RMC-1/RMC-1L/XMC-2 Owners Thread (Post Firmware v1.10)

[cassini12]

Hi All

I was just trying to upgrade to 2.5 as I have not updated in about 1yr. My receiver is only about 1yr old but I cannot stand when I pause a video or movie and then wait maybe 3-5min and try to resume I get no audio.. I need to go into the AV closet, hard power down the processor and wait for it and all amps to come back in order to get audio..

Someone know if 2.5 or 3.0 fix this? I Tried to update to 2.5 but used 3 different FAT32 USB sticks only to be shown " no usb stick" on my unit?

 Hi All, So I am assuming my issues will remain as I have not seen a 3.0 drop?  This is getting nuts for the  money I spent on a whole Emotiva setup and I need to hard reboot my receiver every time I need to pause my movie.. its embarrassing to be honest.

[geebo]

Aug 13, 2022 10:16:04 GMT -5 cassini12 said:

Hi All

I was just trying to upgrade to 2.5 as I have not updated in about 1yr. My receiver is only about 1yr old but I cannot stand when I pause a video or movie and then wait maybe 3-5min and try to resume I get no audio.. I need to go into the AV closet, hard power down the processor and wait for it and all amps to come back in order to get audio..

Someone know if 2.5 or 3.0 fix this? I Tried to update to 2.5 but used 3 different FAT32 USB sticks only to be shown " no usb stick" on my unit?

 Hi All, So I am assuming my issues will remain as I have not seen a 3.0 drop?  This is getting nuts for the  money I spent on a whole Emotiva setup and I need to hard reboot my receiver every time I need to pause my movie.. its embarrassing to be honest.

Updating the firmware should be the first thing you try. A previous FW used to lose audio after pausing with my Panasonic BD player but that's no longer an issue for me. Have you tried doing a fresh format on the USB drives?

[junchoon]

Aug 13, 2022 10:16:04 GMT -5 cassini12 said:

Hi All

I was just trying to upgrade to 2.5 as I have not updated in about 1yr. My receiver is only about 1yr old but I cannot stand when I pause a video or movie and then wait maybe 3-5min and try to resume I get no audio.. I need to go into the AV closet, hard power down the processor and wait for it and all amps to come back in order to get audio..

Someone know if 2.5 or 3.0 fix this? I Tried to update to 2.5 but used 3 different FAT32 USB sticks only to be shown " no usb stick" on my unit?

 Hi All, So I am assuming my issues will remain as I have not seen a 3.0 drop?  This is getting nuts for the  money I spent on a whole Emotiva setup and I need to hard reboot my receiver every time I need to pause my movie.. its embarrassing to be honest.

Does switching to another source helps?

[foggy1956]

Aug 13, 2022 10:29:35 GMT -5 geebo said:

Aug 13, 2022 10:16:04 GMT -5 cassini12 said:

Hi All

I was just trying to upgrade to 2.5 as I have not updated in about 1yr. My receiver is only about 1yr old but I cannot stand when I pause a video or movie and then wait maybe 3-5min and try to resume I get no audio.. I need to go into the AV closet, hard power down the processor and wait for it and all amps to come back in order to get audio..

Someone know if 2.5 or 3.0 fix this? I Tried to update to 2.5 but used 3 different FAT32 USB sticks only to be shown " no usb stick" on my unit?

 Hi All, So I am assuming my issues will remain as I have not seen a 3.0 drop?  This is getting nuts for the  money I spent on a whole Emotiva setup and I need to hard reboot my receiver every time I need to pause my movie.. its embarrassing to be honest.

Updating the firmware should be the first thing you try. A previous FW used to lose audio after pausing with my Panasonic BD player but that's no longer an issue for me. Have you tried doing a fresh format on the USB drives?

I recently lost audio with my Panny on pause again, first time in a long time so it may have been a fluke.

[modicen]

So…… what’s going on with this firmware? It’s been so long now I can’t even remember when the last time they said it was going to be released. But meanwhile my piece of equipment that’s 3 yrs old is still not operating the way it supposed too. How frigging sad is that?

[xeno]

Aug 14, 2022 7:48:02 GMT -5 modicen said:

So…… what’s going on with this firmware? It’s been so long now I can’t even remember when the last time they said it was going to be released. But meanwhile my piece of equipment that’s 3 yrs old is still not operating the way it supposed too. How frigging sad is that?

Brent came on about 15 or so pages ago and got everyone hyped up about an imminent release.  That was exciting. 

[rovinggecko]

Aug 8, 2022 6:06:23 GMT -5 markc said:

Aug 6, 2022 1:51:19 GMT -5 rovinggecko said:

Since the hubbub about a leaking 'holy grail' firmware release I've been checking here very frequently, to avoid I am not missing out.
Will Emotiva send a regular email through the standard mailing list to announce the release of this new, major, firmware?
This will avoid me checking on a regular basis for something I had expected to be imminent, but looks more like it will become a Christmas present. (and thus save daily disappointment ).

To save you the consistent disappointment of checking this forum (resulting not so much from from the lack of firmware updates but the seeing of nothing but ongoing / new issues with these processors), you can subscribe to the firmware thread so that you get an email notification when Keith posts there or uploads a new firmware link.
Then after the new firmware you will need to keep watching this forum for how to get around it's shortcomings (some of which are already known about as they will not be addressed in the next firmware)

Thanks, I think I managed to subscribe (actions dropdown, notifications, changed new thread and new posts to ' instant'. Can't seem to check the forum checkbox, which seems counter intuitive, but will assume it is not needed).

[PaulBe]

Aug 12, 2022 10:09:44 GMT -5 marcl said:

Aug 12, 2022 9:21:55 GMT -5 PaulBe said:

Thought you might find this definition of sound quality interesting or amusing:

“Sound quality is the result of an assessment of all features and feature values of a sound sample under examination which are recognized and nameable in the context of judging upon their suitability to meet all recognized and nameable features and feature values of individual expectations and/or social demands and/or pragmatic necessaries.”

epdf.pub/communication-acoustics-signals-and-communication-technology.html

The whole paragraph:

J. Blauert

dense distribution of early lateral reflections would be rated as belonging to a hall which is well suited for music of the classical-romantic genre, as in this hall a high amount of auditory spaciousness will be provided, accompanied by clearness and transparency. In fact, this map stems from a hall which is considered to be among the three best ones in the world for this kind of music, namely, the Großer Musikvereinssaal in Vienna. The map at the right shows only sparse early lateral reflections and the respective hall, consequently, sounds less spacious. This is what may be preferred for modern symphonic music and also for electro-acoustically enhanced performances. We have chosen this example to demonstrate that binaural-activity maps can be used as a basis for the assessment and evaluation of the auditory quality of systems. Yet, the system, so far, only provides the basis for the judgement of experts. The experts have to use their knowledge and expertise to interpret the map. In fact, quality judgment at large is a very complex process, as becomes clear from the following definition of sound quality [34], translated from German. “Sound quality is the result of an assessment of all features and feature values of a sound sample under examination which are recognized and nameable in the context of judging upon their suitability to meet all recognized and nameable features and feature values of individual expectations and/or social demands and/or pragmatic necessaries.” In other words, quality judgement starts out from a set of recognized and nameable features, the so-called ”character” of the sound sample, which are then compared to a “reference set” of features. Quality might be defined as the distance between these two sets. In any case, what the experts do when assessing quality, requires expertise and knowledge. This is certainly more than can be modelled with a mere bottom-up, signals-driven algorithm. It has thus been realized in Communication Acoustics that for complex recognition task, such as “quality recognition” which we have taken as an example here, model architectures have to developed that allow for the incorporation of explicit knowledge. 1.2.2 “Cocktail-Party Processing” To support the above statement, a further example will be discussed in the following, based on an auditory phenomenon which is known as the “cocktailparty effect” in the field. The term cocktail-party effect denotes the fact that human listeners with healthy binaural-hearing capabilities are able to concentrate on one talker in a crowd of concurrent talkers and discriminate the speech of this talker from the rest. Also, binaural hearing is able to suppress noise, reverberance and sound colouration to a certain extent. Effort to model the cocktail-party effect may also start from binauralactivity maps as rendered by analysis systems as shown in Fig. 1.3. In Fig. 1.5 such a map is given which illustrates a case of two concurrent talkers. The...

Interested in ttocs ' thoughts on this of course.  Meantime, my thoughts on his statement about quality, and some about this definition ...

Objective quality is a comparison to a known and agreed upon reference to what is correct.  Subjective quality is "I like it" or "I don't like it".  Yes, everything is a tone control!  The best systems contribute little to nothing, but then there are systems that cost a TON and alter the sound in specific ways that some people subjectively prefer.  Let's assume you can actually hear the difference between a very good Class D amp and a tube amp and you like the tube amp better.  Unless there's an objective reference that says the tube amp is actually more accurate than the Class D amp, it's just a subjective opinion.  In fact, even if there IS an objective reference, some people will like the tube amp better.

So what is objective reference?  The article talks about perception in a performance space.  Yes, you can compare two spaces and there's still objective and subjective components.  A friend said they heard the Philadelphia Orchestra in Verizon Hall and it was "fantastic!" .... I heard them in that hall and I thought it sounded like mush and I could barely even hear the soloist. 

And if you want to compare sound quality in a performance space to sound quality in a reproduction of music in a listening room ... well, first it depends on where and how the recording was made.  Was the recording even done in a performance space, or was it done in a studio with close mics on all instruments and mastering with reverb, EQ and compression ... was there even a "there, there"?

And how do many people objectively know what any given instrument or group of instruments sound like?  If you play an instrument then you may have very good knowledge of yours and other instruments.  In school I played drums in a band with 15 horns and a bass and piano.  So I have a memory of how that band sounded.  I also know that my drums sounded different depending on what heads I used and how I tuned them.  And I had a LOT of cymbals from US, Turkey, China and Italy ... and they all sounded different.  So how does a musician judge sound quality ... let alone a non-musician?

Finally ... I'm perpetually perplexed by the "mystique" of two-channel.  Just because we have two ears does not mean two-channel reproduction has some fundamental "rightness" about it.  You can use two mics, a binaural head, and ambisonic processing with the same recording in the same space at the same time ... and the playback experience will be different.  But maybe a well executed Atmos recording would be most accurate.

And I won't even get started on the notion that Dirac is fine for HT but not for two-channel 

There is no ‘there there’ in any recording or reproduction of the source event. It’s a reasonable illusion of the source event at best. The wonderful thing is our ears were not created with a need for total waveform accuracy in order to process a reproduced illusion, or to process a source event when we are listening to it in different locations or acoustical settings; within reason. We don’t listen in waveforms. The mileage of different ears does vary.

Have you tried to listen to a snare hit, 2” away from the head, (be careful), where it is usually mic’d with an SM57 or Beta 57 dynamic mic? Does it sound the same in a recording? No matter where you sit in the concert hall, it won’t be where the microphones are placed to record the orchestra. Physical microphone placement for a recording is rarely perceived the same in reproduction.

Ambisonic recording uses a lot of electronic manipulation to shape perceived sound field. At no time or setting is it trying to literally recreate the exact waveform that is impacting the mic capsule(s). It’s a protean force. The results can be very nice. See the virtual microphone gif at the following link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambisonics

Try to find recordings using a stereo PZM or multichannel Holophonic mic. IMO these tools give the best reproduction illusion of acoustical reality and space, for stereo and multichannel respectively. Acoustic recordings, using these techniques, reproduced in average rooms with average equipment, can make a listening room disappear. I have extensive experience with the Crown stereo PZM and used it often in live production. Yet, these are only two techniques among a host of good techniques. Blumlein, M-S, or Ambisonic stereo recording, can be magical; Others too. I care that I can reasonable reproduce the intention of the recording artist and producer, no matter the technique or microphone system used.

Concerning “Mystique” –

If the intention is to produce and reproduce a sound field with images in space, at least two channels are needed. The more the merrier, within practical limits of cost, physical room considerations, proper adjustments of the system to meet the room, and compromise for most people. ‘Fundamental rightness’ is best achieved when phantom images can be reproduced between any intended channels. Got that? ANY INTENDED CHANNELS. That means I’m going to make any of the INTENDED CHANNELS the same kind of reproduction source. Then, I will be able to extract as much of the “mystique” as my system and my skill set can. Of course, this assumes the recording artist and producer matched their INTENDED CHANNELS in the control room. If not, well, here we go with more ‘circle of confusion’. *I wouldn’t use a 75” UHD TV for my left eye, and 19” black and white CRT TV for my right eye, whether I was producing or reproducing. Did you ever see the 360 degree sound and video setup at Disney World? I do laugh a little when I see the idealized Dolby Atmos sound cocoon graphic and then see their speaker recommendations.

Some say Dirac can do the job. One measurement microphone is not two ears. Two measurement microphones are still not two ears. IIRC the measurement mic used by Trinnov has 4 capsules – better, but it is still not two ears attached to a real human head with real and complicated processing created by God.

Here is a wonderful book on sound mixing and how to create that ‘Illusion’ –

“Mixing With Your Mind” by Michael Paul Stavrou. Forward by Sir George Martin.

The best recordings and reproduction systems DO ‘bend the spoon’… and it can be done at various costs.

[ttocs]

Aug 12, 2022 10:09:44 GMT -5 marcl said:

So what is objective reference?  The article talks about perception in a performance space.  Yes, you can compare two spaces and there's still objective and subjective components.  A friend said they heard the Philadelphia Orchestra in Verizon Hall and it was "fantastic!" .... I heard them in that hall and I thought it sounded like mush and I could barely even hear the soloist. 

And if you want to compare sound quality in a performance space to sound quality in a reproduction of music in a listening room ... well, first it depends on where and how the recording was made.  Was the recording even done in a performance space, or was it done in a studio with close mics on all instruments and mastering with reverb, EQ and compression ... was there even a "there, there"?

And how do many people objectively know what any given instrument or group of instruments sound like?  If you play an instrument then you may have very good knowledge of yours and other instruments.  In school I played drums in a band with 15 horns and a bass and piano.  So I have a memory of how that band sounded.  I also know that my drums sounded different depending on what heads I used and how I tuned them.  And I had a LOT of cymbals from US, Turkey, China and Italy ... and they all sounded different.  So how does a musician judge sound quality ... let alone a non-musician?

Finally ... I'm perpetually perplexed by the "mystique" of two-channel.  Just because we have two ears does not mean two-channel reproduction has some fundamental "rightness" about it.  You can use two mics, a binaural head, and ambisonic processing with the same recording in the same space at the same time ... and the playback experience will be different.  But maybe a well executed Atmos recording would be most accurate.

And I won't even get started on the notion that Dirac is fine for HT but not for two-channel 

Ok. I'm just wrestling with how much to dissect here. But, re Objective/Subjective, to me it all boils down to audio quality being subjective. It's my opinion vs another's.

Two people can listen to some audio on a system and agree that it sounds brighter than another system, but one can still like System A and the other prefer System B. The objective part, which can be proven by using REW or similar, is that one system sounds brighter. So, which system is more accurate? It doesn't matter. One person can sit for hours happily listening to System A, while the other person is happy with System B (B&W speakers come to mind, I can't listen to their tweeters for any length of time, but they have a huge following). Why? I firmly believe it's due to each person's auditory system, brain, hearing, bone structure, etc. And it's not just the mechanical functioning of the ear drums etc, but how the brain interprets what is heard, such as, what is noticed and what is not.

So while I think System A is too bright and possibly a bit harsh, another will think my system sounds too muffled and dull. Who is right? We both are. Again, it just doesn't matter which system is "accurate" based on some determination of objective accuracy, even if the accurate sounding system sounds exactly like the instruments and vocals sound when they are playing Live in someone's living room. In fact let's use that example. If a band is playing in my living room, I can say that the instruments are being heard "accurately" and that they sound like how they sound, but the sound is terrible, and I'm hearing the drums way louder than the clarinet, and the stand up bass is way to soft. So I'd say it sounds bad. But the recording I made of that recital sounds great on my audio system. So did I objectively determine that the Live performance sounded bad, and subjectively determine that the recorded version sounded good? Or were both conclusions objective?

I've only walked out of one concert. It was at a venue known for poor acoustics, but this concert was also distorted. I hated walking out because it was a Yes concert and I really wanted to try to enjoy it, but the sound was awful. This was after I was at the same venue for a Pink Floyd concert, which, to this day is the best sounding concert I've ever witnessed. One venue, two concerts, one is the best sound, the other is the worst sound. Same set of ears. Did I use objective or subjective reasoning in deciding that I liked one concert and not the other?

And Marc, because of your statements about multichannel music I decided to try it for a while. My initial thought is that it does sound good for once, but it's because of my new center channel speaker being so much better than my old one, much more capable. I've tried it before and didn't like it, but my previous center speaker just wasn't up to playing music so well. It played dialogue well enough, just not music.

edit: Forgot to address Dirac for 2 channel music. I've been ok with Dirac for 2 channel since I've been using the curtains to restrict correction of my stats to under 500Hz.

[Dreamer]

I turned on my RMC-1L and find I need to reboot it. I turn it off, turn off the rear power switch, wait 2 minutes and restart it and get: err: init OSD!

Any suggestions?

[msimanyi]

I'll suggest a "deep reboot."

Turn off the power switch on the back and unplug the RMC-1L. Remove all the HDMI cables from it, labeling them so you can easily reinstall them correctly. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

Plug the power cord back in, and turn on the power switch. Yes, it won't be connected to anything for HDMI communications yet. See if it restarts properly or hangs again. If it restarts properly, shut it down. (Power can still be connected, but make sure it's totally off.) Reconnect just the HDMI output cable to your television and restart again. Assuming that doesn't hang, bring up the OSD just to confirm it seems functional. Shut it down again.

Reconnect your other HDMI devices and do it one (hopefully) last time.

I don't think the speakers could be affecting this. It seems more like a processor glitch or HDMI issue. I have an RMC-1 and had some HDMI problems *once*, but the full power-down / disconnect / reconnect cleared it, if I recall correctly.

Good luck with it! Please let us know if that is successful or offers any other insights.

Edited to add: which firmware version do you have on the processor?  I had this issue prior to 2.5, which has been quite stable for me.

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[yellowbalt]

Any status update on the fw yet? I thought its coming very soon?

Danny

[panasonicst60]

I have a good feeling the 3.0 firmware update will come by this Friday. Sounds about right Brett?

[Deleted]

Aug 16, 2022 11:06:21 GMT -5 panasonicst60 said:

I have a good feeling the 3.0 firmware update will come by this Friday. Sounds about right Brett?

...EMO doesn't "release firmware on Fridays"  . 

[ttocs]

Aug 16, 2022 11:06:21 GMT -5 panasonicst60 said:

I have a good feeling the 3.0 firmware update will come by this Friday. Sounds about right Brett?

Is that what your Magic 8 Ball says?

[novisnick]

Aug 16, 2022 10:51:51 GMT -5 yellowbalt said:

Any status update on the fw yet? I thought its coming very soon?

Danny

   Emo            soon

[5channels]

New word "emonent"

Let's see what happens first, emonent becomes an official entry in the Oxford Dictionary or FW 3.0 gets released to loyal, anxious customers

[hemster]

Aug 16, 2022 12:54:35 GMT -5 5channels said:

New word "emonent"

Let's see what happens first, emonent becomes an official entry in the Oxford Dictionary or FW 3.0 gets released to loyal, anxious customers

Neither might be imminent but you may have coined a word for an Emotiva component!

Emonent.. I like the sound of that. 

[aswiss]

Aug 16, 2022 13:22:54 GMT -5 hemster said:

Aug 16, 2022 12:54:35 GMT -5 5channels said:

New word "emonent"

Let's see what happens first, emonent becomes an official entry in the Oxford Dictionary or FW 3.0 gets released to loyal, anxious customers

Neither might be imminent but you may have coined a word for an Emotiva component!

Emonent.. I like the sound of that. 

A very long story

[xeno]

At least Emo isn't like Nvidia. Cranking out new drivers every 2-3 weeks. Each one a bigger pile of worthless garbage than the last.