Erwin.BE
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It's the room, stupid!
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Post by Erwin.BE on Feb 2, 2018 7:02:41 GMT -5
One thing I forgot to mention when I argued for Top and Surround speakers that are very capable at low frequencies is the anticipation of Dirac Unison on the RMC-1. Unison promises to make use of all speakers to tackle problems of any other speaker in the system. The more capable all the speakers are, the better this will work. I think. Dirac UnisonDirac Unison® uses our most advanced signal processing methods to move beyond the traditional understanding of digital room correction. With Dirac Unison, the loudspeakers and listening space are treated as a cohesive unit, rather than as individual elements that interfere with one another. This innovative solution enables speakers within a system to work together to optimally reproduce each input channel
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Post by mgbpuff on Feb 2, 2018 9:50:13 GMT -5
Sounds like a marketing statement to me! And if true, I would worry that it would impinge upon accurate immersive sound. I can't get past my belief that correction of sound at a single point causes worse sound at other points and correction of sound at multiple points, in the case of infinite points, should return the overall room response to the original room response.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 2, 2018 10:20:24 GMT -5
You're kind of misinterpreting what they mean.... They're saying that, just like the main channels, or the side surrounds, the height channels are full range CHANNELS. The channels are not specifically limited to "only high frequencies" or "only little insignificant noises". However, just like your main or surround channels, if the speakers are physically small, your bass management will route the low frequencies to your subs. (If anything, they're warning you against using really tiny speakers - that just plain don't have enough output to keep up with your other channels.) So, if you follow the same logic as you used when selecting your regular surrounds, you'll be fine. (There is no specific requirement that any of the speakers in a theater must be able to deliver full range without a sub - because they assume you'll be using subs.) From the Dolby Guidelines: Overhead speaker characteristicsDolby Atmos audio is mixed using discrete, full-range audio objects that may move around anywhere in three-dimensional space. With this in mind, overhead speakers should complement the frequency response, output, and power-handling capabilities of the listener-level speakers. Thou shall not compromise! How come they don't follow that in their theatre installations I have checked out 3 genuine Dolby Atmos Commercial Theatre installations that are certified (and designed) by Dolby themselves and none of them have overhead speakers capable of much below 60 hz. Maybe their definition of "full range" means "full range for the speakers other than the sub woofers". Maybe a mission for the Emotiva espionage team, find a Dolby Commercial installation that has sub woofers in the ceiling Cheers Gary
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Feb 2, 2018 11:04:01 GMT -5
A common misunderstanding is that you can correct an entire room and make the sound perfect everywhere. You are correct in stating that this is impossible; and, in general, a correction in one place is likely to cause even more errors in another. Furthermore, the situation tends to lead to an infinite regress.... where you correct one issue, then you correct the errors that correction causes in other locations... and so on... forever. The reality is that you can, at least theoretically, make a single spot "sort of perfect" (and, even then, you cannot correct absolutely for excessive reverberance in a room). However, in practice, the results you can actually achieve do vary considerably. First off, there are compromises between trying to make one spot as perfect as possible, and trying to make reasonable corrections over a larger area. There are also practical limitions about how many corrections, and of what magnitude, you can make. Do you want it to sound perfect when you sit on the big "X" in the center of the couch, and lousy everywhere else?... Or would you prefer things to sound very good for everyone on the couch?... Or would you prefer just improving the sound in the entire room?.... You are incorrect in assuming that attempting to correct every spot in the room would result in ending up back where you started. In practice, the correction signals would all jumble together, and you would probably end up with a horrific jumbled mess that was far worse than what you started with. The "art and science" of products like Dirac is in deciding what you can fix, what you can improve, and what's better off left alone. A lot of knowledge and experience goes into deciding which problems are most audible, and so most worth fixing, and which ones can reasonably be fixed without causing more harm than good. (We're looking at an infinite number of points in 3D space.... it's not like looking at a single graph and simply pushing the line up or down until it looks like you want it to.) Some time ago, Dirac published a white paper which explained part of how they decide which imperfections to correct and which ones to ignore. The current Dirac Live treats each speaker separately... and corrects each speaker separately. What they're promising with Dirac Unison, in absurdly simplified terms, is to be able to use sound coming from one speaker to fix problems caused by a different speaker. While this still doesn't promise "perfect room correction", it gives you more options, and so more opportunity to make better compromises. However, it also makes the math a lot more complicated and, yes, offers more chances to screw up in new and ever more interesting ways. The thing you need to understand about Dirac is that their products are used in very different situations. In one situation, they're used to correct the sound in certain high end car models. Note that, in those cases, what speakers are being used, where they're mounted, and the acoustics of your room (car) are known. The software has to be taught what corrections to make - but only once for that particular model of car. Most of the variables you have when using it to correct your speakers in your room have been eliminated - or can be. (For example, the software can analyze the situation, then engineers can spend a week tweaking the results to be just right for that car model; they can even add, remove, or move around the speakers.) However, being able to create a new correction every time, based on the measurements of your particular system, is a lot more complicated, and is asking a lot more from the software. (And we aren't at a point yet where the software can analyze your room, and your speakers, and tell you where to put your speakers and how to arrange the furniture.) It seems intuitively obvious that, when you make the situation that much more complicated, you introduce more variables, and may get very different results. In this particular case, while I suspect it will be a distinct improvement in preconfigured installations - like cars - the benefits Dirac Unison offers in home theater room correction remain to be seen. But, no, it isn't going to be "the magic bullet that now makes perfect room correction possible"..... because there isn't any such thing. (However with luck, it might offer at least a distinct improvement over the previous version. ) Sounds like a marketing statement to me! And if true, I would worry that it would impinge upon accurate immersive sound. I can't get past my belief that correction of sound at a single point causes worse sound at other points and correction of sound at multiple points, in the case of infinite points, should return the overall room response to the original room response.
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Post by foggy1956 on Feb 2, 2018 12:10:53 GMT -5
A common misunderstanding is that you can correct an entire room and make the sound perfect everywhere. You are correct in stating that this is impossible; and, in general, a correction in one place is likely to cause even more errors in another. Furthermore, the situation tends to lead to an infinite regress.... where you correct one issue, then you correct the errors that correction causes in other locations... and so on... forever. The reality is that you can, at least theoretically, make a single spot "sort of perfect" (and, even then, you cannot correct absolutely for excessive reverberance in a room). However, in practice, the results you can actually achieve do vary considerably. First off, there are compromises between trying to make one spot as perfect as possible, and trying to make reasonable corrections over a larger area. There are also practical limitions about how many corrections, and of what magnitude, you can make. Do you want it to sound perfect when you sit on the big "X" in the center of the couch, and lousy everywhere else?... Or would you prefer things to sound very good for everyone on the couch?... Or would you prefer just improving the sound in the entire room?.... You are incorrect in assuming that attempting to correct every spot in the room would result in ending up back where you started. In practice, the correction signals would all jumble together, and you would probably end up with a horrific jumbled mess that was far worse than what you started with. The "art and science" of products like Dirac is in deciding what you can fix, what you can improve, and what's better off left alone. A lot of knowledge and experience goes into deciding which problems are most audible, and so most worth fixing, and which ones can reasonably be fixed without causing more harm than good. (We're looking at an infinite number of points in 3D space.... it's not like looking at a single graph and simply pushing the line up or down until it looks like you want it to.) Some time ago, Dirac published a white paper which explained part of how they decide which imperfections to correct and which ones to ignore. The current Dirac Live treats each speaker separately... and corrects each speaker separately. What they're promising with Dirac Unison, in absurdly simplified terms, is to be able to use sound coming from one speaker to fix problems caused by a different speaker. While this still doesn't promise "perfect room correction", it gives you more options, and so more opportunity to make better compromises. However, it also makes the math a lot more complicated and, yes, offers more chances to screw up in new and ever more interesting ways. The thing you need to understand about Dirac is that their products are used in very different situations. In one situation, they're used to correct the sound in certain high end car models. Note that, in those cases, what speakers are being used, where they're mounted, and the acoustics of your room (car) are known. The software has to be taught what corrections to make - but only once for that particular model of car. Most of the variables you have when using it to correct your speakers in your room have been eliminated - or can be. (For example, the software can analyze the situation, then engineers can spend a week tweaking the results to be just right for that car model; they can even add, remove, or move around the speakers.) However, being able to create a new correction every time, based on the measurements of your particular system, is a lot more complicated, and is asking a lot more from the software. (And we aren't at a point yet where the software can analyze your room, and your speakers, and tell you where to put your speakers and how to arrange the furniture.) It seems intuitively obvious that, when you make the situation that much more complicated, you introduce more variables, and may get very different results. In this particular case, while I suspect it will be a distinct improvement in preconfigured installations - like cars - the benefits Dirac Unison offers in home theater room correction remain to be seen. But, no, it isn't going to be "the magic bullet that now makes perfect room correction possible"..... because there isn't any such thing. (However with luck, it might offer at least a distinct improvement over the previous version. ) Sounds like a marketing statement to me! And if true, I would worry that it would impinge upon accurate immersive sound. I can't get past my belief that correction of sound at a single point causes worse sound at other points and correction of sound at multiple points, in the case of infinite points, should return the overall room response to the original room response. Keith, will any of this trickle down to the current xmc-1 owners?
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Erwin.BE
Emo VIPs
It's the room, stupid!
Posts: 2,262
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Post by Erwin.BE on Feb 2, 2018 21:52:54 GMT -5
I found something more on how Unison Works:
Characteristics of Dirac Unison
A set of main speakers are selected by the user. For example the main speakers can be the 5 main channels of a home cinema system: L,C,R,Ls,Rs. To each main speaker, a set of support speakers are selected. If a main speaker has no support, then Unison = Live for that speaker. A support speaker can be one of the other main speakers, or it can be a dedicated support speaker, for example a subwoofer. The frequency range where speakers are allowed to operate as support is typically limited to below 500 Hz. Goal: Improve the time and frequency response of the main speaker, using all of the assigned loudspeaker resources. The sweetspot size, the number of required support speakers, the upper support cutoff frequency, and T60 of the room are related.
So not every speaker will benefit of all the other speakers, but some speakers will benefit from more than one other speaker or subwoofer (but not from all other speakers as I presumed) Edit: in the 14.2 example Dirac presents, the example left front speaker is aided by all 13 remaining speakers and both subs.
But if LCR an LS+RS are assisted but Wides and Back Surround are not, will this not cause issues like uneven panning effects? So I hope that all speakers can be set as "main" speakers with any other speaker as assistent speaker.
Much remains to be seen!
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Post by Nemesis.ie on Feb 3, 2018 6:23:38 GMT -5
Any suggestions or opinions? Or can I just connect both subs in one output as they are in symmetry and equidistant to MLP. I am using a Behringer iNuke 6000 amp which can split one input over 2 outputs in mono mode. Indeed there is a school of thought that LFE should be kept totally separate from summed bass from the speakers. Check out the "Congard code" www.audioexcellence.one/congardcode.html Obviously they would like you to buy their DSP/speakers but it would be implementable on other systems such as the RMC-1 etc. It might be preferable to try to get some more (big ass <G>) subs to handle the LFE or more (smaller) for summing the speakers? As an example, Yamaha YPAO tries to keep the speakers set to large if possible by EQ, likely for this reason. What would actually be rather cool is if the RMC-1 would allows 3 sub outputs such that one is LFE only and two (e.g. font/rear or L/R) So that's 9.3.4, I think it does that right? Repurposing 2 zone outputs to get 9.3.6 would be optimal. Or overkill with 9.5.6 for summed L/R and F/R. or indeed floor and ceiling F/R or L/R subs .... I suppose we could keep going with top and bottom LFE + L/R and F/R for 9.10.6 ...
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Erwin.BE
Emo VIPs
It's the room, stupid!
Posts: 2,262
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Post by Erwin.BE on Feb 5, 2018 14:08:55 GMT -5
Thanks for the link. But I believe they are about enhancing the bass of shallow LCR speakers by dedicated bass extending boxes. That's cool, but I think Dirac Live is already more effective and capable while Unison will be much better still. Attachment DeletedCharacteristics of Dirac Unison:A set of main speakers are selected by the user. – For example the main speakers can be the 5 main channels of a home cinema system: L,C,R,Ls,Rs. To each main speaker, a set of support speakers are selected. – If a main speaker has no support, then Unison = Live for that speaker. – A support speaker can be one of the other main speakers, or it can be a dedicated support speaker, for example a subwoofer. – The frequency range where speakers are allowed to operate as support is typically limited to below 500 Hz. Goal: Improve the time- and frequency response of the main speaker, using all of the assigned loudspeaker resources. The sweetspot size, the number of required support speakers, the upper support cutoff frequency, and T60 of the room are related. >>Maybe a dedicated support speaker can also be a mid bass speaker... hanging on the ceiling! Just thinking out of the box here. In any case, to me, it means it will be worthwhile using very bass-capable surround speakers that serve dual purposes: surround or Atmos effects, plus bass enhancers>>Also note how much better still the response of the test speaker is in a 14.2 setup vs a standard 5.1 setup. Especially in the time domain (T60), the performance of the 14.2 setup is remarkable!Conclusion:Standard room correction can improve the average response, but not variations across space. • Time-domain problems can be reduced only by careful mixed-phase design. • Most systems use minimum phase filters, thus neglecting the time-domain behavior. With Dirac Unison, additional speakers are used in synchronization with the main speaker to also remove the variations and further reduce the time-domain problems. Common pitfalls and challenges that haunt many attempts at room correction include • Spatial variability: Single-point measurements are insufficient for characterizing the room. • Target curve: A proper in-room target needs to consider the direct-to-reverberant ratio. • Time domain correction: <<Equal time-domain responses from all speakers are crucial for good imaging and staging (inter-aural correlations, etc, are key to human perception of localization). <<Mixed-phase correction is required, but causes audible pre-ringings unless carefully designed. <<Good time-domain correction focuses on the direct wave, very early parts of the impulse reponse and low frequencies. Late high-frequency parts can typically only be improved by passive room treatments. >> The latter means that proper old school passive treatments remain key but we will need to worry less about the lower frequencies hence the treatment are less bulky and/or cheaper.
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Erwin.BE
Emo VIPs
It's the room, stupid!
Posts: 2,262
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Post by Erwin.BE on Feb 6, 2018 12:23:08 GMT -5
The way Unison operates makes me consider building large floor standing Rear Surrounds instead of monitors. I have the XPR-5 anyway which would then power LCR and the rear speakers. My LCR are the DIYSG Titan LX. I think the economy regular Titan would be ideal and not cost an arm and a leg ($400 each kit)
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Post by jcz06 on Feb 10, 2018 15:24:39 GMT -5
If all works out, we only have 6 weeks until the RMC comes to market.....I am so ready to slide one into the system and get it crushing
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Post by pachieh on Feb 10, 2018 19:01:04 GMT -5
And hopefully they release the next Gen XMC-1 at the same time...
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Post by davidl81 on Feb 12, 2018 10:55:13 GMT -5
Does anyone know if this unit (or the newer XMC-1) will have some type of wifi control. What I want to do is install out door speakers and run them from zone 2 of my amp. I would like the abality when i'm outside to just use my phone to turn on the zone 2 on the unit and listen to music. I can do that with my current Marantz via their app, but I do not know if the Emotiva will have any option like this.
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Post by flamingeye on Feb 12, 2018 12:08:28 GMT -5
emotiva has a app too so that should work I would think
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Post by davidl81 on Feb 12, 2018 12:15:49 GMT -5
emotiva has a app too so that should work I would think Thank you. I just looked it up on the app store and it's a little older but it may work. It does work with the current XMC-1 best I can tell. I'm not sure if it will work with iOS 11, looks like the app was last updated for iOS 9.
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Post by pknaz on Feb 12, 2018 13:17:06 GMT -5
emotiva has a app too so that should work I would think Thank you. I just looked it up on the app store and it's a little older but it may work. It does work with the current XMC-1 best I can tell. I'm not sure if it will work with iOS 11, looks like the app was last updated for iOS 9. works perfectly fine on iOS 11.2.5 on both an iPhone 8 and iPad Pro
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Post by deewan on Feb 14, 2018 14:02:46 GMT -5
And hopefully they release the next Gen XMC-1 at the same time... If I remember correctly the RMC-1 is slated for end of March, the XMC-1 Gen 3 is mid-summer and the XMR-1 is late 2018 or early 2019.
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Post by davidl81 on Feb 14, 2018 15:05:46 GMT -5
And hopefully they release the next Gen XMC-1 at the same time... If I remember correctly the RMC-1 is slated for end of March, the XMC-1 Gen 3 is mid-summer and the XMR-1 is late 2018 or early 2019. In speaking to Emotiva sales yesterday they are now looking at an April release for the RMC-1. That does not mean it will for sure be April, but it does mostly kill any hope of a March delivery. Since the XMC-1 Gen 3 has not really been given any type of hard date except for shortly after the RMC-1 is released I would guess we don't see it till at least Q4 2018. I would think Emotiva may risk cannibalizing RMC-1 sales with a Gen 3 XMC-1 since they look to be pretty close except the RMC will handle a few more channels and it is fully differential. Those are tangible differences, but many people are like me. I want the Atmos benefit and 4k HDR support etc. I would prefer the get the Gen 3 XMC-1, but I may get the RMC-1 when it comes out because who knows how long I would have to wait for the XMC-1 Gen 3 to arrive. If they were both available to buy at the same time I would just get the XMC
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Post by deewan on Feb 14, 2018 15:25:15 GMT -5
I would guess the XMC-1 Gen 3 release date being later in the summer is more than just a fear of hurting RMC-1 sales. I'm sure it deals with support and production. A release of both the RMC and XMC-1 Gen 3 at the same time means the limited Emotiva staff have to produce and support two new products going out the door. That puts a strain on a company the size of Emotiva. Staggering the release dates allows the RMC to come out and stabilize, maybe even build up some inventory, before releasing the XMC-1 Gen 3. Also considering the price difference I don't think many will drop an extra ~$2000 to have a product 3-4 months earlier. But that is just my guess. Maybe people have a lot more disposable income than me.
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Post by musicfan on Feb 14, 2018 15:59:28 GMT -5
and the release date slide continues....smh
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Post by jcz06 on Feb 14, 2018 16:20:04 GMT -5
and the release date slide continues....smh And where did you read a slide on the RMC-1 release?
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