Dirac specializes in digital sound optimization solutions. It all started 15 years ago, when some of the founders were still PhD students at the Signals and Systems Group at Uppsala University in Sweden. They started Dirac, named in honor of the British physicist Paul Dirac, whose name is centrally linked with a mathematical function used in their algorithms.
Dirac Live® is a complete software-based working methodology tailored for acoustic tuning of automotive sound systems, and is a real time-saver and a quality assurance boon for sound engineers. The technology is implemented in the amplifier or the head unit, where a proprietary high-resolution structure minimizes MIPS and memory usage. Typically, the power ratio between the direct wave and the tail is improved by 6 dB or more. It also targets to optimize the impulse responses and magnitude frequency responses for an almost perfect natural sound. It addresses time-domain problems, Dirac software treat the room’s spectral coloration, with a focus on variations across different measurement positions as to never overcompensate.
The less-than-ideal positioning of loudspeakers leads to a poor performance from each speaker and dissimilar impulse responses from different speakers. All these contribute to imprecise and unstable stereo imaging, lack of distinctness, boomy and uneven bass, varying performance across seats and problems with frequency response.
In more automated vehicles, occupant position may vary, thanks to seating new flexibility (swiveling, relax position,). Fix positioning of the speakers, even if directional, becomes an issue, and digital algorithm software correction is the solution. It allows more design freedom in speaker size, characteristics and location. It helps creating sound zones where occupant will enjoy a full immersive and personalized sound experience, whatever their position, and the position and program (music, news, movie). It brings also conference calling capabilities, creating a virtual meeting experience inside the vehicle, where the voices of conference participants come from specific directions, offering audible cues that improve communication.
Dirac Live also includes intelligent noise-canceling algorithms, which can help getting rid of unwanted noise, whatever the external and road situation.
Overall, the audio experience is strongly part of the overall experience, as it comes from a complex perception from all occupant senses.
