Beta Version of New Dirac Live Now Available

Dirac Research of Uppsala, Sweden, has announced the availability of the beta version of its new Dirac Live room correction solution for owners of Arcam, Lexicon, Audio Control and NAD units, with broader availability to follow in the near future.

As many of our readers will know well by now, all home theater systems, regardless of their quality, produce an imperfect and flawed audio experience as a result of a room’s size, shape, and contents. Dirac Live is a digital audio solution (whose first generation was introduced five years ago), which analyzes various room factors and applies correction filters to resolve issues and allow a home theater system to achieve optimal performance.

The now-available second-gen Dirac Live will offer upgrades in UI design, system setup, and technical performance, according to Niklas Thorin, Dirac’s General Manager of High Performance Audio. Using a mobile app, end-users and integrators will be able to ‘quickly’ correct for acoustical imperfections and deliver an optimized and refined home theater listening experience. (It will also be demonstrated at CEDIA 2018 in September at Dirac Research Booth 2530.)

“Dirac Live has served as the industry’s reference room correction solution since it was first unveiled over five years ago,” stated Thorin. “It established a new standard in room correction technology and allowed home theater systems to achieve a new degree in acoustical perfection. However, new UI design and technical advancements have inspired us to reimagine the Dirac Live solution for its second generation – combining the brilliance of the first-generation solution with recent market developments to usher in a new era of Dirac Live. We look forward to showcasing its beta at CEDIA 2018!”

The new version will include ‘improved usability’ with a simplified and more modern user interface. It also shifts the UI from being a ‘fairly technical process’ requiring a substantial base of knowledge, to one where the highly-intuitive app helps a user ensure everything is being done correctly. The new more guided process of setup will confirm that correct actions are being taken by the user and the optimal settings are being implemented at the same time.

In addition to the usability upgrades, the new Dirac Live also includes an enhanced phase correction algorithm for improved stereo reproduction. Where the previous version of Dirac Live individually measured the phase of each stereo speaker, this new version also analyzes speakers in pairs, which ensures that the pair’s phase responses are matched to each other.

The new Dirac Live is also built in a way that will allow users to customize the platform with “Dirac Live Modules.” Each module, which are introduced on a roughly yearly basis, will offer a piece of room correction functionality that allows users to customize their solution based on their specific requirements and market applications, whether being applied to a home theater, stereo system, professional studio, and/or automotive.

“Our modular approach to the future of Dirac Live will allow our platform to forever be equipped with the last and greatest in room correction functionality,” continued Thorin. “As new features are developed, we can efficiently deliver them to the market as ‘Dirac Live Modules’, so users can customize their platforms based on individual requirements and use-cases. Home theater systems aren’t one-size-fits-all so neither should be their room correction solutions.”

The new Dirac Live now also includes multi-language support feature for Spanish, French, Mandarin, Japanese, and Swedish, along with all-new mobile compatibility that provides users with increased flexibility in terms of which device they use for set-up, whether a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.