Is Dirac the frog who aspired to become as big as the ox?

[FargateOne]

I write this post reluctantly, but there comes a time when things have to be said. This is an open letter from a consumer who is disillusioned by Dirac's inability to get its software to work properly, and has been for many years. The situation of the owners of Arcam and JBL is even worse than reported here, and we are still waiting for solutions to many serious problems with the implementation of their software in high-end receivers. In Harman products case bugs are known since more than 2 years now and was begining to be investigated only in 2025...
Dirac is pushing their new ART software in what appears to be a headlong rush into overpriced products to abandon DLBC, which they are unable to make work in the too many brands of (more affordable) products to which they have undoubtedly charged large sums in copyright.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

To Whom It May (But Probably Doesn’t) Concern,​

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For the past several months, users have been reporting a persistent and disruptive crossover bug in Dirac Live when used with PAC products (Onkyo, Pioneer, and Integra receivers). Despite its widespread impact—and despite users purchasing this software at a premium—there’s been no visible action, no resolution, and not even the decency of a timeline. At this point, the silence is louder than the bug itself.​

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Now, with new leadership in place and Dirac pivoting toward larger, more lucrative ventures—such as its recently announced automotive integration partnership—it’s hard not to feel like the enthusiast AV community is being quietly sidelined. New CEOs aren’t typically brought in to fix legacy bugs; they’re brought in to scale operations, chase bigger markets, and deliver investor returns. We get it. But let’s not pretend this is compatible with continuing to sell a consumer-facing product that doesn’t consistently work.​

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If Dirac still intends to serve this market—if the AV community isn’t just legacy baggage on the way to bigger deals—then now is the time to demonstrate it. Fixing a crossover bug isn’t a moonshot. It’s basic accountability. These are solvable software issues, and users deserve better than silence.​

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This crossover bug? It’s fixable. It’s code. All we are asking for is the product to work as described. But that only happens if someone at Dirac is still listening.​

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Sincerely,​

 

[Asere]

Apparently Dirac and PAC are working on a fix but when is the question. I reached out to Dirac over my LX805 but have not heard from them. We shall see.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I may be wrong, but the way I've always viewed Dirac is that they have a technology and a server-side software and they license to hardware manufacturers the API to communicate with their software, but the user hardware-side integration is the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer to develop. If Dirac works with some products but not with others, that seems like a hardware manufacturer responsibility to address.

Similarly, I think we're finding hardware manufacturers discovering that when they licensed the tech, promised customers the feature, and sold them hardware and licenses, they did so before implementing Dirac and later found their hardware to be incapable of performing the task at hand. I've been watching this happen since Emotiva started implementing Dirac in the XMC-1. Big promises, underpowered hardware, shampoo rinse repeat.

Admittedly I don't know anything about the crossover bug mentioned in the first post.

 

[JStewart]

I write this post reluctantly, but there comes a time when things have to be said. This is an open letter from a consumer who is disillusioned by Dirac's inability to get its software to work properly, and has been for many years. The situation of the owners of Arcam and JBL is even worse than reported here, and we are still waiting for solutions to many serious problems with the implementation of their software in high-end receivers. In Harman products case bugs are known since more than 2 years now and was begining to be investigated only in 2025...
Dirac is pushing their new ART software in what appears to be a headlong rush into overpriced products to abandon DLBC, which they are unable to make work in the too many brands of (more affordable) products to which they have undoubtedly charged large sums in copyright.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

To Whom It May (But Probably Doesn’t) Concern,​

​

For the past several months, users have been reporting a persistent and disruptive crossover bug in Dirac Live when used with PAC products (Onkyo, Pioneer, and Integra receivers). Despite its widespread impact—and despite users purchasing this software at a premium—there’s been no visible action, no resolution, and not even the decency of a timeline. At this point, the silence is louder than the bug itself.​

​

Now, with new leadership in place and Dirac pivoting toward larger, more lucrative ventures—such as its recently announced automotive integration partnership—it’s hard not to feel like the enthusiast AV community is being quietly sidelined. New CEOs aren’t typically brought in to fix legacy bugs; they’re brought in to scale operations, chase bigger markets, and deliver investor returns. We get it. But let’s not pretend this is compatible with continuing to sell a consumer-facing product that doesn’t consistently work.​

​

If Dirac still intends to serve this market—if the AV community isn’t just legacy baggage on the way to bigger deals—then now is the time to demonstrate it. Fixing a crossover bug isn’t a moonshot. It’s basic accountability. These are solvable software issues, and users deserve better than silence.​

​

This crossover bug? It’s fixable. It’s code. All we are asking for is the product to work as described. But that only happens if someone at Dirac is still listening.​

​

Sincerely,​

I’ve followed your story on the AVS thread. I personally can’t imagine having to deal with software issues for a couple of years as you have. You’re lucky to have used REW to verify the issues. There are probably many Arcam users with no idea.
In thinking about this, I wonder who the responsible party actually is. Dirac measures and creates filters. Why would the filters, or speaker delays and trim levels for that matter, generated within the Dirac software be any different based on the device the files are exported to?
I can’t help but think the issue is with Arcam and other manufacturers, whose job it was to implement Dirac on their devices, which implies ensuring it actually worked. In my opinion, Arcam should be responsible for doing the same testing you have, seeing the same issues, and either fixing it or stop selling their devices as compatible.
Have you reached out to Arcam as well? What do they say?