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Xiaomi and Dirac: the story of a partnership that “plays” the word success !!!

Perhaps few know that Dirac is a Swedish company specializing in digital audio tuning solutions and the first time we've heard of it associated with the Xiaomi brand was at the launch event of the 3 Mi in India occurred in the 2014. At the time, Xiaomi was an unknown Chinese producer who was taking the first steps towards a foreign market. Among the management was still present Hugo Barra that just on that occasion has had the privilege to present the device and as a success for the new Redmi Note 5 / Pro, Flipkart had the exclusive right to sell the phone in the subcontinent. The sound system provided by Dirac was one of the points on which Hugo Barra focused during the Q&A of the 3 Mi, enhancing the audio prowess of the smartphone. Since then, over the years, the two companies have worked closely to develop the best audio on Xiaomi devices.

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Dirac takes its name in honor of the British physicist, mathematician and engineer, Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics who won the Nobel Prize in the 1933. The company is based outside of Sweden and specializes in optimizing digital audio. The first Dirac collaborations can be found in the automotive field, as some automotive manufacturers such as Bentley, Volvo, BMW and Rolls Royce, have turned to the company to customize the interior acoustics. Finally the collaborations they continued with other companies specialized in audio like Harman, Pioneer, Datasat and DTS allowing the optimization of professional loudspeakers used in recording studios by improving their acoustics.

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But our interest in Dirac arrives in the last years, when the company has brought its audio art into mobile devices collaborating with Xiaomi but also OPPO, Huawei and OnePlus and many others offering the best possible sound ever obtained from a smartphone's speaker. In particular Dirac focuses its attention on two distinct areas when it comes to optimizing audio on phones: tune the headphone jack and change the speaker's performance. Dirac's decision to shift its business from systems designed for luxury cars to smartphones stems from the fact that today these devices are the best, sometimes the only way to listen to music; a decidedly appropriate choice as most of the company's turnover comes from mobile audio solutions.

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The first collaboration of Dirac in the smartphone world was born over five years ago, with the company OPPO to continue a year later with the signing of its first agreement with Xiaomi. Over the years the Swedish brand has been heavily involved in the development of audio on Xiaomi phones, becoming a fundamental pillar for Lei Jun's OEM.

Nicknamed Dirac HD Sound, the technology developed by the Swedish company is based on the correction of the frequency response of pulses and magnitudes to provide a more dynamic soundstage, even when connecting cheap headphones / earphones. The goal is to improve sound clarity and bass fidelity, while correcting the frequency response to provide a flat curve. So now you know why even by connecting simple headsets to a Xiaomi phone, the quality of the returned sound surprises you.

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DIRAC IS THE REASON FOR WHICH EVEN OF THE ECONOMIC HEADPHONES PLAY THE BIG ON A XIAOMI SMARTPHONE

Erik Rudolphi, general manager of the mobile section of Dirac, on the collaboration with Xiaomi, which allowed both brands to innovate in this segment, declares that:

It is thanks to the partnership with Xiaomi if we managed to create an outsourcing technology that allows traditional headphones to reproduce a stage similar to a recording room. Call Sensaround, the technology relies on Dirac's sound field optimization algorithms to provide virtual surround sound. The goal with Sensaround is to move the sound "out of your head, like you're listening to from the speakers.

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Dirac has also created a series of customized EQ filters for specific Xiaomi products, with the soundstage that changes according to the connected headset. You can even select the particular Xiaomi headphones from a list of options available in the MIUI and adapt your listening experience to that model. The most important challenge, however, was to optimize the sound coming from the speaker of a telephone. Because the speaker module of a cell phone is small, it becomes a challenge to provide powerful and clear audio. According to Rudolphi, the solution lies in the development of new algorithms of post processing audio that accompany the driver. The Dirac solution for the speakers is called Power Sound, which sees the company change the acoustics of the speaker to provide a more balanced and stronger sound (in addition to lower) and a digital controller that optimizes the audio output. Bass improvements, in particular, are noteworthy.

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Unlike generic frequency correction algorithms, Dirac tunes the audio for each speaker, and as such the sound coming out of a midrange smartphone like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro is different from that of the 2 Mi Mix. Rudolphi also said that Dirac has ten technicians on site at Xiaomi who are working full-time to fine-tune the acoustics for the various models in the Chinese manufacturer's catalog.

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The Dirac partnership with Xiaomi is not limited to smartphones, as the producer cooperated with the Swedish company for the rthe realization of his Mi Ai Speaker, to increase the clarity of the sound and improve the bass from the two integrated audio drivers. With more and more brands eliminating the 3,5 mm jack, we are rapidly moving into a world where the audio channeled by the USB-C output is the way forward for wired audio. Dirac sees many new opportunities in this field, with Rudolphi stating that the company is working on customized solutions for USB-C and Bluetooth audio.

Emanuele Iafulla
Emanuele Iafulla

Nerd, Geek, Netizen, terms that do not belong to me. Simply myself, technology lover and provocative as Xiaomi does with his products. High quality at fair prices, a real provocation for the other most famous brands.

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