Dirac 24/192 when..?!?

[retro]

To flak or anyone who knows...

When is is coming..was promised in October..?!?

[flak]

To flak or anyone who knows...

When is is coming..was promised in October..?!?

 

First quarter 2014....

in October we promised it was coming, I understand that my answer is not precise but I do not know the exact date yet, I hope sooner than later within that timeframe

 

Thanks for your patience, Flavio

[barkerpusa]

Flavio,

 

I'm currently using the trial version and so far I am loving it. Any news on when the 24/192 update will be available?

 

Thanks

[wgscott]

...

First quarter 2014....

[barkerpusa]

Flavio,

 

Is there any update on the 24/192 upgrade yet as we are getting close to the end of the first quarter.

 

I'm loving Dirac Live and the update will be the icing on the cake.

 

Thanks

 

in advance.

 

Paul

[flak]

Dear coforumers,

I've checked on the release date and it looks like there are many concurrent implementations of the Dirac technology at the same time and as a result we are tight on engineering resources.

 

I think it is important to inform our current and prospective customers that according to current schedule the 192 kHz version will be released in June.

New engineers are coming in about a month so the situation should improve.

 

:-( Flavio

[Narukama]

Flavio,

 

I'm a prospective buyer. If I buy the current 24/96 version now and later the 24/192 comes out, will it be a free update or a little charge or I have to buy the 24/192 Dirac as a whole and uninstall the 24/96 version?

 

Thanks,

Thomas

[flak]

Flavio,

 

I'm a prospective buyer. If I buy the current 24/96 version now and later the 24/192 comes out, will it be a free update or a little charge or I have to buy the 24/192 Dirac as a whole and uninstall the 24/96 version?

 

Thanks,

Thomas

 

Hello Thomas,

 

the 192 KHz upgrade will definitely be a free upgrade,

 

Flavio

[Narukama]

Thanks for the info Flavio.

[tranz]

Hi Flavio,

 

Is the Dirac embedded in Amarra IRC already the full 24/192 code or is there a sample rate conversion happening? Thanks!

[flak]

Hi Flavio,

 

Is the Dirac embedded in Amarra IRC already the full 24/192 code or is there a sample rate conversion happening? Thanks!

 

No conversion as Richard explained in his answer in the Amarra iRC thread

 

Flavio

[tranz]

No conversion as Richard explained in his answer in the Amarra iRC thread

 

Flavio

 

Hi Flavio,

 

Thanks, I just saw Richard's response after posting here. To confirm, Amarra is the first to get your fully tested and released 24/192 Dirac code about 6 months prior to the stand alone version getting that same code?

 

Taking it one step further, what happens when I play 24/384 files?

 

Cheers

[flak]

Hi Flavio,

 

Thanks, I just saw Richard's response after posting here. To confirm, Amarra is the first to get your fully tested and released 24/192 Dirac code about 6 months prior to the stand alone version getting that same code?

 

Taking it one step further, what happens when I play 24/384 files?

 

Cheers

 

Dear Tranz,

again no conversion and yes.... Amarra iRC got it first

(personally, and personally is underlined, I heretically think that the performance of 24/96 recordings is good enough and that what really matters is the recording)

[SteveS1]

Dear Tranz,

again no conversion and yes.... Amarra iRC got it first

(personally, and personally is underlined, I heretically think that the performance of 24/96 recordings is good enough and that what really matters is the recording)

 

Flavio,

 

You are only playing at being a heretic.

 

I have found the same is true of 16/44. Now that is heresy.

 

Steve

[twist222]

No conversion as Richard explained in his answer in the Amarra iRC thread

 

Flavio

 

Flavio,

 

I own Amarra with IRC and would like to understand this better. With Amarra you take room measurements at a single sample rate set by the measurement software and use this to create the correction filter. What is the sample rate of this correction filter ?

 

Regards

Mark

[flak]

Hello Mark,

 

filters are made for all samplerates, 44/48/88.2/96/176.4/192/352.8 and 384 but please note that there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz

 

Ciao, Flavio

[twist222]

Hello Mark,

 

filters are made for all samplerates, 44/48/88.2/96/176.4/192/352.8 and 384 but please note that there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz

 

Ciao, Flavio

 

Flavio,

 

Thank you kindly for replying to my question Particularly when I should have done a little research myself and read the manual before posting. The answer was already in Appendix A of the Sonic Studio IRC User Manual.

 

I see all the filters from 44.1 to 384 are made by interpolating from a set of measurements undertaken at a single sample rate. With 48kHz being the preferred option.

 

I can certainly see how this simplifies the process of setting things up which has to be a good thing with many users. It also allows for a larger number of AD converters to be used for the measuring process. I use a Metric Halo ULN8 which is good for all rates up to 192 kHz but wont allow me to measure at 352.8 or 384kHz.

 

However it looks like it may give me another option to try one day. That is take additional measurements at different sample rates. ie take a set at 44.1, 96 and 192 kHz and make new filter sets using these measurements. IRC has 4 filter slots. So if I want to listen to a 192kHz download I can use the correction filter created from the 192kHz measurement. Not something I would bother changing for all listening, but for those days when you really want to listen? I am not sure of the differences between interpolation and sample rate conversion but it will be interesting to see if I can hear any difference between using filters constructed for a 48kHz file and filters constructed from a file recorded at the native sample rate. I suspect any differences I hear may be more from slightly different microphone positioning, but it will be an interesting experiment - one day.

 

Regards

 

Mark

[PeterSt]

Hello Mark,

 

filters are made for all samplerates, 44/48/88.2/96/176.4/192/352.8 and 384 but please note that there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz

 

Ciao, Flavio

 

Hi there Flavio,

 

Can you please elaborate ...

 

filters are made

 

Are being made ?

Have been made ?

Will be made in some future ?

Or just "are there already" ?

 

I ask this, because this has been exactly my question BUT for the Windows platform, and I received the answer "sorry but No - we have no engineering resources for that at this moment" (Erik).

Please notice that my question was explicitly about the 20KHz limit for frequency dealt with being OK, and all what would be needed was taking the higher input sampling rates (preferably up to 768).

 

Any clues ?

Thanks,

Peter

[dtb300]

With Dirac now offering 192 in Amarra, I hope this means Dirac Live will be offering 176.4 and up sample rates shortly. Two other products in the DRC arena offer up to 192k filters already.

 

I just finished up testing Dirac Live on a Server 2012 R2 platform and had a good experience with it. The only downside besides the non-support of higher sample rate is not being able to have DAP (Dirac Audio Processor) running when in Core Mode. Support said they would look into it - this is after my trial period had ended. So hopefully they find something as to why. The ability to have 4 curves at your fingertips was nice with Dirac. You also have the ability to turn the filter on/off for a quick comparison of the filter running or not. One nice feature Dirac has that the others do not is a Volume Adjustment for filters from -8dB to 0dB. But be careful as you can cause clipping if turned up too much.

 

I sent a bunch of suggestions to Dirac Support to improve the product. All through my testing I was able to email with support asking questions, posing issues, etc. and each time they were responsive to my questions.

 

Dan

[PeterSt]

Hi there Flavio,

 

Can you please elaborate ...

 

Hmm ...

[flak]

Hmm ...

 

Hello Peter,

 

you may have been told that filters are already in place for, say, 384k, and this is true in a way.

What is not in place yet is the DAP driver update needed to handle sample rates above 96k, and also looking into any issues that may arise when opening devices at higher than 96k rates.

 

As you can imagine as soon as that is finalized I'll post about it.

Ciao, Flavio

 

p.s. I also personally think that it will not make much of a difference because there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz so it is mostly a matter of compatibility with higher rez files as requested by the users

[rcohen]

If I could speculate...

 

Nobody can hear outside the audible spectrum. The benefit of hi-res sample rates is that they avoid the need for brick wall filters in the analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions, which do affect the audible spectrum. Given that, applying additional filtering for correction above 20khz is pointless, and possibly detrimental. So, allowing Dirac to support hi-res sample rates with hi-res filters is perfect.

 

That said, 96khz is sufficient for this, according to studies I have read. 192khz+ is overkill territory, but the only downside is that it uses additional CPU resources and it would take longer for the Dirac calibration tool to initially compute your filters (slower iteration).

 

Incidentally, I tried testing Dirac in 96khz and 88khz using 48khz and 44khz sources, using JRiver's upsampling. I couldn't hear the difference. It did square Dirac's CPU usage though, from 3% to 9%. That makes sense. Twice as many samples to computer, using filters that are twice as big. 192khz filters would square again to 81% CPU usage on my computer, unless Dirac adds new optimizations.

 

I didn't try hi-res sources, since I don't have any. That will be an interesting experiment.

 

Keep in mind that modern DACs do upsamping, so when you take a 44khz file, run it through Dirac at 44khz, the DAC will still upsample to avoid aggressive analog filtering. That still means that the aggressive digital filters have already done their (slight) damage (ADC and DAC), though. You would need hi-res source that was properly mastered to avoid aggressive filtering in order to avoid that.

[wgscott]

p.s. I also personally think that it will not make much of a difference because there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz so it is mostly a matter of compatibility with higher rez files as requested by the users

 

I don't have the ability (let alone the interest) to play a file higher in sampling frequency than 96kHz, but if I did, and sent it to the DAP, would it simply be re-sampled at 96kHz as the processor processes it, or does it just not play at all?

[flak]

I don't have the ability (let alone the interest) to play a file higher in sampling frequency than 96kHz, but if I did, and sent it to the DAP, would it simply be re-sampled at 96kHz as the processor processes it, or does it just not play at all?

 

Currently the 192 KHz files have to be downsampled to 96 KHz to be processed by Dirac Live... this can be done in real time by the player or offline, i.e. as far as I recall JRiver down samples in real time while Amarra thinks that offline downsampling has a better quality but some other forumer may know better.

 

Flavio

[PeterSt]

you may have been told that filters are already in place for, say, 384k, and this is true in a way.

What is not in place yet is the DAP driver update needed to handle sample rates above 96k, and also looking into any issues that may arise when opening devices at higher than 96k rates.

[...]

p.s. I also personally think that it will not make much of a difference because there is nothing to correct above 20 KHz so it is mostly a matter of compatibility with higher rez files as requested by the users

 

I too say that nothing is to be done above 20KHz, so to me it looks odd that *that* part would be in there, while the part to accept the higher rate files is not. But OK ...

 

My twist is a different one, and if you think about it, not all that uncommon these days;

The player performs the normal upsampling/filtering and this is unrelated to room correction. So then Dirac comes around and does that part. One thing : it now must accept the output sample rate of the player. And having that at 96KHz max is rather useless when all is made for 705600 (or 768000) and a DAC that accepts that as input. But otherwise 352800 or 384000 which is not uncommon anymore, and if not that then always 176400/192000.

 

Half of the world is doing that today you know. But your software can't take it and so it is useless for that half of the world. Never mind that nobody saw that yet (or takes it for granted that finally found iZotope etc. settings can not be used.

 

Anyway, that is how I said that nothing needs to be done in the frequency domain above 20KHz. But take the higher rate input, yes.

 

Thanks,

Peter