KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Apr 29, 2020 11:00:17 GMT -5
Yes... it has progressed as anticipated... and we are really close.
Let me put this in perspective. The hardware for the network interface is a single circuit card that snaps into a little box; that circuit card is a simple off-the-shelf part. (I'm not sure if there are a few screws involved or if it entirely snaps together).
The firmware that it runs on is software that is written onto a micro-SD card which plugs into a slot. Writing that firmware and getting it to work was a reasonably serious project - but that part is pretty much done.
(You don't even have to open the box to plug in the micro-SD card.)
At the moment we are.... - waiting for final approval on the firmware - deciding who to buy the cardboard box from to ship everything in (as of yesterday)
Of course, once we get the thumbs up, it will take us a few weeks to put them all together and start shipping them out...
Hi Keith & Nick, Can you provide any updated expectations on delivery of DIRAC for the XMC-2? In early April, it was looking like it would be a few weeks. Has the project progressed like you anticipated? Thanks, Blue
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drh
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Post by drh on Apr 29, 2020 16:20:45 GMT -5
At this point a statement, that is not so vague would be nice. In the other thread Keith said "I believe we're currently shopping for the cardboard boxes to ship them in.....", which in my opinion implies that the box is ready. Now here it is "that part is pretty much done" and "waiting for final approval on the firmware", which could mean anything. Depending on the standpoint a few weeks could be end of the year as well (like coming soon for over a year). My dealer in Europe told me not to expect Dirac before September (which is also in a few weeks). For a starting point given a clear statement what is still missing in the firmware would be nice. Is it just the testing that is missing or does the firmware not work in it's current state. I am a system administrator and if I would give my boss such vague dates when something will be working, I guess I would be already fired.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 29, 2020 17:11:55 GMT -5
At this point a statement, that is not so vague would be nice. In the other thread Keith said "I believe we're currently shopping for the cardboard boxes to ship them in.....", which in my opinion implies that the box is ready. Now here it is "that part is pretty much done" and "waiting for final approval on the firmware", which could mean anything. Depending on the standpoint a few weeks could be end of the year as well (like coming soon for over a year). My dealer in Europe told me not to expect Dirac before September (which is also in a few weeks). For a starting point given a clear statement what is still missing in the firmware would be nice. Is it just the testing that is missing or does the firmware not work in it's current state. I am a system administrator and if I would give my boss such vague dates when something will be working, I guess I would be already fired. Yes. Just my own personal estimate as a forum member not an official Emotiva estimate, I think we are looking at July/August for the U.S. If they deliver before this then great! But this appears more realistic especially given the environment we face today.
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drh
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Post by drh on Apr 29, 2020 17:53:06 GMT -5
I guess this situation is not so bad for you buying from Emotiva directly; you can always return the product till Dirac is working. Buying from a reseller in Europe it's a diffeent story. You have more or less a 2 week return window starting with the delivery of the device. So you are totally screwed if Dirac is delayed again or not coming at all. So Keith, direct question: At this moment is there a working little box and a firmware running Dirac on the RMC without major bugs. Furthermore if it's more or less finished liked claimed, it should be possible to tell how many Dirac slots we will get.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 29, 2020 18:44:09 GMT -5
I guess this situation is not so bad for you buying from Emotiva directly; you can always return the product till Dirac is working. Buying from a reseller in Europe it's a diffeent story. You have more or less a 2 week return window starting with the delivery of the device. So you are totally screwed if Dirac is delayed again or not coming at all. So Keith, direct question: At this moment is there a working little box and a firmware running Dirac on the RMC without major bugs. Furthermore if it's more or less finished liked claimed, it should be possible to tell how many Dirac slots we will get. Are there no other options in Europe besides Emotiva? Well maybe in 2019 there isn’t but looks like by EOD 2020 there will be a few more options. I’m not sure I’d buy Emotiva if I was living outside the US. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t have bought the unit UNTIL Dirac was finished. It’s an age old tragedy being an early adopter and I feel ya, it’s extremely annoying. There is 1 Dirac slot unless something changed.
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Post by ttocs on Apr 29, 2020 19:04:51 GMT -5
There is 1 Dirac slot unless something changed. A couple months ago Keith mentioned having the ability for multiple Dirac Presets, so I think it'll be a couple.
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LCSeminole
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Post by LCSeminole on Apr 29, 2020 20:09:18 GMT -5
There is 1 Dirac slot unless something changed. A couple months ago Keith mentioned having the ability for multiple Dirac Presets, so I think it'll be a couple. Same here, while I don't remember when, I'm pretty sure Lonnie has said the same thing. I also remember Ray being asked this at the Open House last November and heard at least two as well. Personally I'd be disappointed if it didn't have at least two, which is all I require. One for movies, and the other for multi-channel music as I only require 2-channel music when listening with my headphones.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 29, 2020 21:25:49 GMT -5
A couple months ago Keith mentioned having the ability for multiple Dirac Presets, so I think it'll be a couple. Same here, while I don't remember when, I'm pretty sure Lonnie has said the same thing. I also remember Ray being asked this at the Open House last November and heard at least two as well. Personally I'd be disappointed if it didn't have at least two, which is all I require. One for movies, and the other for multi-channel music as I only require 2-channel music when listening with my headphones. It would be nice to at least 2 so we will see. Did they say 2 at the initial implementation or eventually there will be more than 1.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Apr 29, 2020 22:01:11 GMT -5
Presets....
There are currently still Two Speaker Presets...
You can set either one as your default, assign either one to one or more Inputs, and switch between them manually...
Each of those Speaker Presets has four slots: One Manual EQ configuration and up to Three Dirac Correction Filter sets. (Inside each Speaker Preset you get to pick which slot is currently the active one.)
This is the current setup... which may change in the future... Same here, while I don't remember when, I'm pretty sure Lonnie has said the same thing. I also remember Ray being asked this at the Open House last November and heard at least two as well. Personally I'd be disappointed if it didn't have at least two, which is all I require. One for movies, and the other for multi-channel music as I only require 2-channel music when listening with my headphones. It would be nice to at least 2 so we will see. Did they say 2 at the initial implementation or eventually there will be more than 1.
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Apr 29, 2020 22:09:23 GMT -5
The last 10% of firmware development takes 90% of the time. Code - Build - Test - Fix bugs - Build - Test ...... as the cycle goes.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 29, 2020 22:15:20 GMT -5
Presets....
There are currently still Two Speaker Presets...
You can set either one as your default, assign either one to one or more Inputs, and switch between them manually...
Each of those Speaker Presets has four slots: One Manual EQ configuration and up to Three Dirac Correction Filter sets. (Inside each Speaker Preset you get to pick which slot is currently the active one.)
This is the current setup... which may change in the future... It would be nice to at least 2 so we will see. Did they say 2 at the initial implementation or eventually there will be more than 1. KeithL, Did you just announce that there will be 6 total Dirac presets?
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drh
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Post by drh on Apr 30, 2020 0:27:52 GMT -5
Presets....
There are currently still Two Speaker Presets...
You can set either one as your default, assign either one to one or more Inputs, and switch between them manually...
Each of those Speaker Presets has four slots: One Manual EQ configuration and up to Three Dirac Correction Filter sets. (Inside each Speaker Preset you get to pick which slot is currently the active one.)
This is the current setup... which may change in the future... Three Dirac slots would be really nice for each of the two Speaker Presets. What makes me worry is "This is the current setup... which may change in the future...". So does this mean there could be only 1 slot at the time of release? A statement like "there are 3 Dirac slots for each preset right now, but maybe this will change to more slots (and not less)" would make this more usefull.
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Post by AudioHTIT on Apr 30, 2020 0:47:24 GMT -5
It almost sounds like we lost a preset, there used to be three; 1, 2, and Dirac. Now there are two, but each one may have 4 options, so 8 permutations? That’s an increase, but how do we get to them? If we can’t select them with a remote command they are less useful (currently there are 3 (edit 4) remote commands). We need more info to evaluate this.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 30, 2020 1:02:08 GMT -5
It almost sounds like we lost a preset, there used to be three; 1, 2, and Dirac. Now there are two, but each one may have 4 options, so 8 permutations? That’s an increase, but how do we get to them? If we can’t select them with a remote command they are less useful (currently there are 3 remote commands). We need more info to evaluate this. Right now when we select Preset 1 or Preset 2, the only option is the PEQ adjustments in each preset. So, it looks like there will be an additional 3 Dirac options within each Preset and based on what Keith said above you can choose the default EQ in each Preset. So for example... Preset 1 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 (active) d) Dirac 3 Preset 2 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 d) Dirac 3 (active) The only thing I'm not sure of and I think Keith can clear this up...are there are 3 Dirac presets or 6 Dirac presets. 3 would be fine since I can use... Preset 1 -> Dirac 1 for 9.2.4 And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 2 for 2 channel with no sub And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 3 for 2 channel with sub etc. Sounds like this is a good solution. Just a matter of when...
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Post by bluescale on Apr 30, 2020 2:11:04 GMT -5
Presets....
There are currently still Two Speaker Presets...
You can set either one as your default, assign either one to one or more Inputs, and switch between them manually...
Each of those Speaker Presets has four slots: One Manual EQ configuration and up to Three Dirac Correction Filter sets. (Inside each Speaker Preset you get to pick which slot is currently the active one.)
This is the current setup... which may change in the future... It would be nice to at least 2 so we will see. Did they say 2 at the initial implementation or eventually there will be more than 1. Is that the current plan for all the processors, including the XMC-2? I understand that it could change.
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LCSeminole
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Post by LCSeminole on Apr 30, 2020 3:49:01 GMT -5
It almost sounds like we lost a preset, there used to be three; 1, 2, and Dirac. Now there are two, but each one may have 4 options, so 8 permutations? That’s an increase, but how do we get to them? If we can’t select them with a remote command they are less useful (currently there are 3 remote commands). We need more info to evaluate this. Right now when we select Preset 1 or Preset 2, the only option is the PEQ adjustments in each preset. So, it looks like there will be an additional 3 Dirac options within each Preset and based on what Keith said above you can choose the default EQ in each Preset. So for example... Preset 1 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 (active) d) Dirac 3 Preset 2 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 d) Dirac 3 (active) The only thing I'm not sure of and I think Keith can clear this up...are there are 3 Dirac presets or 6 Dirac presets. 3 would be fine since I can use... Preset 1 -> Dirac 1 for 9.2.4 And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 2 for 2 channel with no sub And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 3 for 2 channel with sub etc. Sounds like this is a good solution. Just a matter of when... This is how I interpreted KeithL’s post as well. Which will make it nice since it will be assignable per input.
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Post by AudioHTIT on Apr 30, 2020 9:48:55 GMT -5
Right now when we select Preset 1 or Preset 2, the only option is the PEQ adjustments in each preset. So, it looks like there will be an additional 3 Dirac options within each Preset and based on what Keith said above you can choose the default EQ in each Preset. So for example... Preset 1 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 (active) d) Dirac 3 Preset 2 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 d) Dirac 3 (active) The only thing I'm not sure of and I think Keith can clear this up...are there are 3 Dirac presets or 6 Dirac presets. 3 would be fine since I can use... Preset 1 -> Dirac 1 for 9.2.4 And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 2 for 2 channel with no sub And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 3 for 2 channel with sub etc. Sounds like this is a good solution. Just a matter of when... This is how I interpreted KeithL’s post as well. Which will make it nice since it will be assignable per input. That does look like an accurate representation of what he said. I’d like to see us retain the third remote accessed preset, so maybe the two current ‘non-Dirac’ presets (Speaker 1 & 2), become mostly Dirac presets (as described), and the third Dirac preset becomes PEQ only, or just flat if you want it. Otherwise it seems ‘Reference Stereo’ would be the only way to turn EQ/Dirac off, and we lose a preset.
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Apr 30, 2020 11:31:18 GMT -5
Right now when we select Preset 1 or Preset 2, the only option is the PEQ adjustments in each preset. So, it looks like there will be an additional 3 Dirac options within each Preset and based on what Keith said above you can choose the default EQ in each Preset. So for example... Preset 1 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 (active) d) Dirac 3 Preset 2 -> a) PEQ b) Dirac 1 c) Dirac 2 d) Dirac 3 (active) The only thing I'm not sure of and I think Keith can clear this up...are there are 3 Dirac presets or 6 Dirac presets. 3 would be fine since I can use... Preset 1 -> Dirac 1 for 9.2.4 And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 2 for 2 channel with no sub And... Preset 2 -> Dirac 3 for 2 channel with sub etc. Sounds like this is a good solution. Just a matter of when... This is how I interpreted KeithL’s post as well. Which will make it nice since it will be assignable per input. That does look like an accurate representation of what he said. I’d like to see us retain the third remote accessed preset, so maybe the two current ‘non-Dirac’ presets (Speaker 1 & 2), become mostly Dirac presets (as described), and the third Dirac preset becomes PEQ only, or just flat if you want it. Otherwise it seems ‘Reference Stereo’ would be the only way to turn EQ/Dirac off, and we lose a preset. I think the thought is that with Dirac, the need for the PEQ is not needed but is still available if someone wants to use it for one of the 2 speaker presets. In the RMC1/RMC1L/XMC2 I believe there were only 2 presets and not 3.
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Post by megash0n on Apr 30, 2020 11:41:25 GMT -5
That does look like an accurate representation of what he said. I’d like to see us retain the third remote accessed preset, so maybe the two current ‘non-Dirac’ presets (Speaker 1 & 2), become mostly Dirac presets (as described), and the third Dirac preset becomes PEQ only, or just flat if you want it. Otherwise it seems ‘Reference Stereo’ would be the only way to turn EQ/Dirac off, and we lose a preset. I think the thought is that with Dirac, the need for the PEQ is not needed but is still available if someone wants to use it for one of the 2 speaker presets. In the RMC1/RMC1L/XMC2 I believe there were only 2 presets and not 3. From an engineering perspective, I think the logic is right on the money. A preset is a setting.. Inside that preset are the values. What some of you want are 3 or 4 presets. Each preset can be a PEQ, or 3 different Dirac values. Plus, this stays inside their api and remote capabilities. A good decision in my opinion.
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Post by AudioHTIT on Apr 30, 2020 16:05:50 GMT -5
To clarify, I like the way the two new presets would work (if our assumptions are correct), and you’re right, I hadn’t noticed that we lost the third preset that was available on the XMC-1. I guess I’m expressing some concern that we’ll only be able to easily select two preset configurations from the remote. I had been expecting we’d have something like before, with the addition of one or more Dirac presets, for instance worst case would have been: Speaker 1 : Speaker / Mode / PEQ1 / etc Speaker 2 : Speaker / Mode / PEQ2 / etc Dirac 1 : Speaker / Mode / Dirac1 / etc Dirac 2 : Speaker / Mode / Dirac2 / etc This would have meant the ability to access four ‘preset sounds’, eg. HT with and without Dirac, 2C with and without Dirac, I like that idea. If now (for instance) I choose to measure and save Dirac for both my HT & 2C systems and always want to listen that way, the new system works fine; I can assign the speaker presets to inputs as I do now and everything’s hunky-dory. However, if I then want to just turn off Dirac for 2C, and I have to dig deep into the menu system to get to the flat PEQ setting for Preset 2 ( also meaning having the TV on or walking to the processor), I find that ... inconvenient. What I’m wanting is remote access to more than two preset configurations. So, the question I have is, What will the existing four Speaker Preset remote codes be used for? They are currently assigned to Speaker Preset 1, Speaker Preset 2, Speaker Preset Dirac (yes, and it still displays the Dirac logo), and Speaker Preset Scroll (doesn’t seem to work and acts like you’re hitting the current preset again). So what about something like this; Speaker 1 & 2 work as they do now with the addition of selecting the ‘active’ Dirac or PEQ option (if it’s as Lsc speculated), then Speaker Dirac becomes Speaker 3 and allows one more preset like the above (eg. Speaker 1 w/PEQ), I’d even dump Speaker Scroll and make a Speaker 4 like the others? Another possibility is to make the scroll code ‘scroll’ through the current preset’s options (Dirac 1, Dirac 2, Dirac 3, PEQ). I don’t expect everyone to want or need this, but I expect many would use it, it makes efficient use of the existing codes and makes it easier to use your system — you would likely need a Harmony or other universal remote to get all this functionality (as you do now). Hopefully someone (Emotiva or other), will come up with a cool app to take advantage of all the exposed codes KeithL mentioned were on the way (including options like these).
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