Official BasX MC-700 7.1 Pre/Pro Thread

[cawgijoe]

Dec 7, 2016 12:50:46 GMT -5 urwi said:

chaosrv
Thank you very much for your thoughtful post.

I would use external EQ any time but those cheaper AVRs don't come with pre outs. I don't understand why manufacturers consider pre-pros top of the line products. In my mind they should be entry line products. Without amps and pre outs such a device should be CHEAPER than anything having a built-in amp. Instead they are more expensive.

Maybe something Emotiva could do? 1RU, HDMI video switching, 7.1 bitstream decoding, bass management, channel level and delay, D/A, volume control, NOTHING else - $299.

Dec 7, 2016 12:06:59 GMT -5 chaosrv said:

Urwi,

These are only my opinions. Your concerns are valid and I'd never say otherwise but this is not always the place to get the (best) answers, if they are even available. Yes, Dan & others can and do visit & respond to posts in this forum but this isn't and shouldn't be your primary method to get information on a new or upcoming product. For that you do need to contact Emotiva directly. I understand you are an international customer but if you need information you are not getting here, then that is what you need to do.

As respects your issues with the UMC-200. Some of your issues are legitimate issues but others seem more like "wishes." I don't mean this in a disparaging way just that the processor does work for most people but it cannot be everything to everyone. Compromises have to be made. That said, it does seem to work for many people. The UMC processors also tend to keep a much better resale value than the sub-$500 AVRs.

You did mention some AVRs with smaller distance settings but no PEQ. Perhaps you can't have both with this specific hardware? To reach a price point, decisions have to be made as to which features are more important than others. Perhaps this is all the DSP in the UMC-200 could handle when designed? Will the MC-700 be allow for finer control? We'll know more when it is in the field...hopefully, soon.

Dan is the president of Emotiva, does that mean he knows every single aspect of every single product? Maybe. Maybe not. He's a busy guy. While the distance steppings are clearly important to you and I respect that, it is a fairly minor detail to a lot people and probably not something the president needs to know. That's why others have suggested Lonnie, Keith, or someone else involved in the more technical aspects of the hardware.

If I could make a suggestion, if the MC-700 isn't a fit for your needs, you could always try one of the $500 AVRs and add in a miniDSP to handle PEQ. Quite a few people swear by them. It will also let you upgrade the AVR on an as-needed basis as new "must-have" features become available while still maintaining your PEQ with only (hopefully) slight tweaks when a new AVR/processor is introduced to your system.

Honestly, I hope the MC-700 addresses all of your concerns & needs and you become a happy loyal Emotiva customer. That said, if the product doesn't fit your needs or you cannot wait until more info known then you need to find an alternative even if only as a back-up plan so you can pull the trigger quickly if the MC-700 doesn't fit your needs.

There are AVRs that can be bought here in the US for about $500 or less with preouts.

I just checked Crutchfied.com and they are never usually the cheapest price.

[chaosrv]

Separates tend to be more costly because there are more parts for two pieces of equipment, more money spent in R&D & advertising, and most importantly - there are more people that want an "all-in-one" AVR than separate components. In most cases, there isn't enough volume in selling separates to leverage reduced parts/manufacturing costs on the same scale as budge AVRs. Emotiva did drop the price of the MC-700 by $100 because they saw enough demand and were able to negotiate costs with the suppliers & manufacturers.

What you describe sounds great but when you add up the cost of R&D, parts, assembly, licensing fees, & everything else, there is little to no money (profit) to be made in such a product. I honestly don't think you'll ever see anything (good) at that $299 price.

Here is miniDSP's NanoAVR HDA - it has 2 HDMI in, 1 out, 8 channel RCA output, but it only does equalization. It doesn't perform any decoding itself and I don't believe it has volume control. It is $349. $419 once you add a mic for the calibration. If they sold millions of units, maybe the price would come down to $299 but it still wouldn't do everything. It is also only HDMI 1.4a.

[cawgijoe]

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you need to spend more money for what you really want/need.

I wish you the best of luck.

[novisnick]

Dec 7, 2016 13:30:54 GMT -5 cawgijoe said:

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you need to spend more money for what you really want/need.

I wish you the best of luck.

I do concur. 

[monkumonku]

Dec 7, 2016 13:42:51 GMT -5 novisnick said:

Dec 7, 2016 13:30:54 GMT -5 cawgijoe said:

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you need to spend more money for what you really want/need.

I wish you the best of luck.

I do concur. 

ditto

[KeithL]

The other thing is that pre-outs are considered to be a premium feature on an AVR.
(You could add pre-outs to a receiver for a few dollars - but you'll never find them on the "low-end models".)

[urwi]

I don't have any sales numbers but I do know that people want something truly useful once they see it. Plenty of examples in history. A manufacturer just needs to have the vision and build something that is useful from a user perspective and not just doable from a business perspective. That's why often disruptive technology doesn't come from the market leader. They have their heads buried too deep in daily business.

Regarding price I don't see any extra costs for a cheap pre-pro. Just remove the internal amps and run the already existing signals to RCA outs. Look at the insane low price of a VSX-531. Without the amps they could do less than $200?

The nanoAVR isn't an option for the reasons you've mentioned.

Dec 7, 2016 13:23:17 GMT -5 chaosrv said:

Separates tend to be more costly because there are more parts for two pieces of equipment, more money spent in R&D & advertising, and most importantly - there are more people that want an "all-in-one" AVR than separate components. In most cases, there isn't enough volume in selling separates to leverage reduced parts/manufacturing costs on the same scale as budge AVRs. Emotiva did drop the price of the MC-700 by $100 because they saw enough demand and were able to negotiate costs with the suppliers & manufacturers.

What you describe sounds great but when you add up the cost of R&D, parts, assembly, licensing fees, & everything else, there is little to no money (profit) to be made in such a product. I honestly don't think you'll ever see anything (good) at that $299 price.

Here is miniDSP's NanoAVR HDA - it has 2 HDMI in, 1 out, 8 channel RCA output, but it only does equalization. It doesn't perform any decoding itself and I don't believe it has volume control. It is $349. $419 once you add a mic for the calibration. If they sold millions of units, maybe the price would come down to $299 but it still wouldn't do everything. It is also only HDMI 1.4a.

[urwi]

I'm always amazed how we arrived at this point where "pre-outs are considered to be a premium feature on an AVR".
If I were Emotiva I would offer a lineup with a multitude of processors. 5.1, 7.1, 5.1.2, 7.1.4. Each with and without PEQ. Each with and without Dirac Live. Each with RCA or XLR.

Dec 7, 2016 14:42:38 GMT -5 KeithL said:

The other thing is that pre-outs are considered to be a premium feature on an AVR.
(You could add pre-outs to a receiver for a few dollars - but you'll never find them on the "low-end models".)

[monkumonku]

Dec 7, 2016 14:44:21 GMT -5 urwi said:

I don't have any sales numbers but I do know that people want something truly useful once they see it. Plenty of examples in history. A manufacturer just needs to have the vision and build something that is useful from a user perspective and not just doable from a business perspective. That's why often disruptive technology doesn't come from the market leader. They have their heads buried too deep in the their daily business.

Regarding price I don't see any extra costs for a cheap pre-pro. Just remove the internal amps and run the already existing signals to RCA outs. Look at the insane low price of a VSX-531.

The nanoAVR isn't an option for the reasons you've mentioned.

Dec 7, 2016 13:23:17 GMT -5 chaosrv said:

Separates tend to be more costly because there are more parts for two pieces of equipment, more money spent in R&D & advertising, and most importantly - there are more people that want an "all-in-one" AVR than separate components. In most cases, there isn't enough volume in selling separates to leverage reduced parts/manufacturing costs on the same scale as budge AVRs. Emotiva did drop the price of the MC-700 by $100 because they saw enough demand and were able to negotiate costs with the suppliers & manufacturers.

What you describe sounds great but when you add up the cost of R&D, parts, assembly, licensing fees, & everything else, there is little to no money (profit) to be made in such a product. I honestly don't think you'll ever see anything (good) at that $299 price.

Here is miniDSP's NanoAVR HDA - it has 2 HDMI in, 1 out, 8 channel RCA output, but it only does equalization. It doesn't perform any decoding itself and I don't believe it has volume control. It is $349. $419 once you add a mic for the calibration. If they sold millions of units, maybe the price would come down to $299 but it still wouldn't do everything. It is also only HDMI 1.4a.

Seems to me that maybe you should start your own company and give Emotiva a run for their money.

[urwi]

I already do have my own business but in a different industry. I can only offer my ideas how a pre-pro should work.

Dec 7, 2016 14:55:39 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Seems to me that maybe you should start your own company and give Emotiva a run for their money.

[hemster]

Dec 7, 2016 14:54:33 GMT -5 urwi said:

I'm always amazed how we arrived at this point where "pre-outs are considered to be a premium feature on an AVR".
If I were Emotiva I would offer a lineup with a multitude of processors. 5.1, 7.1, 5.1.2, 7.1.4. Each with and without PEQ. Each with and without Dirac Live. Each with RCA or XLR.

For the vast majority of consumers, pre-outs are not necessary or required. 

Please know that manufacturing variants costs money. Different designs, tooling, OEM costs, etc. It's always easy to speculate but the reality is different. For example, how do they forecast demand for each variant? (i.e. how many to manufacture?) That's only one question, there are many reasons why it doesn't make sense for Emotiva to offer a la carte versions of pre-pros. 

Product segmentation along the lines of certain features makes sense however. As for a bare-bones $299 pre-pro, that's really difficult. Maybe closer to $499? 

Sound like you can get what you want with an older model AVR but then it'd be obsolete before buying. Just my 2 sheckels...

[chaosrv]

Pioneer has the manufacturing scale to deliver a product with those features at that price. Is it any good? That is debatable. I bring up my point again - the person that wants to spend $299 on an all-in-one AVR is concerned about convenience and ease of use. (sound) Quality is secondary, if not tertiary. Even if competitively priced, they would likely not be interested in separates.

While I do not doubt you are not alone in your desire for a product as you describe I would venture to guess the actual number of people interested in one and more importantly, the number of people that would actually buy one would not be sufficient to warrant the investment to bring it to market at the price you want.

I get your point about wanting something useful once they see it but you're asking a company to put A LOT of money into developing a product that may or may not sell. If it doesn't, it could put the company out of business. They can design a one-off product to garner interest but the lead time to bring to market would be several months to source parts & manufacturing partners as a decent price..at which point it could be obsolete.

Regarding variants - that's a lot of hardware & software to design & support for a company as relatively small as Emotiva.
No disrespect to Emotiva calling you guys "small" but compared to Denon others, the word fits.

[Gary Cook]

Dec 7, 2016 9:10:27 GMT -5 urwi said:

Gary Cook
Re "chicken and egg question" - Not a chicken and egg problem to me because there's no "causality dilemma". It's always setting EQ THEN levels. Any EQ change requires checking and setting levels. Changing levels does NOT require setting and checking EQ though.

I don't believe that we can always set the EQ's before we do volume set up. Perhaps an example, in my room, I have small listening area in a very large room with cathedral ceilings, wall to wall carpet with acoustic underlay, soft furnishings, double layer curtains and no rear wall parallel to the FL and FR speakers. It has only one piece of specific "acoustic" treatment , that being a large picture on a 10 metre high side wall. The maximum SPL difference between speakers in the testing position is 7 db. If I set the EQ's first (before I equalise the 5.1 speaker SPL's) I have to go back and redo it after I have set the volumes. This is due to the acoustic reflections being volume sensitive, keeping in mind the ambient noise. Generally the ambient noise at my place runs in high 40's db, so if the reflection SPL at particular frequncies is less than that then I can't hear it to equalise it. Numerically, if I set the overall volume at say 85 db (my nominal movie listening volume) and I have that 7 db's of variation between the speakers I mentioned above. If the reflection is say -30 db then it could be 55 db or 48 db depending on which speaker. The 55 db is measurable as it above the ambient noise, but 48 db is not. So I would be able to correct the speaker that is 55 db, but not the one that is 48 db.

That is why I always set the volume before attempting equalising.

Re "Distance settings" - Don't shoot the messenger. For proper phantom imaging there can be no delay between speakers. In stereo, if you're moving a few inches imaging usually completely breaks down. Sounds snap to the nearest speaker. That's just how it works. If you don't care about imaging so be it. I do care about it because mixing engineers spend most of their time on it.

I don't shoot anyone, I simply relay my experiences and readers can draw whatever conclusions they like from them. I have found that imaging changes with relatively small movements in space of the listener, the image doesn't collapse as such, it just changes sometime slightly sometimes markedly. As mentioned in a previous post, I can move between the 2 seating positions in my lounge room and although the images are slightly different I can't say one is perfect and the other broken down. They are both more than acceptable from an imaging perspective and the distance moved is many times 10 cm's. In summary, in my environment I don't experience 10 cm's as an issue, not even close, even 10 times that would still give a perfectly acceptable result.


Cheers
Gary

[urwi]

chaosrv
You seem to know more about sales numbers than I do. I have no idea how many units Pioneer is selling vs. Emotiva. Anyway, Emotiva already seems to have all the puzzle pieces. They "just" would need to make the hardware design modular enough to support different versions like those mentioned above. You can find hardware in cheap electronics that isn't used at all. It's just there because the part is needed in a higher level product. For the reasons you've mentioned it's sometimes cheaper to underutilize hardware than to have different versions.

Gary Cook
Reflections aren't "volume sensitive", i.e. there's a linear relationship between SPL of the direct sound and reflections. And, a noise floor of 40dB doesn't mean you couldn't hear a reflection that is below that value. It depends on the spectrum of the reflection and delay.

Again, loudness changes with EQ but EQ doesn't change with loudness. Of course you can first set loudness and then EQ but it will always be loudness -> EQ -> loudness -> EQ -> ... -> loudness.

Re phantom imaging - multichannel mitigates the problem. Listen to stereo and you'll experience what I've been talking about. Often music is just stereo even in multichannel movie soundtracks.

[rbk123]

Dec 7, 2016 9:10:27 GMT -5 urwi said:

rbk123
The only thing comical is people getting personal instead of addressing the topic. Is this how you would like to be remembered by others?

Yes. I want to be known as someone who took dumb personally.

[millst]

# of people listening to audio through:
TV speakers > soundbar > HTiB > receiver > separates

Each of those drops could be an order of magnitude or more. Pre-outs are very niche. People with money to spend on separate amps generally aren't shopping for entry level receivers. Some of them spend that much on one HDMI cable

Onkyo and Denon make money on volume. If there was money to made on putting pre-outs on the low end receivers, we'd already have them per laws of supply and demand.

-tm

[urwi]

Does insulting other members make you feel better? So be it.

Dec 7, 2016 19:56:45 GMT -5 rbk123 said:

Dec 7, 2016 9:10:27 GMT -5 urwi said:

rbk123
The only thing comical is people getting personal instead of addressing the topic. Is this how you would like to be remembered by others?

Yes. I want to be known as someone who took dumb personally.

[Gary Cook]

Dec 7, 2016 16:52:41 GMT -5 urwi said:

Gary Cook
Reflections aren't "volume sensitive", i.e. there's a linear relationship between SPL of the direct sound and reflections. And, a noise floor of 40dB doesn't mean you couldn't hear a reflection that is below that value. It depends on the spectrum of the reflection and delay.
Again, loudness changes with EQ but EQ doesn't change with loudness. Of course you can first set loudness and then EQ but it will always be loudness -> EQ -> loudness -> EQ -> ... -> loudness.
Re phantom imaging - multichannel mitigates the problem. Listen to stereo and you'll experience what I've been talking about. Often music is just stereo even in multichannel movie soundtracks.

I don't know about you but my ambient noise is pretty broad spectrum and hence loudness does affect the equalisation. I'm glad that you agree that it's a chicken and the egg equation.

Cheers
Gary

[urwi]

I think there's a new breed of music and movie enthusiasts that knows a lot more about the science of audio. They have left behind the audiophoolery of past decades which was solely marketing driven and had more to do with beliefs than reality. They will appreciate pre-pros that have only the functionality they need. They will also appreciate the modularity which allows them to match their amps to their speakers. Guess that's exactly the crowd Emotiva is targeting. The MC-700 seems to be a step backwards IF it works like the UMC-200 though. I still don't know and Emotiva is still not providing any answers although Dan and Keith are both reading this thread.

Dec 8, 2016 0:09:08 GMT -5 millst said:

# of people listening to audio through:
TV speakers > soundbar > HTiB > receiver > separates

Each of those drops could be an order of magnitude or more. Pre-outs are very niche. People with money to spend on separate amps generally aren't shopping for entry level receivers. Some of them spend that much on one HDMI cable

Onkyo and Denon make money on volume. If there was money to made on putting pre-outs on the low end receivers, we'd already have them per laws of supply and demand.

-tm

[urwi]

Care to share measurements? Maybe in another thread?
Re "Chicken and egg" - Guess we have to agree to disagree.

Dec 8, 2016 2:57:57 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

Dec 7, 2016 16:52:41 GMT -5 urwi said:

Gary Cook
Reflections aren't "volume sensitive", i.e. there's a linear relationship between SPL of the direct sound and reflections. And, a noise floor of 40dB doesn't mean you couldn't hear a reflection that is below that value. It depends on the spectrum of the reflection and delay.
Again, loudness changes with EQ but EQ doesn't change with loudness. Of course you can first set loudness and then EQ but it will always be loudness -> EQ -> loudness -> EQ -> ... -> loudness.
Re phantom imaging - multichannel mitigates the problem. Listen to stereo and you'll experience what I've been talking about. Often music is just stereo even in multichannel movie soundtracks.

I don't know about you but my ambient noise is pretty broad spectrum and hence loudness does affect the equalisation. I'm glad that you agree that it's a chicken and the egg equation.

Cheers
Gary