seated in the center of a couch – and provides
the processor with its delay and channel level
settings. Readings 2 and 3 are for those seated
at the sides, while 4 and 5 are for hypothetical
people standing behind those seated, and 8, 9
and 10 are for a second row of seats. After the
software does its thing (a process taking a few
minutes, at most), I can see a graphical display
of the sound for each channel, and then how
each position has now been evened out with
the other so that no matter where you are, you’ll
hear the same sound without the room getting
in the way. Ken says that up to 32 positions
can be enacted, though realistically there is a
sensibility that needs to be applied. But this
works regardless of small or large space, as the
correction filters which are derived compen-
sate for the room’s anomalies, making the
speakers sound the same regardless of the
room, and again, at every seat.
A key press now sends this information into
the amplifier’s EPROM for permanent storage.
This process can be repeated at any time to in-
crease/decrease/change the number of people
who will be in the specific listening space, or
to correct for new room furnishings.
So, let’s watch some movies and listen to
some music. Ken keeps the software running
so I can toggle the digital technology on and
off (as dARTS is sold through a dealer/installer
bringing his/her own PC as well as the other
needed installation equipment, the system is
left “on” without this toggling available to the
end user). He puts on “House of Flying
Daggers,” which features an amazing sequence
of drums sounding off as they’re struck by both
pebbles and coiled cloth. I focus on the echoes
of the drum strikes, which fade rapidly and in-
distinctly. Toggled “on” however, I can now
hear a gradual fading of the echoes around me,
creating a much more distinct surround that is
as realistic as it is impressive.
For gunshots, it’s The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen and the sequence in which Dorian
Gray’s library is shot to pieces by machine guns.
Again, the echoes of the bullets are much more
realistic and well defined with the DSP enacted,
without it they sound teeny and hard. But U571’s
scene in which the men in the submarine wait
as depth charges go off all around them really
drives the value of the system home. Here, it’s
big explosions that literally rattle your teeth.
But the realism now attained is quite astound-
ing: one hears the rippling of the water as the
nector that is designed to accept input from the
additional system component – the software.
Using a PC rather than a chip in the digital
processor enables greater abilities in the digital
measuring and room correction applications that
are needed. This is opposed to those proces-
sors on the market that do this through a built-
in chip – functional to a point, but limited in
scope and unable to match the power of a PC
devoted to this task through software.
The final component, used in conjunction
with the software, is a microphone on a stand
and a digital audio mixer. These will be used to
measure the audio response of the room in sev-
eral locations to let the software work its magic.
The dARTS speakers may be perfectly
matched to each other and to a chosen target
curve, but that’s not enough in the real world.
As I understand it, the real problem with sound
is that no matter how well a speaker has been
designed, it can’t take into effect the room in
which it will be placed, and therefore the
acoustic impact that will occur. Sound bounces
multiple times off the floor, walls and ceiling,
and is also affected by such things as carpeting
or whether there are glass windows or a fire-
place, etc. So the idea is to correct for this – or
to be more accurate, the hope is to take the room
out of the equation of the resultant sound.
To date, the process has been to place a mi-
crophone in the “sweet spot” of a single listener,
play and analyze tones and then calculate an
equalization curve. Obviously this doesn’t bode
well for those not seated in the sweet spot, and
so additional techniques have been added to
average in reading from those in other positions
as well. But the end result is still averaging –
person A who is seated in chair #4 will not gain
the benefit of hearing what person B might,
since B is in the best position for listening. Ken
adds that when different positions are averaged,
if one seat has a peak at, say, 200 Hz, and an-
other has a dip at the same frequency, the re-
sulting average will yield NO correction at all.
Where dARTS is different is that the software
(from Audyssey Laboratories) isn’t doing an av-
eraging – it’s actually able to compare and
weigh the responses from the different seats
over and over, and then modify the sound so
that people in various positions hear it the same.
This is possible due to the speed and power of
the digital processor – something that Ken notes
wasn’t possible earlier on. He places the mi-
crophone in the first position – which is for one
shock waves dissipate from the explosions, and
the creaking of the sub’s metal has an immedi-
ate intimacy that is nearly painful. Of course
this was in there all along, having been put in
place by the sound editor and heard in the the-
aters. But it’s taken dARTS to unlock it from the
DVD so that it can now be revealed.
Perhaps the most telling example comes
from a more than 25-year-old Telarc CD,
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Digitally remas-
tered, it sounds quite good, but the ending –
where digital cannons mix with church bells
and the orchestra crescendos – becomes truly
muddy and even mushy. Toggling the DSP
back on, the replay displays none of these neg-
ative characteristics: the bells are distinct and
their “tink” sharp and clear, the cannon shots
are properly weighted in their bass and solid
response, and the orchestration swells as a
merger of joyous sound in which all are par-
ticipating without timidity.
Nice as this is, an in-room version is also in
the works. The in-rooms will consist of the
same drivers as the custom box version except
for the front left and right speakers, which have
only one woofer each. The cabinets are made
of a molded polymer and wood blend that
makes them very rigid and acoustically inert.
They are also highly stylized.
Now probably the hardest thing is to sum
up describing the results: after all, this is all about
listening, not reading about listening. So
imagine first covering your ears and listening
to music for an hour or so. Your brain will be-
come accustomed and will attempt to com-
pensate. Upon taking your hands away,
suddenly everything sounds brighter, clearer
and with greater clarity and more definition. Or
how about this – imagine a spinning wheel with
jagged edges: the sound as it spins is harsh
and biting and grrrr.... Now replace that with a
smooth wheel to find a gentler, even swoosh-
ing sound that is not just more pleasant, but
more even and considerate to the ear. This is
what dARTS is doing by building perfectly-
matched speakers and removing the room from
the equation so the sound you hear in your
home is now as near to what the creators had
intended as is humanly possible. Did I mo-
mentarily envision backing up a truck to load
it all on and drive off into the Floridian sunset?
You bet I did!
•
– By Marshal M. Rosenthal
>
dART S HITS THE BULLS-EYE
54 HDTV ETC•December/January 2006 www.hdtvetc.com
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