The Official XMC-2 Owners Thread

[marcl]

May 20, 2020 23:17:45 GMT -5 aussierox said:

Apr 27, 2020 8:11:57 GMT -5 marcl said:

With different specific circumstances, I asked a similar question a while back and got no answer.  Interesting that you're seeing some issues.  I'm on 1.9, and my system is 7.1.4.   Here is what I observe:

-   2-channel source will always upmix to all channels with both DDSurround and DTSNeural:X.   This includes HDMI or USB DAC playing from the PC, as well as 2-channel CD/SACD.  Also 2-channel music or video from AppleTV 4K.

-  5.1 video sources on AppleTV 4K will upmix to DDSurround.   They do not upmix to DTS due to the rules that Dolby/DTS impose on upmixing multichannel only from their sources.

-  Multichannel music from SACD (OPPO 205) will upmix to DDSurround or DTS.  Note that I have the OPPO convert DSD to PCM.

-  Multichannel music from network drive sent to OPPO 205 over network (JRiver Media Center Send To>Play (OPPO205) will NOT upmix to DDSurround or DTS.

-  Multichannel (5.0/5.1 PCM) music over HDMI from the PC only plays 5.0 or 5.1.  It does NOT upmix to the rears or heights with either DDSurround or DTS.

So it sounds like from what you've described and what I've experienced that there is an issue with upmixing sources coming from a PC? 

I don't think the issue is related to the PC as the Yamaha I had upmixed fine from PC.

I have also noticed when playing from nintendo switch that the DSU will upmix into front/rear top but not into middle top. I suspect this is a limitation of DSU same as it won't upmix to front wides. 

I will say that when upmixing occurs from any source the  overheads/surrounds are all extremely quiet compared to the LCR yet on atmos tracks everything is balanced correctly. 

I did one more test and here's what I concluded:

- 2 channel from any source will upmix to both DD and DTS
- Discrete multichannel music (DSD, FLAC, WAV, SACD) from PC or OPPO 205 disc player will NOT upmix with either DD or DTS

But .... in JRiverMC I can configure Output Encoding to Dolby Digital 5.1.   If I do this with multichannel source, then the XMC-2 WILL upmix to DD but will NOT upmix to DTS.  This is expected behavior due to DD and DTS licensing rules as they existed a year ago.  There is no way to get SACD multichannel from the OPPO to upmix.

So ... I could jump to the conclusion that in an effort to enforce the licensing rules, each upmixer looks to see if the source is of its own species and if not it doesn't upmix.  One would expect that it would upmix if the source is neither DD nor DTS .... but that's not what happens.

Regarding levels of the surrounds and tops, yes it varies a lot.  For DD 5.1 and 2-channel movies I think it does a pretty good job and levels are fairly uniform.  For music it depends on the recording.  I find generally recordings done in an acoustically live room upmix pretty well ... sometimes astoundingly well.  Many multitrack studio recordings do not benefit from the upmix probably because there was no "there, there" to begin with.

[LCSeminole]

May 21, 2020 6:33:40 GMT -5 markc said:

Dear Forum moderators:

As my previous post amplifies, it is very clear that, with the exception of the (as yet unusable) expansion bays for the RMC-1, all three Processors are absolutely functionally identical and seem to have the same issues (and benefits) and relevant discussions as well as the same firmware.

The special dual-mono DAC implementation across all channels of the RMC-1 and RMC-1L (vs just the LCR channels of the XMC-2) is just "there" and non user configurable so does not feature in any forum discussion, and is not a reason to keep separate forums for the XMC-2 and RMC-1 and RMC-1L.

Apart from any OLED screen display issues (and there are none!) pertinent to the XMC-2's one OLED vs the two OLED of the RMC models, there are no other functional differences.


I believe this forum (and the XMC-2 forum) should close to new posts and all new post attempts be redirected to a new, officially merged XMC-2 & RMC-1(L) owners thread.


This will only work if the XMC and RMC forums are closed by moderators, with a link to the new merged forum.


This current 433 page RMC forum would be accessible for legacy but is bogged down by lots of old firmware issues that are not relevant now, so a clean sweep is justified on that count too.

The rewritten 1.10 firmware is a new page turned for these processors it seems so let us shake off the past problems, which could put off new buyers.

It would also be beneficial to Emotiva (and therefore users) if new prospective buyers do not have to wade through (and get daunted by!) the 433 pages of initial troubleshooting, but only the relevant current issues.


If and when RMC-1 expansion modules come out, discussion of that should be in a separate thread, as it won't apply to XMC-2 or RMC-1L

Great idea!!! Old processors threads are now locked. New thread entitled, "RMC-1/RMC-1L/XMC-2 Owners Thread (Post Firmware v1.10)" located at the link below.

emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/56879/rmc-owners-thread-post-firmware