Dirac Research, the Swedish pioneer of end-to-end digital audio optimization solutions, today announced the first Dirac Live-equipped product designed specifically for the automotive aftermarket: the miniDSP C-DSP 8×12 DL in-car audio processor. Though new to the aftermarket field, Dirac has rich experience developing sophisticated digital audio solutions for the automotive market in general, for customers such as Bentley, Rolls Royce, BMW, and Volvo, that solve acoustical challenges that have long-plagued the industry.
According to Niklas Thorin, Dirac General Manager of High Performance Audio, Dirac’s debut in the automotive aftermarket marks a turning point for the growing number of music aficionados who demand home theater quality audio in their vehicle environments.
“This new Dirac Live-enabled miniDSP processor was born out of demand by the automotive aftermarket community – which has long installed our home theater products in their vehicles to produce a refined listening experience,” stated Thorin. “However, the miniDSP C-DSP 8×12 DL is specifically designed for a vehicle environment and provides this community with a device that compensates for inherent flaws that arise from any in-vehicle stereo system.”
Dirac Live, the industry’s reference room correction solution, corrects not only the frequency response, but also the impulse response of the loudspeakers in a given room. This correction is particularly important in vehicle cabins – which are one of the most acoustically-challenged environments, given interior materials that heavily reflect sound waves and the less-than-ideal placement of multiple speakers at differing distances from the driver. These factors introduce impulse response issues that result in timing differences between speakers, which create muddied sound reproduction within the cabin and a suboptimal stereo image.
Dirac Live optimizes the audio performance of the speaker system and mitigates against these challenges – to thereby provide pristine sound with improved staging and imaging.
In addition to Dirac Live processing, the new miniDSP C-DSP 8×12 DL includes six differential low-level analog inputs for low noise pickup, high-level inputs for connecting to head units with power amplification, and stereo SPDIF to TOSLINK digital inputs. Twelve RCA outputs combined with eight channels of Dirac Live processing make the unit adaptable for active crossover systems as well as multichannel/surround installations with subwoofer integration.
miniDSP’s easy-to-use audio processing offers parametric EQ, compressors, adjustable time delay, crossovers up to 48 dB/octave, and an advanced matrix mixer with rear/center capability.
miniDSP CEO Antoine Rouget lauded the launch of the first Dirac Live-enabled automotive aftermarket solution, saying, “Dirac Live has proven to be an unbeatable solution for optimizing the characteristics and listening experience of home theater audio systems. By integrating Dirac Live into our new C-DSP 8×12 DL processor for automobiles, car lovers, music lovers and tinkerers can now maximize the performance of their existing automobile speakers to deliver home theater-quality sound in any vehicle.”
For more information on Dirac automotive audio solutions, click here. For more information on the miniDSP C-DSP 8×12 DL, click here. For hi-res photography, click here.
