Lewis CaliburnOnkyo has announced that its alliance with Swedish digital audio pioneer Dirac has grown over the past year into an expanded collaboration partnership.
Onkyo’s engineers and product teams are now developing AVR products at their Technology Center in Osaka, Japan, alongside Dirac’s developers to ensure that their technologies are fully optimised.
The result of this deeper collaboration will first be seen in Onkyo and its sister brand Klipsch as they unveil two new audio products with built-in Dirac Live Room Correction and Bass Control later this year. One of these will be the first of its kind in the consumer electronics industry.
“Dirac proves that the world’s best room correction software is not just for audiophiles. It’s for everyone,” says Vincent Bonacorsi, COO of Premium Audio Company (PAC). “Onkyo has built an exceptional reputation by bringing high-performance audio products with advanced technologies to a mass market at affordable prices. Our Dirac partnership and collaboration began years ago with Dirac Live Room Correction. It has since expanded to include their award-winning Dirac Live Bass Control, which is now available in many of our models. Dirac’s quest to improve audio playback with its famed room correction technologies continues to set our products apart from the crowd. As their technologies continue to expand, we are creating an even better listening experience for our customers together.”
Onkyo’s flagship A/V receivers, the TX-RZ70 and TX-RZ50, include a Dirac Live Room Correction full bandwidth licence at no additional cost.
The TX-RZ70 also supports Bass Control, which is available as a paid upgrade. While the TX-RZ50 does not currently support Bass Control, it is expected to be upgradeable with this feature in the coming months.
Dirac’s Vice President, Home & Pro Audio, Fredric Tapper, shares, “Dirac and Onkyo share a deep commitment to creating premium, high-quality audio for the many, not just the few. And it’s this shared commitment that has resulted in a successful collaboration these past few years. We look forward to strengthening and deepening our partnership with Onkyo to continue to push the boundaries of audio through premium hardware and industry-leading room correction software.”
Dirac Live Room Correction automatically addresses common acoustic challenges that all home audio systems have, but hardware alone can’t address – or takes too much time, expertise, or cost to do so.
It corrects for both the magnitude and phase of the entire sound system including the room itself – resulting in more transparent, balanced sound, tighter bass, improved staging and enhanced clarity.
Dirac Live Bass Control eliminates variations between listening positions and allows for smooth, even bass distribution throughout a room – and deeper, punchier bass irrespective of the position of the subwoofers.