Post by suffolk112000 on Jun 23, 2012 9:12:55 GMT -5
Well, I finally did it. After shopping on and off for a processor for over two years and asking dozens of questions on this forum and others, I finally decided to purchase the UMC-1.
My set-up:
Rocket 850 fronts.
Rocket RSC 200 center channel.
Four Rocket RSS-300 surrounds.
SVS PB12 Ultra/2 subwoofer.
Emotiva UMC-1 processor.
Outlaw 770 (200X7) amp.
JVC RS2 projector.
DirecTV HR21 DVR.
Panasonic DMP BD85 Blu Ray player.
Toshiba HD XA2 HD DVD player.
58 X 104 Da-Lite HCCV screen with masking.
APC XS 1300 UPS.
My room: Treated dedicated home theater with two rows of Berkline 090’s. (Seven total) Each chair has its own bass shaker.
I purposely wanted to wait a few days and spend some legitimate time with the UMC-1 before commenting in a thread. I’ve now had the UMC-1 since last Friday evening (June 15), but wasn’t able to set it up until late the next morning.
First impressions: The UMC-1 does look great. However, I was not too concerned with aesthetics due to the fact that my equipment is housed in another room and few will ever see it. Let’s just say that I have a very budget rack to house my equipment. Regardless… I am very pleased with the looks of the UMC-1.
Hook-up and initial set-up has been a breeze. I’ve still got to make the connection to my bass shaker amp and of course do some final tweaking, but I don’t even think installation and set-up took me an hour before I was able to give the UMC-1 an initial test drive and start demoing material. And believe me when I say that my rack is not the most ergonomic environment when it comes to adding or changing components.
Before I used EmoQ, I tried calibrating the UMC-1 by hand by setting my own cross overs… speaker distances and such and the pre EmoQ calibration was a nice improvement over my Denon 3805. To be honest, I also wanted to see how close my initial settings were in comparison to the future EmoQ settings. After comparing both, I have to say that I trust the EmoQ settings because quite frankly, my theater sounded noticeably better after running EmoQ.
Further, EmoQ worked great on the first attempt… tho I will be running it again in a few weeks when I have some time, just to see what a 2nd room correction reading will give me. I’ll probably continue to tweak the UMC-1 until I get the XMC-1… hahahaha.
The sound: We watched Chronicle and The Gray on Blu Ray the first night out of the box. I guess the biggest thing to point out re: the UMC-1 is the noticeable improvement in the clarity of dialog. Dialog from my center channel is noticeably clearer at higher… reference type levels.
My 13 year old son (he'll be 14 June 28th) said he could notice the improvement after just a few moments in the room and quite frankly… I have to agree. I’ve gotta say the audio fidelity is now much more full. The surrounds are much more active. After watching Chronicle and The Gray, I put in a movie I was more familiar with, Captain America. I have seen this movie probably 8 or 9 times since its release to Blu Ray. It seems when we have guests over for a movie, CA is a very popular pick these days. Anyway, within the first minutes of the movie, I immediately began noticing sounds in the movie I have never heard before. Particularly in the surround speakers. So as you can see, I am very pleased thus far with the audio performance of my new UMC-1.
So far, HDMI switching seems to be working FLAWLESSLY for me. No HDMI handshake issues what so ever… and I gotta say I was a bit worried about that. The reason, as I noted above, my equipment is housed in another nearby room. As a result, I have about a 25’ HDMI run. In the past, because my previous receiver (Denon 3805) did not have HDMI, I had to use a Gefen HDMI switcher. Now at least initially, switching between sources with the UMC-1 is every bit as quick as my configuration was before. In fact, I think it may be slightly quicker than the Gefen switcher. Again… to this point, I’ve had no issues with HDMI handshake. We have DirecTV. After watching Chronicle, The Gray and Captain America all on day one, my son and I watched some of the College World Series on ESPN, we also watched an episode of Pawn Stars amongst some other shows and even watched a recorded episode of Hawaii Five O on our DVR and I have experienced no HDMI issues thus far. You can see I put the UMC-1 thru its paces that first evening.
Monday night I watched a little more college world series and the Blu Ray, Real Steal. No HDMI issues what so ever. I’ve since watched Celine Dion ‘A New Day’ Blu Ray. Just a great concert Blu Ray to use as demo material. I've also watched parts of Jeff Beck's Rock 'N' Roll Party Honoring Less Paul. If you want a good demo disc recommendation, Jeff Beck and the Celine Dion Blu Rays are keepers. I cannot believe how much the UMC-1 has improved the audio side of my set-up. My Rocket speakers have never sounded better.
If someone asked me what the cons are so far with the UMC-1, I honestly would say nothing. But again, I’ve only spent about a week with it.
However, some things I noticed that I need to investigate further. After running EmoQ, I noticed my subwoofer was running extremely hot. I’m talking the bass was moving my hair kinda hot. Not that excessive bass is a BAD thing…
but seriously… after running EmoQ, it was set to high to the point it was over the top. Additionally, I don’t really believe the ‘hot’ bass is a con for the UMC-1. It’s just a setting that I need to correct within EmoQ to satisfy MINE and my family’s personal tastes. I went in the settings on Saturday and turned down the bass settings and this helped dramatically. So Monday, while watching Real Steal, I was able to tweak EmoQ during the movie and turn down the bass a slight bit more. I think I’ve now got the bass just about set where I want it. Is Audyssey is capable of tweaking settings like EmoQ allows you to do? I was thinking you can’t. I believe I read that once Audyssey is run, you can’t tweak the settings. If you do, you lose all the dynamic changes Audyssey performed. But I may be wrong. Anyway… the other thing I noticed during set-up is that EmoQ appears to be telling me my speaker polarity is reversed on 3 speakers. This is strange… and I question this, because during the hook-up process, I never made any speaker wire changes, only the connection from the amp to the UMC-1. The sound is GREAT. Which leads me to believe EmoQ somehow is ‘confused’ hahaha. Again, these are things I need to check.
I do have a hum in my subwoofer that I need to address, but that hum was present with my Denon 3805 as well. I was sort of hoping the hum might go away with the addition of the UMC-1. I guess I need to finally get that annoyance resolved.
After my first few days with my UMC-1, I honestly don’t know why I waited so long. I’m just wondering now what the limitations of my speakers are. I guess I’ll find out with the XMC-1.
Honestly… I figured my Denon was probably all the processor I ever needed with the Rockets. I’d consider them mid-range speakers. Clearly the UMC-1 has pushed my speakers to new heights. I’ve always felt my speakers were a slight bit on the bright side. Not Klipsch speaker bright, but I’ve always felt that their brightness would be the ONE thing I would tone back if I could. The UMC-1 gave me that wish and then some. If you’re sitting on the fence in regards to the UMC-1 and can’t decide. My advice to you is to make the decision and don’t look back. Thus far, I’m happy I finally did.
My set-up:
Rocket 850 fronts.
Rocket RSC 200 center channel.
Four Rocket RSS-300 surrounds.
SVS PB12 Ultra/2 subwoofer.
Emotiva UMC-1 processor.
Outlaw 770 (200X7) amp.
JVC RS2 projector.
DirecTV HR21 DVR.
Panasonic DMP BD85 Blu Ray player.
Toshiba HD XA2 HD DVD player.
58 X 104 Da-Lite HCCV screen with masking.
APC XS 1300 UPS.
My room: Treated dedicated home theater with two rows of Berkline 090’s. (Seven total) Each chair has its own bass shaker.
I purposely wanted to wait a few days and spend some legitimate time with the UMC-1 before commenting in a thread. I’ve now had the UMC-1 since last Friday evening (June 15), but wasn’t able to set it up until late the next morning.
First impressions: The UMC-1 does look great. However, I was not too concerned with aesthetics due to the fact that my equipment is housed in another room and few will ever see it. Let’s just say that I have a very budget rack to house my equipment. Regardless… I am very pleased with the looks of the UMC-1.
Hook-up and initial set-up has been a breeze. I’ve still got to make the connection to my bass shaker amp and of course do some final tweaking, but I don’t even think installation and set-up took me an hour before I was able to give the UMC-1 an initial test drive and start demoing material. And believe me when I say that my rack is not the most ergonomic environment when it comes to adding or changing components.
Before I used EmoQ, I tried calibrating the UMC-1 by hand by setting my own cross overs… speaker distances and such and the pre EmoQ calibration was a nice improvement over my Denon 3805. To be honest, I also wanted to see how close my initial settings were in comparison to the future EmoQ settings. After comparing both, I have to say that I trust the EmoQ settings because quite frankly, my theater sounded noticeably better after running EmoQ.
Further, EmoQ worked great on the first attempt… tho I will be running it again in a few weeks when I have some time, just to see what a 2nd room correction reading will give me. I’ll probably continue to tweak the UMC-1 until I get the XMC-1… hahahaha.
The sound: We watched Chronicle and The Gray on Blu Ray the first night out of the box. I guess the biggest thing to point out re: the UMC-1 is the noticeable improvement in the clarity of dialog. Dialog from my center channel is noticeably clearer at higher… reference type levels.
My 13 year old son (he'll be 14 June 28th) said he could notice the improvement after just a few moments in the room and quite frankly… I have to agree. I’ve gotta say the audio fidelity is now much more full. The surrounds are much more active. After watching Chronicle and The Gray, I put in a movie I was more familiar with, Captain America. I have seen this movie probably 8 or 9 times since its release to Blu Ray. It seems when we have guests over for a movie, CA is a very popular pick these days. Anyway, within the first minutes of the movie, I immediately began noticing sounds in the movie I have never heard before. Particularly in the surround speakers. So as you can see, I am very pleased thus far with the audio performance of my new UMC-1.
So far, HDMI switching seems to be working FLAWLESSLY for me. No HDMI handshake issues what so ever… and I gotta say I was a bit worried about that. The reason, as I noted above, my equipment is housed in another nearby room. As a result, I have about a 25’ HDMI run. In the past, because my previous receiver (Denon 3805) did not have HDMI, I had to use a Gefen HDMI switcher. Now at least initially, switching between sources with the UMC-1 is every bit as quick as my configuration was before. In fact, I think it may be slightly quicker than the Gefen switcher. Again… to this point, I’ve had no issues with HDMI handshake. We have DirecTV. After watching Chronicle, The Gray and Captain America all on day one, my son and I watched some of the College World Series on ESPN, we also watched an episode of Pawn Stars amongst some other shows and even watched a recorded episode of Hawaii Five O on our DVR and I have experienced no HDMI issues thus far. You can see I put the UMC-1 thru its paces that first evening.
Monday night I watched a little more college world series and the Blu Ray, Real Steal. No HDMI issues what so ever. I’ve since watched Celine Dion ‘A New Day’ Blu Ray. Just a great concert Blu Ray to use as demo material. I've also watched parts of Jeff Beck's Rock 'N' Roll Party Honoring Less Paul. If you want a good demo disc recommendation, Jeff Beck and the Celine Dion Blu Rays are keepers. I cannot believe how much the UMC-1 has improved the audio side of my set-up. My Rocket speakers have never sounded better.
If someone asked me what the cons are so far with the UMC-1, I honestly would say nothing. But again, I’ve only spent about a week with it.
However, some things I noticed that I need to investigate further. After running EmoQ, I noticed my subwoofer was running extremely hot. I’m talking the bass was moving my hair kinda hot. Not that excessive bass is a BAD thing…
but seriously… after running EmoQ, it was set to high to the point it was over the top. Additionally, I don’t really believe the ‘hot’ bass is a con for the UMC-1. It’s just a setting that I need to correct within EmoQ to satisfy MINE and my family’s personal tastes. I went in the settings on Saturday and turned down the bass settings and this helped dramatically. So Monday, while watching Real Steal, I was able to tweak EmoQ during the movie and turn down the bass a slight bit more. I think I’ve now got the bass just about set where I want it. Is Audyssey is capable of tweaking settings like EmoQ allows you to do? I was thinking you can’t. I believe I read that once Audyssey is run, you can’t tweak the settings. If you do, you lose all the dynamic changes Audyssey performed. But I may be wrong. Anyway… the other thing I noticed during set-up is that EmoQ appears to be telling me my speaker polarity is reversed on 3 speakers. This is strange… and I question this, because during the hook-up process, I never made any speaker wire changes, only the connection from the amp to the UMC-1. The sound is GREAT. Which leads me to believe EmoQ somehow is ‘confused’ hahaha. Again, these are things I need to check. I do have a hum in my subwoofer that I need to address, but that hum was present with my Denon 3805 as well. I was sort of hoping the hum might go away with the addition of the UMC-1. I guess I need to finally get that annoyance resolved.
After my first few days with my UMC-1, I honestly don’t know why I waited so long. I’m just wondering now what the limitations of my speakers are. I guess I’ll find out with the XMC-1.
Honestly… I figured my Denon was probably all the processor I ever needed with the Rockets. I’d consider them mid-range speakers. Clearly the UMC-1 has pushed my speakers to new heights. I’ve always felt my speakers were a slight bit on the bright side. Not Klipsch speaker bright, but I’ve always felt that their brightness would be the ONE thing I would tone back if I could. The UMC-1 gave me that wish and then some. If you’re sitting on the fence in regards to the UMC-1 and can’t decide. My advice to you is to make the decision and don’t look back. Thus far, I’m happy I finally did.
