I been long looking for a good way to add Dirac LIVE room correction into my existing system. This by adding support into external Streamer/DAC. I see Auralic is going this way, but very expensive option. Would be great to see this supported by Eversolo products.
Yes, it would be absolutely amazing. It won't be cheap, though... guys over at Dirac don't work for charity, you know...
One way could be to adopt an optional pricing model similar to what Denon & Marantz do with their AV range. Dirac limited range cost USD259, full range USD349.
That is exactly what I meant. Eversolo needs to buy a license, hence, in the end, the price of the product will necessarily be higher to cover such cost, of course.
My own setup includes Dirac. My Onkyo TX-RZ50 includes that option now. Not cheap but neither very expensive € 1.500,- with a special microphone to be added for a full Dirac experience. Swapped my TX-RZ720 mainly for that but it is also a step higher in the RZ series for the Analog section. I feel Onkyo like Eversolo brings a lot for reasonable prices. Is my 4th Onkyo: TX-SR604 => TX-NR609 =>TX-RZ720 => TX-RZ50.
I switched to a Marantz 7103 from a TX-NR809. Was with Onkyo since the early 90's, but am thinking of selling the 7013 for the RZ70....
I think Dirac Live requires the hardware to have a DSP with enough processing power for the filters to work, so I'm not so sure if you can just add it like you add an .apk in Android .. Are there any Android based devices with Dirac out there?
Not that I am aware of. Also, not that an Android device is not powerful enough to process DIRAC filters, but you are right: it is not an easy/light task.
Dirac Live (DL) requires a DSP to run. So Zidoo will need a new processor board. Another barrier is the cost and effort to implement. While it is possible to have optional user licence, I suspect Zidoo themselves will need to pay something? Last, but not least, Zidoo will need engineers to implement DL, a non trivial task that even some AVR vendors struggle with.
The new DMP-A8 comes with a DSP from AKM but very much doubt it will ever support Dirac Live. How Dirac Live actually works: - You use a microphone connected to record test tones. - These samples are uploaded to a Dirac Server - The Dirac Server calculates a profile compensating the characteristics of the room - A profile is send back to be loaded into the Dirac DSP board Optionally one can manually manipulate these profiles (for those die hards) - One can switch Dirac now on/off The Dirac platform may include multiple profiles (slots) to choose from.
It is how it works with my Onkyo TX-RZ50. It is a long procedure with many positions for sample uploading. All the calculation work is done on the central server and remains secret how it does that. In fact the actual data flow runs via an Intermediate on a PC or Smartphone. My PC was too loud making too much background noise. The actual DSP platform hardly needs any intelligence at all.
Nothing is sent to a central Dirac server. The recordings you make by using the microphone are stored in your PC/Mac. The only reason you login to Dirac is to verify that you have a valid license. The filters are calculated by the Dirac software on your PC using your PC/Mac's cpu. The amount of profile slots depend on the AV manufacturer & available storage space on the device allocated for Dirac filters.
I had the impression the actual processing was done remote but I may be wrong there? I would expect them to want to keep their actual calculation work secret. But not relevant for the function where it is done. But I would love to see Dirac implemented on the DMP-A8 as that would facilitate room adjustment before the audio is forwarded to the excellent DAC. My Onkyo is simply not good enough there to keep up. So in practice I don't use Dirac very much and never with Analog input coming from a superior DAC. It is all about the weakest link and with Analog input that is the ADC and next DAC in my Onkyo. Big disappointment for me.
Like you, I believe the core calculations are done on the remote Dirac server not the PC hosting the application. I use a miniDSP SHD Studio with Dirac Live and that is how it works on that system for sure. There are 4 slots available to load the final fllter sets, these are sent from the PC to the miniDSP box, but the calculations to generate the filters are done by Dirac remotely as far as I am aware. Makes quite a difference to the sound incidentally in a good way.
No it doesn't. Read at the instructions: When your Dirac license is linked to a Dirac supported Hardware Device, the Dirac Live® application is used to measure and generate filters, and the Hardware stores the corresponding filters and processes audio data. When you want to use Dirac with software, then (from Dirac): In order to use Dirac Processor Plugin, you will need to download and install two components: Dirac Live® and the Dirac Processor Plugin. Dirac Live® is used to measure and generate filters, while the Processor audio plugin stores the corresponding filters and processes audio data.
