Dirac just marked 25 years in the room correction business (founded in Uppsala back in 2001), and what struck me reading through the anniversary coverage wasn't the history — it was how far down-market the tech has moved just this year.
Emotiva's new LXR-11 receiver and LXP-16 surround processor are shipping with the full Dirac Live suite included at no extra cost: Room Correction, Bass Control, and Active Room Treatment all bundled, which Emotiva hasn't done before — Bass Control and Active Room Treatment used to be separate add-ons. Both handle up to 9.4.6 channel processing. NAD went a different direction at CEDIA this year, getting their compact CI SA2-120 and CI S2 BluOS streaming modules certified for Dirac Live Room Correction — these are the small custom-install modules, not flagship separates.
The one that actually surprised me: the Marantz MODEL M1 and the Denon Home Amp — both all-in-one streaming amps, not big separates — now support Dirac Live Room Correction as a paid license upgrade ($159 for limited bandwidth, $249 for full). That's Dirac's patented magnitude-and-phase correction landing on genuinely entry-level, lifestyle-amp hardware for the first time.
Feels like the same trajectory Atmos decoding or HDMI 2.1 went through — a feature that used to justify a flagship purchase is turning into something you bolt onto a sub-$1000 streaming amp. Anyone actually bought one of the Dirac licenses for a Denon/Marantz streaming amp yet? Curious whether it's a meaningful upgrade on hardware that wasn't designed around it from day one, or whether the correction does most of the work regardless of amp class.
Emotiva's new LXR-11 receiver and LXP-16 surround processor are shipping with the full Dirac Live suite included at no extra cost: Room Correction, Bass Control, and Active Room Treatment all bundled, which Emotiva hasn't done before — Bass Control and Active Room Treatment used to be separate add-ons. Both handle up to 9.4.6 channel processing. NAD went a different direction at CEDIA this year, getting their compact CI SA2-120 and CI S2 BluOS streaming modules certified for Dirac Live Room Correction — these are the small custom-install modules, not flagship separates.
The one that actually surprised me: the Marantz MODEL M1 and the Denon Home Amp — both all-in-one streaming amps, not big separates — now support Dirac Live Room Correction as a paid license upgrade ($159 for limited bandwidth, $249 for full). That's Dirac's patented magnitude-and-phase correction landing on genuinely entry-level, lifestyle-amp hardware for the first time.
Feels like the same trajectory Atmos decoding or HDMI 2.1 went through — a feature that used to justify a flagship purchase is turning into something you bolt onto a sub-$1000 streaming amp. Anyone actually bought one of the Dirac licenses for a Denon/Marantz streaming amp yet? Curious whether it's a meaningful upgrade on hardware that wasn't designed around it from day one, or whether the correction does most of the work regardless of amp class.