Dirac on The Future of Immersive Home Audio
Dirac & McIntosh: A Perfect Harmony of Innovation and Excellence
Dirac’s core mission has always been to enhance audio experiences through innovative software that maximises the performance of users’ hardware. Meanwhile, McIntosh has spent over 75 years delivering only the finest audio products to customers, whether for two-channel stereo or home theatre systems.
It was, therefore, a natural partnership for the two companies to collaborate, leveraging their collective strengths to create immersive, audiophile-quality home audio solutions. These solutions are designed to be easily optimised for any room shape, design, or size, ensuring exceptional sound quality in any environment.
Give The People What They Want
This collaboration arrives at an inflexion point in the home audio space. Audio engineers, listeners, and home audio integrators are increasingly pursuing immersive audio experiences—similar to home theatre surround sound—designed to envelop listeners in every note and sound of the films and music they love.
Today’s homeowners expect technology-enhanced performance from their home entertainment systems, which was unimaginable just a few years ago. A core aim of this partnership is to elevate multichannel and spatial audio experiences by combining cutting-edge software with premium hardware components renowned for their exceptional sound reproduction.
Just as Dirac has pushed the boundaries of software-enhanced home audio with its industry-leading room correction technology, McIntosh has continued to innovate in component design and aesthetics, catering to the most discerning customers. Together, Dirac and McIntosh have integrated Dirac’s advanced software optimisation tools into the McIntosh MHT300 Home Theater Receiver, offering customers truly immersive audio experiences that set a new standard for home entertainment.
The Weakest Link
The one thing no audio engineer, hardware manufacturer, or software designer can plan for is the specific shape, size, and design of the room in which a system will be used.
Dirac is focused on making it as easy as possible for McIntosh dealers and users to achieve dramatically enhanced audio experiences, ensuring they enjoy the best possible sound from their home theatre systems. The McIntosh MHT300 Home Theater Receiver accomplishes this by incorporating the award-winning Dirac Live Room Correction Software.
According to McIntosh, the company had been closely following Dirac’s progress as it gained a stellar reputation across multiple audio environments. Through the MHT300 integration, McIntosh aimed to demonstrate how each installation could unlock the true potential of the system’s sound, regardless of room peculiarities, while faithfully reproducing the wide variety of audio formats and styles popular today.
The Secret Software Sauce
Powered by patented technologies, Dirac Live is the market-leading room correction solution. It automatically addresses common acoustic challenges that all home audio systems face—challenges that hardware alone cannot resolve without significant time, expertise, or cost. Dirac achieves this through its patented mixed-phase impulse response correction technology, which corrects the magnitude response and the time domain. This is critical for achieving tight bass, accurate staging, and exceptional clarity.
When sound engineers create the final studio mix for a film or song, they cannot account for the infinite variations presented by their listeners' home environments and audio systems. That’s where Dirac steps in.
The best sound system transports the listener into the scene or recording studio. Dirac Live helps deliver that experience by ensuring McIntosh MHT300 owners enjoy the best possible audio performance, regardless of speaker placement, room size, or furniture arrangement.
To learn more about Dirac Live, visit dirac.com/live.