Klipsch has announced its new Flexus Core 300 soundbar, which it says is the first to use Dirac’s Live Room correction technology to optimize its sound specifically for the room it’s installed in and where listeners are sitting. Dirac Live is usually only featured in amplifiers and receivers that are part of a more complex — and more expensive — home theater setup.
The $999 Flexus Core 300 will be “available this winter,” according to What Hi-Fi? and features eight side-firing, front-firing, and up-firing 2.25-inch speakers, along with four 4-inch subwoofers. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ethernet, 8K passthrough HDMI, HDMI eARC, USB-C, and a digital audio port. Changing inputs and adjusting settings like EQ are handled via Klipsch’s Connect Plus mobile app available for iOS and Android.
Changing sound output to compensate for a room’s layout, size, and shape isn’t a new feature for soundbars, but its implementation varies. Samsung’s SpaceFit Sound relies on a microphone located in the soundbar itself to determine how sound is affected as it bounces around a room, while LG’s AI Room Calibration uses a mobile app and the built-in microphone on a smartphone to perform tests and determine what sound corrections need to be applied.
Dirac Live Room Correction technology is more comprehensive, relying on a Windows or macOS app and a microphone attached to a laptop to take sound measurements from different locations in a room where people will be sitting. listener. Dirac Live uses all those measurements to calibrate the soundbar to create a “coherent and natural sound environment” that “enhances the clarity of dialogue in movies and the purity of vocals in music.”
Out of the box, the Klipsch Flexus Core 300 comes with a “Limited Bandwidth” license for the Dirac Live software, which only corrects frequencies up to 500Hz. Dirac also plans to eventually create a “Full Bandwidth” license for the soundbar, tuning out frequencies it says span the full range of human hearing — up to 20kHz — for an additional fee.
