Mathias Johannson of Dirac Joins AV NIRVANA Live, 11AM EST on Wednesday!

(February 6, 2024) This coming Wednesday, February 14th, Dirac co-founder Mathias Johansson joins AV NIRVANA Live to dive into the world of low-end frequencies.

Join us as we discuss CEDIA's new RP22 Recommended Practice for Audio Design and what it says about subwoofers. Johansson will talk about the growing trend of multi-subwoofer systems, the key drivers behind this trend, and the unintended pitfalls of going the multi-subwoofer route. In addition, we'll discuss any remedies that might be available!

You can watch the live stream on our YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), with comments and question capabilities on all three platforms. Click the links to join!

 

[DanDan]

That sounds very interesting, nice on Todd. A Specsavers moment perhaps, but what time is that happening? Edit, I just saw a red 16:10 on the FaceBook page. What Time Zone?
DD

 

[Todd Anderson]

Tomorrow at 11AM EST.

 

[DanDan]

Brilliant, thank you. 16:00 here in Ireland. Mathias is a very nice fella. He has been really helpful to me in getting the best out of DL in a Pro Studio environment.

 

[SRW1000]

This should be a great interview, Todd. Wish I could watch live.

Would you be able to ask Mathias how close they are to giving users the option of designating a channel in Dirac so that it can be used to drive a tactile transducer?

It's been on the wish list for a lot of us users for years now, but we haven't heard any updates on it for a long time.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[Todd Anderson]

Hey Scott - I completely missed this question. Let me see if I can get an answer for you…

 

[DanDan]

Wow. Drummers use such technology, maybe some Cinemas, but I never thought of it for home use. I doubt that whatever transducer would need to be particularly liner or under the control of Dirac. I reckon a simple crossover allowing only sub sub would suffice. Are there such tactile transducers on the market, other then the Drum one? https://thebuttkicker.com/pages/buttkicker-music-products

 

[Todd Anderson]

Wow. Drummers use such technology, maybe some Cinemas, but I never thought of it for home use. I doubt that whatever transducer would need to be particularly liner or under the control of Dirac. I reckon a simple crossover allowing only sub sub would suffice. Are there such tactile transducers on the market, other then the Drum one? https://thebuttkicker.com/pages/buttkicker-music-products

I have an array of transducers in my seating... 5 seats, six transducers. I had to mess around with delay to get the transducers firing in synch with my room's subs. But, it adds a nice bit of texture to the feel!

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I have six transducers in my room now... they are JTR Captivator 2400 subs that will shake the teeth out of your head if you want them to. All six flat to 10Hz, individually and combined... never seen anything like it.

Enjoyed the review Todd... great job as usual. You were born for this type of gig and have truly mastered it, in my opinion.

 

[JStewart]

I have an array of transducers in my seating... 5 seats, six transducers. I had to mess around with delay to get the transducers firing in synch with my room's subs. But, it adds a nice bit of texture to the feel!

afik Storm and Monoprice are the two platforms allowing delay changes post Dirac.
Also in the case of the Monoprice when the additional subwoofer output is activated for the tactile transducers, the equalization from the subwoofer immediately proceeding, it is copied to be activated output.
In the case of NAD, activating the speaker that was not part of the original direct calibration causes Dirac filters to deactivate.

 

[Todd Anderson]

afik Storm and Monoprice are the two platforms allowing delay changes post Dirac.
Also in the case of the Monoprice when the additional subwoofer output is activated for the tactile transducers, the equalization from the subwoofer immediately proceeding, it is copied to be activated output.
In the case of NAD, activating the speaker that was not part of the original direct calibration causes Dirac filters to deactivate.

Ooooo... great information.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I have six transducers in my room now... they are JTR Captivator 2400 subs that will shake the teeth out of your head if you want them to. All six flat to 10Hz, individually and combined... never seen anything like it.

Enjoyed the review Todd... great job as usual. You were born for this type of gig and have truly mastered it, in my opinion.

Thanks Sonnie - appreciate it.

Six JTR Captivator 2400 subs? SIX???

LOL. WOW

That must be something else.

 

[SRW1000]

afik Storm and Monoprice are the two platforms allowing delay changes post Dirac.
Also in the case of the Monoprice when the additional subwoofer output is activated for the tactile transducers, the equalization from the subwoofer immediately proceeding, it is copied to be activated output.
In the case of NAD, activating the speaker that was not part of the original direct calibration causes Dirac filters to deactivate.

Yes, I have the HTP-1 and hope that Dirac will allow us to exclude one of the subs out when calibrating so it can send an unaltered signal to a transducer output.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Ok. Got an answer. It sounds like this kind of function would be up to the manufacturer to implement. Dirac isn't a product that's delivered and installed. Instead, manufacturers are given a blueprint to follow and they're tasked with implementing it on their end.

As my question was posed to Mathais, he replied with "That isn’t possible, unless the device running Dirac Live would be possible to set up so that it plays through all the channels but only lets Dirac Live use a subset."

So, for now, that's the answer... doesn't look like Dirac is moving toward a situation where users can correct for some channels but not others.

Does that answer your question?

 

[SRW1000]

Ok. Got an answer. It sounds like this kind of function would be up to the manufacturer to implement. Dirac isn't a product that's delivered and installed. Instead, manufacturers are given a blueprint to follow and they're tasked with implementing it on their end.

As my question was posed to Mathais, he replied with "That isn’t possible, unless the device running Dirac Live would be possible to set up so that it plays through all the channels but only lets Dirac Live use a subset."

So, for now, that's the answer... doesn't look like Dirac is moving toward a situation where users can correct for some channels but not others.

Does that answer your question?

Thanks so much for following up with Mathais on this for us, it's greatly appreciated.

Maybe I didn't phrase the question correctly or precisely enough.

Going back to some of the original discussions on AVS this is what someone had posted as a response from Flavio back in 2021:

We will work on disabling compensation for a speaker so that a bass shaker can be easily used.​

​

Exclusion would imply:​

• Disable all checks for that speaker (snr checks for example)​

• Export a unity filter to that speaker​

• Speaker should not participate in BC/Unison​

• User interface should clearly show that this speaker is excluded​

It's planned for a future update but I can't say when it will be implemented.​

​

Thanks for reaching out... all the best!​

Flavio​

I couldn't find the original quote from Flavio so it may have been in correspondence and not a post. Here's a link to where it was posted in the HTP-1 owner's thread: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/th...-owners-thread.3112176/page-763#post-60965775

It's a more thorough explanation of what we were hoping for, and the path that Dirac was thinking of following at that time. Maybe they decided that it wasn't possible for some reason?

If so, we'll have to shift our focus to having manufacturers make the change rather than Dirac.

Scott

 

[SRW1000]

Todd, I do have an unrelated question, if you should ever be able to ask Mathais again. What is the best way for consumers to find out how many digital taps Dirac has access to for any given piece of equipment? Is that available through Dirac or can it only be found through the manufacturers? If it's the later, does he have a suggested way to phrase the question so that the company can easily get the data?

It's so great that you guys are able to reach out to the makers of all these things we love. We're very fortunate to have this website as a resource.

Scott

 

[Todd Anderson]

Lots of good questions Scott… though I hate to admit, I’m not sure what you mean by digital taps. Are you speaking of the number of channels that can be addressed?

I’ll see if we can get Flavio to jump in here

 

[SRW1000]

Lots of good questions Scott… though I hate to admit, I’m not sure what you mean by digital taps. Are you speaking of the number of channels that can be addressed?

I’ll see if we can get Flavio to jump in here

Todd, the digital taps just determine the number of filters that Dirac can use for processing. Storm units are supposed to have over 3000 per channel, but that information could be out of date.

I'm just wondering if there's a place where consumers can find the number available when doing comparisons. It may be proprietary information that would be up to each manufacturer to disclose if they want to.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Ah, okay. That's probably manufacturer specific... I'll see if I can dig on that one a bit. A lot of times manufacturers are tight lipped about those kinds of parameters.

 

[Calypso]

Very informative, thanks Todd.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Thanks!

Just to toss this out there... but, if anyone has guest requests for future shows, let me know and we'll see if something can be worked out!

 

[Todd Anderson]

Flavio says he’ll drop in here once he gets some confirmations on his end.

 

[SRW1000]

The transducer question was addressed by Mathias on today's A/V Experience podcast. Here's a timestamped link to his answer:

So, this capability should be added by the end of the year, but they aren't sure if it can be handled with the Dirac software, or if it will require a firmware update.