A New Journey Begins... Marantz + Arendal

[KeithL]

At the risk of being snarky (which is always a risk with me)...

I'd be more interested in seeing a review of how well it works in some actual systems... and whether the improvement seems to be significant.
The marketing sounds really cool in the brochure... but... you know... you can't play music with a brochure.

I would also be remiss if I neglected to point out that we currently have three subwoofer models that actually cost less than the single-sub version of the software. 

Dec 14, 2023 15:05:05 GMT -5 LuisV said:

Marantz announced the availability of Dirac Live Bass Control... they are providing a limited time 30% discount:

[KeithL]

To be honest I'm interested in hearing what you think of those tri-axial surrounds.

M&K had tri-axial surrounds a long time ago...
I never heard them but it always seemed like a good idea...

[LuisV]

No doubt Keith... Dirac's prices are kinda crazy and the jury is still out on its performance; I too am looking for a review before commiting.

Not sure how Dirac leverages ML for bass optimization, but it certainly seems cool.     AI and ML are the latest buzz words, although it may not be justifiable in the audio / video world, they command a price premium as someone needs to pay for the backend compute.  

[LuisV]

Dec 14, 2023 16:44:07 GMT -5 KeithL said:

To be honest I'm interested in hearing what you think of those tri-axial surrounds.

M&K had tri-axial surrounds a long time ago...
I never heard them but it always seemed like a good idea...

For surround duty, I prefer the sound they provide over a regular speaker... unless the effect is specific to a speaker's location, it's sounds more enveloping to me.  Kinda difficult to find the words to explain, but this is basically the same reason that I prefer my surrounds above ear level.  In my humble opinion, it's more immersive.   Friends and family with bookshelves as surrounds don't sound right to me as the surround speaker is easily localized... I know the speaker is there as I can hear it.  These Arendal surrounds simply disappear.    

I used to own two pairs or the Emotiva ERD-1 surrounds and yes, I liked those as well... had them for a decade or so.  I can't provide any direct comparisons between speakers as I sold the Emotiva surrounds 4 years or so ago and going by memory wouldn't be fair.  

Hope that helps...