RMC-1

[deewan]

Personally I don't see the need or desire for Atmos in a residential setting. I have a 13x19 dedicated room and have often wondered if I would have the room for quality speakers to fulfill the 9.x, 11.x, or 15.x formats. And since most don't have a dedicated room, not many wives would let a guy throw 14 speakers in a living room to take advantage of the full soundtrack. Add to that, I don't want to have to pay for that many channels of amplification or quality speakers. In a commercial setting I think it is great. But at home, I'm guessing most people will have to take short cuts with amps and speakers to get it to fit and I doubt there would be much of an advantage over a high quality 7.x setup. Just my opinion though.

[Erwin.BE]

Sept 8, 2013 7:57:45 GMT -5 deewan said:

Personally I don't see the need or desire for Atmos in a residential setting. I have a 13x19 dedicated room and have often wondered if I would have the room for quality speakers to fulfill the 9.x, 11.x, or 15.x formats. And since most don't have a dedicated room, not many wives would let a guy throw 14 speakers in a living room to take advantage of the full soundtrack. Add to that, I don't want to have to pay for that many channels of amplification or quality speakers. In a commercial setting I think it is great. But at home, I'm guessing most people will have to take short cuts with amps and speakers to get it to fit and I doubt there would be much of an advantage over a high quality 7.x setup. Just my opinion though.

The beauty of atmos® is that it doesn't matter how many speakers you got and I suppose not even where they are. It could measure from a certain number of positions and figure out where (distance, horizontal and vertical angle) each speaker would be. Say, your room wasn't suitable for rears, hence you got plain 5.1. Now you could add no more than 3 height speakers (maybe above center and both surrounds) and still benefit from atmos® in a still reasonable 8.1 set-up.

BTW, I am all for powered speakers with active crossovers. Very cost effective.

[deewan]

If the beauty about Atmos is it's ability to measure each speaker and it's placement to improve sound, then I guess I will keep my current 7.2 setup and benefit from Atmos. But if I must add height speakers in order to benefit, I'm not interested. Unless an acoustically transparent screen is used, I think it looks silly to have a front wall that looks like a speaker arrays from a concert. Center, right, left, right height, left height, center height channels. Do I have room for a screen? on a 13 wide by 7.5 foot tall wall?

My understanding of Atmos was it's ability to improve dynamics in large rooms (commercial theaters) by adding additional speakers, some of which were height speakers. I'm all for adding dynamics, but I've done that with better speakers and amps, not more speakers. But to each their own. Some have much larger rooms than me and have the real estate to install more speakers.

[Erwin.BE]

Sept 8, 2013 15:47:24 GMT -5 deewan said:

My understanding of Atmos was it's ability to improve dynamics in large rooms (commercial theaters) by adding additional speakers, some of which were height speakers.

Indeed, during our one-of experience with atmos® in Holland, the unstressed system impressed me very much with it's dynamics too. In cinema's, atmos® uses five front channels, adds two subs (they were hanging above the entrances in the rear corners if I remember correctly). And the surrounds nearest to the front come also into play. But this quality doesn't make the other properties obsolete. It can create a perfect surround bubble or a pin-point accurate object based sound and has great panning abilities in all directions. Even the best speakers in the world cannot do that if there are only seven of them and only at ear height.

How it looks in a living room is irrelevant. Some people will not have more than a sound bar or some tiny Bose satellites at most. Let alone "Atmos"

[deewan]

Agreed, but to have great panning ability all speakers must be able to handle big dynamics and full range (hopefully lossless) sound. Small in-wall or in-ceiling speakers will struggle, requiring a larger speaker. Brining me back to my desire to not have a front wall of speakers simply to try to add seamless panning. In a smaller room, less speakers are needed for a complete surround sound experience. In bigger rooms, more speakers are needed. I still believe jamming 11 to 16 speakers into a medium sized room is pointless. If the RMC is 9.x, that is more than enough channels for the majority of even the biggest fans for overkill here on this forum. Unless it's just a matter of "Oh, you only have how many speakers in your room?".

[Erwin.BE]

Nobody here is suggesting in-wall, let alone in-ceiling speakers for a HT! But smaller rooms do call for smaller speakers. Our part-dedicated HT will be about 23 x 28 feet (5,000 cubic) of which 80% is for HT/presentation. Finding the stealth 8 ever so slightly to small, I was about to start build a threesome of the inConcert Miles design. This uses a AMT tweeter double the size of the stealth and two 15" midwoofers. Just saying to prove I am all for big ones because there's no substitute for cubic inches. But now I heard about the stealth 88, that will be more than adequate for my desires.

I agree 9.x is enough for most here. More than 12 channels in total is probably not even possible for the platform. I was just dreaming out loud. Cool?

[deewan]

I am a HUGE fan of Dynamics. And I agree in-wall and in-ceiling speakers are pretty much worthless. Personally, I'd rather not have the manufacturing and material cost of more than 9.x channels included in the RMC-1 since I would never use them. I probably would never use more than 7 channels.

Quick side note, the Stealth 88's look amazing! I would give some serious thought to those if I didn't have a nice amp and speaker setup already. For dynamics in my room, I went with something close to a line array (just a larger number of drivers than normal) to help with dynamics. With proper power, they have a huge dynamic range.

[Erwin.BE]

That's some serious cabinet work that went into these speakers! I bet they sound great. Your surrounds aren't mentioned? I hope they're not in-walls!

[blkman0072]

Ok so now you can have more speakers but what about all the connections that have to be made? Because of all the speakers are you using balanced outputs or rca? If you use powered speakers now you have to buy wall mounts then to have a clean look wall plates. Man then do you run xpa-5's or xpr-5's to get all that bang? Oh wait that wouldnt be enough amps. That's only 10 channels so now you have mono's or what? I figured 10 channels would be great but I still think for most people 7.2 or 7.3 would be super and be wife approved. That's not getting into what's going to hold all the gear. That's only my half cents since I'm not yet ready to build my system. The boss says the backyard has to be done first in the new house.

[Erwin.BE]

Well, since the RMC-1 will be fully discrete for all channels, this means essentially double circuits. 12 channels including subs is all we will get. Not certain if we will get 12 since I think Dirac is only available with 2 or 8 channels as far as I know. I'd take 9.3 fully discrete channels over a AV8801 with 11.2 any day. Quality before quantity. I'd rather drink one great glass of wine than a whole bottle of nasty stuff.

I have a question when hooking up stealth speakers using XLR interconnects (it doesn't even have RCA) to a fully discrete balanced RMC-1. Does this count as a fully discrete set-up? Ie, what happens inside the stealth?

[amaheshw]

Sept 6, 2013 22:26:25 GMT -5 deewan said:

My personal opinion, amaheshw might be a troller. His first post is knocking down a product that Dan has spoken about to customers. amaheshw has called Emotiva several times and every time asked about a product in development, yet has never posted on the forum until now??? If he follows threads at all, especially about the XMC, he should know Emo now shares less about products in development. I'm guessing a few months from now amaheshw will still have just one post, trying to cast doubt in the mind of lounge members or just trying to get a rise out of other members. And with my post, he has accomplished his role.

Deewan -- it is unfortunate that you feel compelled to discredit anyone who appears to express an opinion even remotely different than yours. Although you noted -- correctly -- that I have never posted on these boards, it is untenable that this single data point could support any of the adverse inferences you have drawn. Such misguided responses discourage active participation by Emo owners (which I am) and is a primary reason why I do not post frequently. I encourage you to review each of the responses to my post and note the diplomacy and objectivity used by those members, particularly the specific info in Klinemj's response, in providing opposing views. Such examples of civility provide a more meaningful opportunity to engage in intellectual discourse, in contrast to mere rhetoric bereft of any basis in fact.

[Jim]

Sept 10, 2013 14:00:55 GMT -5 amaheshw said:

Sept 6, 2013 22:26:25 GMT -5 deewan said:

My personal opinion, amaheshw might be a troller. His first post is knocking down a product that Dan has spoken about to customers. amaheshw has called Emotiva several times and every time asked about a product in development, yet has never posted on the forum until now??? If he follows threads at all, especially about the XMC, he should know Emo now shares less about products in development. I'm guessing a few months from now amaheshw will still have just one post, trying to cast doubt in the mind of lounge members or just trying to get a rise out of other members. And with my post, he has accomplished his role.

Deewan -- it is unfortunate that you feel compelled to discredit anyone who appears to express an opinion even remotely different than yours. Although you noted -- correctly -- that I have never posted on these boards, it is untenable that this single data point could support any of the adverse inferences you have drawn. Such misguided responses discourage active participation by Emo owners (which I am) and is a primary reason why I do not post frequently. I encourage you to review each of the responses to my post and note the diplomacy and objectivity used by those members, particularly the specific info in Klinemj's response, in providing opposing views. Such examples of civility provide a more meaningful opportunity to engage in intellectual discourse, in contrast to mere rhetoric bereft of any basis in fact.

Although clearly there was a misunderstanding there, it's not unusual for us to see new members that make 1-2 controversial posts for the sake of stirring up things, and then are never heard from again. Some people do it in an attempt to discredit Emotiva and their products...... And it gets old, quick.

With only a couple posts (and opposing others), people may jump to conclusions. There isn't any kind of history (reputation) to fall back on. I'm not defending, just stating how things are normally perceived.

And starting off a comment like yours..... isn't going to garner a big "welcome!".

[deewan]

Sept 10, 2013 12:06:01 GMT -5 Erwin.BE said:

That's some serious cabinet work that went into these speakers! I bet they sound great. Your surrounds aren't mentioned? I hope they're not in-walls!

Heck no. No in-wall speakers. Those are so low class. I have in-ceiling speakers hooked up with some super high dollar silver speaker wires so they perform like the greatest speakers in the world. I actually have some 2-way speakers I built for my surrounds. 5-inch woofer and 1 inch tweeter. Nothing super special, but they work well for my room.

I could be wrong so please if anyone knows more than me chime in, but I think if you had Stealth 88's hooked to the RMC with XLR cables you would have a fully balanced system. The signal path would be balanced to the amp, I think that's all that is needed. I don't think there is anything special required in the amp.

[Erwin.BE]

Actually, the XPA-1 is essentially a XPA-2 with each channel powering a leg of the single amp channel. So I think stealth's are not fully balanced.

And if you want to make the Denon AVP a fully balanced set, you'd need two of the 5-channel amps to power five channels fully balanced.

I believe I answered my own question...

[Jim]

Does anyone know what tbe basis is for the amp in the Stealths is? Does it have anything in common with the rack amps?

I've seen the amp in the Stealth 8s and it's HUGE. Has a nice big toroid too.

I would think that it's not quad differential due to the complexity -- and not sure how much you'd gain.

[amaheshw]

Sept 6, 2013 15:38:55 GMT -5 klinemj said:

amaheswa...go see the Emofest note in the Green Room. We directly asked and they did say they are working on a higher level pre/pro and provided some limited details on their thinking (see notes for what they said). So, whether it's called the RMC-1 or something else, who knows? And, whether it actually comes to market or when and at what prices...who knows? But, they openly said their are working on a higher level pre/pro. They also said that when they are done with the XMC-1, that their resources working on it will begin working on 2 new pre/pro's based on the XMC's platform. And, with other things they said, that sure sounds like a higher end version as well as a lower end version (possibly a version priced mid-way between the XMC and UMC-200 as they previously called a UMC-500).

Time will tell...meanwhile, we'll have to wait for more details.

Mark

Very interesting notes -- clearly your info is more recent than mine, so let's hope the "RMC" will in fact see the light of day.

Your notes state that all channels will be fully balanced. Can we logically infer from this that Emo is working on a fully balanced multichannel amp? If not, all of the benefits of a fully balanced pre/pro will be lost in the conversion to single-ended. Did anyone at the 'Fest hint of an upcoming balanced multichannel amp? Even more intriguing would be a source with balanced multichannel outs, resulting in a fully-balanced signal from source to output.

Separately, did anyone hint at the inclusion of HDBaseT? Seems to be logical and inexpensive to do so, given that Sherbourne's products are now merged into Emos.

[Jim]

I imagine if you want a quad-differential amp, you'll need the XPR-1 or XPA-1. The size of a multichannel amp in that configuration may be prohibitive (and my guess, exceedingly small market).

I'd be surprised if Emotiva is making one. I'm curious about the studio amp, that might be an option, depending on it's topology.

I didn't know that any Sherbourn gear used HDBaseT..

[klinemj]

I didn't hear anything about "quad" differential at Emofest...as Jim noes, the monoblock X's are the only ones so far...all the multichannel are dual differential.

Mark

[Jim]

Sept 11, 2013 11:05:14 GMT -5 klinemj said:

I didn't hear anything about "quad" differential at Emofest...as Jim noes, the monoblock X's are the only ones so far...all the multichannel are dual differential.

Mark

Mark it down in history, something that I didn't miss in your notes..........

[amaheshw]

Sept 11, 2013 10:04:48 GMT -5 Jim said:

I imagine if you want a quad-differential amp, you'll need the XPR-1 or XPA-1. The size of a multichannel amp in that configuration may be prohibitive (and my guess, exceedingly small market).

I'd be surprised if Emotiva is making one. I'm curious about the studio amp, that might be an option, depending on it's topology.

I didn't know that any Sherbourn gear used HDBaseT..

The ATI-based Outlaw 7500/7500 and 7900 amps are multichannel amps with a fully-differential topology and range from $1600 - $3500.

I didn't mean to suggest that Sherbourn used HDBaseT -- I meant to say that because of that company's focus on the integrator market, it would be logical to include HDBaseT to compete better with other integrator-focused products that include HDBaseT, such as the new Integra DTR-60.5 and DHC-60.5 receiver and processor, respectively.