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Dirac Research to Launch Revolutionary Bass Enhancement Solution for Smartphones and Small Portable Speakers at CES 2019

Dirac Research, the Swedish pioneer of digitally optimized sound solutions, today announced Dirac Bass™, a breakthrough solution that enables smartphones and portable speakers to reproduce bass that is deeper with higher transparency than ever before. Dirac Bass will debut at CES 2019 in Dirac’s Westgate Suite #630.

Dirac Research, the Swedish pioneer of digitally optimized sound solutions, today announced Dirac Bass™, a breakthrough solution that enables smartphones and portable speakers to reproduce bass that is deeper with higher transparency than ever before. Dirac Bass will debut at CES 2019 in Dirac’s Westgate Suite #630.

“From immersive audio, with Dirac Panorama Sound, to louder, more powerful audio, with Dirac Power Sound, our suite of digital audio optimization solutions for small speakers has long redefined the mobile listening experience,” stated Erik Rudolphi, Dirac General Manager of Mobile. “Dirac Bass perfectly complements our existing solutions and equips smartphones and small portable speakers with a degree of bass reproduction previously only associated with much larger devices.”

Nilo Casimiro Ericsson, Dirac Head of Product Management, Mobile, continued, “In speakers, bass performance is all about moving as much air as possible. However, micro-speakers, like those used in smartphones or portable speakers, cannot move the amount of air required to reproduce deep bass content. Dirac Bass solves this problem by combining a classic psychoacoustic approach with new breakthroughs in digital signal processing to equip mobile devices with a new calibre of bass performance.”

Dirac Bass™ begins by leveraging the classic psychoacoustic approach, which states that our hearing leads us to believe that there is a lower fundamental tone in a sound when, in reality, it’s merely a combination of artificially-generated overtones that are several octaves higher. With this understanding, Dirac Bass shifts deep bass tones to higher frequencies that can be heard on mobile device micro-speakers.

Compared to similar solutions, Dirac Bass enables more natural, cleaner and deeper bass sound thanks to the detailed control of the artificially-generated overtones through completely new and proprietary advanced sound processing techniques. The breakthrough solution utilizes a dynamic NLD (non-linear device) that replaces the bass tones with the overtones most suitable for a given input signal. This extends the audible region by up to three octaves – enabling bass tones as deep as 30 Hz to be audible in smartphone speakers. Together, these innovations place Dirac Bass well ahead of other existing solutions.

In addition to the performance upgrades, Dirac Bass also provides key business benefits to OEMs. When micro-speakers attempt to produce pure bass tones, they easily get over-driven, causing audible distortion and ultimately speaker damage. By shifting bass tones to higher frequencies, Dirac Bass improves the health and longevity of the speakers. Furthermore, the removal of some of the original bass content results in new headroom for speaker excursion which then can be exploited to increase the loudness of the full band playback.

Dirac Bass™ also allows manufacturers to utilize smaller speakers – which often cost less – while still delivering a significant upgrade in bass performance. These smaller Dirac Bass-enabled speakers require less power to be driven, which results in extended battery life for power-constrained mobile devices.

Dirac Bass™ is used exclusively in conjunction with Dirac Panorama Sound or Dirac Power Sound. The new Dirac Bass solution will be demoed at CES 2019 in Dirac’s Westgate Suite #630 in Las Vegas from January 8-11, 2019. To schedule an appointment or request more information, email [email protected]. For hi-res photography, click here.

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