensate for the differences in the vast array of listening rooms, thereby assuring that your sound reaches the listener’s ears, no matter the conditions. To read more about Dirac Live® room correction, please see the links below.
Please contact us to learn more about high end sound optimization

Technical benefits of Dirac Live® speaker optimization


  • True impulse response optimization in a large listening volume
  • Superior magnitude response optimization striking a perfect balance between resolution and robustness
  • Mixed-phase filter technology (minimum-phase or linear-phase filters would corrupt time-domain properties)
  • Unconventional combination of FIR and IIR filters for the most efficient implementation
  • Advanced, yet easy-to-use software

Technical benefits of Dirac Live® room correction



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


Print from www.dirac.se, generated by TRIGGERWEBTM from Triggerfish 09/08/2010 10:33 AM