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One of the best demos I heard at CES 2023 was Dirac Live demonstrating its Active Room Treatment (ART) technology. Now, StormAudio has flipped the switch and activated the feature in its ISP platform, meaning it works with all StormAudio processors and AVRs with firmware 4.5 on up and is included at no additional fee on any products purchased January 1 2023 onward. Dirac also sells licenses for products purchased prior to that date.

ART is a new approach to tackling room acoustics. It's leverages Dirac's proficiency in MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) mixed-phase impulse response correction. It is an advanced form of digital signal processing that considers the responses from multiple speakers at once and tailors the output to the listening environment. This method allows for spatial optimization (i.e. room correction) where all speakers in a system cooperate to achieve optimal sound.

According to Dirac, traditionally, passive acoustic treatments attempt to mitigate issues with room acoustics, but can struggle to provide optimal results across the whole frequency range. ART technology essentially turns every speaker into an active acoustical treatment, with each one assisting the others.

A critical benefit of Dirac Live ART evaluating and adjusting the bass characteristics of the entire system—automatically. It considers the unique acoustic properties of rooms and how speakers interact with them.

One significant issue this tech addresses is decay times. A 'decay time' is how long it takes for a sound to fade away in a room. Long decay times can lead to a sound that feels 'boomy' or 'smeared', particularly in the bass frequencies. This is common in many listening spaces, especially dedicated home theaters or entertainment rooms. Dirac Live Active Room Treatment claims to significantly reduce decay times, resulting in clearer and cleaner sound with less unwanted resonance.

Olivier Thumerel, CEO of StormAudio, shared his excitement on the release of the ART add-on developed in collaboration with Dirac. He praised the teams' relentless work, saying, “The Dirac and StormAudio teams have worked very hard on the release of the ART add-on, and we are excited for our StormAudio ISP users to experience the technology for themselves now."

Reflecting on the positive feedback received during active demos and the beta program, Thumerel assured, "With superb feedback from audiences at all our active demos over the past months, and our participants on the beta program, we know that this will be a revolution for home calibration — digital post-processing can enable dramatic improvements of the user experience, with no further hardware investment required.”

From now through Q4 2023, StormAudio's Active Room Treatment module will remain a StormAudio exclusive.