Beijing Hi-Fi Show 2018: China Experiences All Aspects of Dirac

China has been one of the most important markets for Dirac ever since we launched the first Dirac-enabled Chinese smartphone in cooperation with OPPO in 2012. Today, Dirac is the market leader in smartphone audio in China – providing audio optimization solutions for more than 10 manufacturers. While our breakthrough algorithms are well known in China’s mobile sector, we see great growth potential in the country’s other vertical markets including automotive, VR/AR and professional home audio.

In fact, earlier this year Dirac broke into the China’s automotive through a deal with BYD Automotive, the world’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer. In short time, another Chinese manufacturer will release a gaming headphone that is powered by Dirac VR/AR solutions.

With this influx in adoption of our premium audio solutions across the Chinese tech landscape, it was time to showcase Dirac’s full-line of audio innovations to a wider Chinese audience – and what better way to do so than at the 2018 Beijing International Music and HiFi show.

Room Correction: A New Concept for the Chinese Market?

At the show, we demonstrated our pioneering Dirac Live room correction solution on a NAD processor, and allowed visitors to listen to music and watch videos with Dirac Live ON or OFF.

It was interesting to learn that digital room correction – though prominent in the West – appears to be a relatively unknown and not widely used in China. Many visitors, whether audiophiles or professional music producers, arrived at our demo room without any prior understanding of digital room correction, though eager to implement anything to improve the sound of their home audio system.

After listening to the demo and asking lots of follow-up questions, they quickly accepted the concept of digital room correction and immediately began inquiring as to how best to integrate the technology into their audio system or become a solution distributor. 

Immersive Audio: The Future of Sound

Dirac believes that high-quality immersive audio represents the future of sound, whether produced over headphones, small portable devices, or VR headsets. At the show, we demonstrated our immersive audio solutions across a variety of consumer devices.

Visitors interested in portable speaker immersive audio got a chance to experience Dirac Panorama Sound, our speaker soundstage widening solution, on a Bose Soundlink Mini 2 speaker. Headphone enthusiasts had the opportunity to listen to four pairs of headphones equipped with both Dirac HD Sound, our headphone sound quality optimization solution, and Dirac Sensaround, our headphone soundstage widening solution. Those passionate about VR/AR experienced our breakthrough Dirac VR 3D audio solution on a virtual reality headset and a pair of headphones.

We were thrilled to hear from many visitors that our demos didn’t just showcase a marginal improvement in audio quality but rather a completely novel listening experience; they compared the performance of our Dirac-optimized devices to that of surround sound speaker systems and 3D audio spheres with sound coming from all directions.

While the concept of immersive audio is not new, its combination with high-quality sound and integration into portable consumer devices across a variety of product categories is truly pioneering.

Finding A New Perspective

As a research-driven company that primarily works with manufacturers and partners, we don’t often have the opportunity to interface directly with the end-user consumers. However, while at the show we took special notice of something powerful that occurred during these consumer demos: once attendees experienced our solutions, they seemed to feel as if they were part of something exciting – on the bleeding-edge of new innovation that not only transforms audio but rather entertainment in general.  

This feeling is something that we at Dirac experience every day and we were honored to share it with hundreds of attendees throughout the show. The show was a great success, as proven by one of the most common questions we received from attendees: “where can I get your solution?” We are thrilled to see Chinese consumers showing a genuine interest in Dirac and are excited to bring our world-leading algorithms to more products and categories in the country.

– Weiwei Fang, Marketing Manager at Dirac Research