In a move to address growing consumer demand for high-quality audio in mainstream home theater systems, Swedish digital audio pioneer Dirac has announced a significant expansion of its ongoing collaboration with Premium Audio Company to now incorporate the company’s Dirac Live Bass Control solution into PAC’s Onkyo, Pioneer, Elite, and Integra AVR units.
Specifically, Dirac Live Bass Control is now integrated into the Integra DRX-8.4; the Elite VSX-LX805, Pioneer VSA-LX805; and the Onkyo TX-RZ70 — all of which are now available.
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Dirac Live Bass Control, part of the Dirac Live family of room acoustic solutions, is designed to help users manage their subwoofers. The feature aggregates measurement and location data from each subwoofer to determine how a system’s bass is distributed throughout the room. It then identifies inconsistencies in the low-frequency response and compensates to distribute bass evenly throughout the room.
The feature also corrects for the time alignment of subwoofers with the main speaker pair, assuring that the entire spectrum of audio is accurately reproduced. All of this processing enables the subwoofers to be positioned anywhere in the room — wherever most aesthetically pleasing — without sacrificing performance for design, or vice versa.
The collaboration between Dirac and Premium Audio Company’s brands and products enhances both companies’ home theater capabilities, offering their customers premium, high-quality audio experiences at a range of price points.
“Mainstream consumers are demanding premium audio more than ever before, and accurate and compelling low-frequency response has only become even more critical in enjoying the full spectrum of sound,” said Fredric Tapper, Dirac’s VP of home and pro audio. “At the same time, high-quality audio now must be accessible from the professional integration and audiophile level to the broader consumer markets.”
Dirac Live Bass Control delivers smooth and evenly distributed bass, an almost impossible challenge to accomplish by manual tuning. It offers key benefits, including smoother low-frequency transition at the crossover point between subwoofers and speakers; consistent low-frequency response throughout the listening area; bass management on multiple subwoofers; and flexible subwoofer placement
“The integration of Dirac Live Bass Control, along with availability of the Dirac Live Room Correction, puts professional-level acoustical room control within reach of all listeners,” Tapper added. “In collaboration with four of the industry’s most iconic brands, Dirac is proving that the world’s best room acoustics software is not just for audiophiles — it’s for everyone.”
Dirac Live Bass Control is part of the Dirac Live family of audio processing, which also includes the Dirac Live Room Correction (also included in the Onkyo, Pioneer, Elite, and Integra AVR units.) The solution’s patented impulse response correction maximizes the performance of a sound system — fast and easy. Its benefits include improved localization of sound sources, improved clarity and intelligibility in music and speech, and a deeper and tighter low-frequency response free of resonances throughout the entire listening area.
The two-year-long integration of Dirac Live with PAC’s AVR brands, along with the recent inclusion of Dirac Live Bass Control, brings that room control capability to a much larger market, giving mid-priced AVRs a home theater audio experience previously only available through higher-priced systems.
“Premium Audio Company’s Onkyo, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, and Integra brands have built a spectacular reputation by making high-end audio quality available to a mass market at affordable prices for decades,” said Rob Standley, president of technology and product for Premium Audio Company. “Our continuing cooperative relationship with Dirac, which began with Dirac Live Room Correction and now has grown to also include Dirac Live Bass Control, helps extend all of our brands and technology to wider range of consumers, who benefit from improved audio quality, and has created the foundation for even more innovation and collaboration in the future.”
Dirac Live Bass Control is available to end-users for an add-on fee of $349 (for the single-subwoofer version) and $499 (for the multi-subwoofer version). It comes with each unit for no additional charge.
