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Minor Hero
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Post by timg on Aug 13, 2020 19:33:33 GMT -5
This is great for projectors that can't or won't accept Dolby Vision. IMO, it's become almost a must-have if you're doing 4K watching with physical disks + a projector. It's also relatively inexpensive.
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NicS
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Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 210
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Post by NicS on Aug 14, 2020 1:48:01 GMT -5
My main speakers are ATC SCM100ASL active monitors. They are brutally revealing.
Since I’ve had my RMC-1L I’ve noticed a few things. When playing Atmos music (Beatles Abbey Road specifically) I can hear quite a distinct level of distortion. At volume, this becomes so fatiguing, so distracting, I have to lower the output to make it listenable, though the distortion is less present.
If I listen to vinyl, using the Reference Stereo mode, this distortion is far less apparent.
Initially I thought this distortion was coming from the speakers themselves. But it’s originating in the processor. I’m getting a rather bad case of buyers remorse as a consequence.
Anyone else getting this issue?
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Post by marcl on Aug 14, 2020 6:16:31 GMT -5
My main speakers are ATC SCM100ASL active monitors. They are brutally revealing. Since I’ve had my RMC-1L I’ve noticed a few things. When playing Atmos music (Beatles Abbey Road specifically) I can hear quite a distinct level of distortion. At volume, this becomes so fatiguing, so distracting, I have to lower the output to make it listenable, though the distortion is less present. If I listen to vinyl, using the Reference Stereo mode, this distortion is far less apparent. Initially I thought this distortion was coming from the speakers themselves. But it’s originating in the processor. I’m getting a rather bad case of buyers remorse as a consequence. Anyone else getting this issue? Can you tell us a little more? What is the source? Is it streaming, CD/BD, computer file? Are you using any equalization or Dirac Live?
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Post by Vermont99 on Aug 14, 2020 8:30:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the Harmony Elite help getting everything setup.
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 210
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Post by NicS on Aug 14, 2020 8:31:15 GMT -5
My main speakers are ATC SCM100ASL active monitors. They are brutally revealing. Since I’ve had my RMC-1L I’ve noticed a few things. When playing Atmos music (Beatles Abbey Road specifically) I can hear quite a distinct level of distortion. At volume, this becomes so fatiguing, so distracting, I have to lower the output to make it listenable, though the distortion is less present. If I listen to vinyl, using the Reference Stereo mode, this distortion is far less apparent. Initially I thought this distortion was coming from the speakers themselves. But it’s originating in the processor. I’m getting a rather bad case of buyers remorse as a consequence. Anyone else getting this issue? Can you tell us a little more? What is the source? Is it streaming, CD/BD, computer file? Are you using any equalization or Dirac Live? I’m not using Dirac, yet. Just the basic time alignment and bass management of Direct mode. The source is a Sony BluRay player via the dedicated Audio HDMI output. I’m using the Abbey Road BluRay Atmos disc. I then use Direct mode, though on detecting Atmos I think the processor is doing something else, akin to the detection of a DSD signal. If I play an SACD instead, employing DSD, the distortion is far less apparent.
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Post by marcl on Aug 14, 2020 8:42:26 GMT -5
Maybe someone else has some ideas. Seems to me the processor is doing very little but just passing signal to the DACs and bass management. Are you converting to PCM for the Sony HDMI output?
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richb
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Oppo Beta Group - Audioholics Reviewer
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Post by richb on Aug 14, 2020 9:05:27 GMT -5
Can you tell us a little more? What is the source? Is it streaming, CD/BD, computer file? Are you using any equalization or Dirac Live? I’m not using Dirac, yet. Just the basic time alignment and bass management of Direct mode. The source is a Sony BluRay player via the dedicated Audio HDMI output. I’m using the Abbey Road BluRay Atmos disc. I then use Direct mode, though on detecting Atmos I think the processor is doing something else, akin to the detection of a DSD signal. If I play an SACD instead, employing DSD, the distortion is far less apparent. Maybe someone else has some ideas. Seems to me the processor is doing very little but just passing signal to the DACs and bass management. Are you converting to PCM for the Sony HDMI output? I use direct mode and bass management on the center only. Try removing the variables on by one. Bass management and then time alignment (all set the same) to identify the problem. - Rich
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Aug 14, 2020 9:28:12 GMT -5
The signal path for a DSD audio signal is actually pretty simple...
When you play something in actual DSD the digital DSD signal is basically passed straight to the DACs which convert it into analog... (The DACs we use can accept a DSD audio input directly...)
From there it goes through ALL ANALOG circuitry - including the Volume Control.
(DSD audio signals are not and cannot be "processed" by normal DSPs - including ours...) Therefore they bypass all of that circuitry entirely...
Dolby Atmos content is about as far in the other direction as it is possible to go... First the digital data stream must be demultiplexed to separate the digital video and audio signals... Then the digital audio and Atmos metadata streams must be separated out and processed by the decoder... Then, finally, you have digital audio data which can be sent to the DACs to be converted into analog...
(And, along the way, you can apply additional digital audio processing like bass management, equalization, and Dirac Live processing.) And, after all that, you have analog audio which goes to the analog circuitry.
And, yes, if your disc player outputs PCM when you play SACD discs, then it is internally converting DSD to PCM... And, if your disc player outputs PCM when you play Dolby Atmos discs, then the Atmos data stream is being decoded by your disc player...
I’m not using Dirac, yet. Just the basic time alignment and bass management of Direct mode. The source is a Sony BluRay player via the dedicated Audio HDMI output. I’m using the Abbey Road BluRay Atmos disc. I then use Direct mode, though on detecting Atmos I think the processor is doing something else, akin to the detection of a DSD signal. If I play an SACD instead, employing DSD, the distortion is far less apparent. Maybe someone else has some ideas. Seems to me the processor is doing very little but just passing signal to the DACs and bass management. Are you converting to PCM for the Sony HDMI output? I use direct mode and bass management on the center only. Try removing the variables on by one. Bass management and then time alignment (all set the same) to identify the problem. - Rich
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Aug 14, 2020 9:35:59 GMT -5
Something interesting occurred to me here....
If I read this correctly you are trying to play Midway from a Zappiti player... And, as far as I know, Midway is being sourced from a commercial disc... So, in fact, you are playing a copy of Midway that the Zappiti box has ripped from the disc and played on its own hard drive...
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Midway (in specific) is well known as causing problems for current disc ripping software.... (If you simply Google "rip Midway" you will find many threads about people trying unsuccessfully to get a clean rip of Midway with various software.) (Apparently there is something specifically problematic about the copy protection on that specific movie - and a few others.)
I wonder if the problem is simply that the software on the Zappiti box is also unable to make a perfectly clean rip of that particular movie disc.
(And, starting with a flawed video rip, different players and processors handle the flawed file a bit differently.)
I watched midway and there were probably about 1000 audio stutters in the movie. Here’s something... the audio delays seem cumulative. In other words, with each stutter of the rmc1 there appears to be more lip sync delay. If I hit pause the rmc1 will resync and correct the lag. Note it’s not a network stutter, as the video remains uninterrupted, only the rmc1 drops audio. Within an hour, the delay was extremely noticeable... hit pause and then play,,and it goes away. Source was zappiti over wired lan. As mentioned, not a network issue since the video remain clean, only the audio dropped. Each stutter was a fraction of a second, not long enough to trigger the OSD to come up with a resync. I have tried to attach a video of this. I had to compress it by a huge amount to get it to fit. But still you can make out the cutouts amd the fact that the video isn’t a problem.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Aug 14, 2020 10:53:07 GMT -5
There is a bit of philosophy that bears mentioning at this point.
The very basis of "immersive surround sound systems" like Dolby Atmos is that they are "perceptual". They are designed to create an illusion. And how well they work is determined by how effectively they do so.
(This is also true for "simple" stereo systems - but it is more true of complex systems like Dolby Atmos.)
For example, you can have two speakers with identical on-axis response, yet which sound very different in a room. (Because they have very different directional dispersion characteristics.)
And, even worse, those same two speakers may measure very differently in different rooms. And each one of them will measure differently, in the same room, depending on exactly how you measure it. And, to make matters more complicated, even the differences between them will themselves be different, when measured in different rooms.
My philosophical point here is that we have crossed over into a sort of virtual realm... You cannot test whether Dirac is doing precisely what it should because you don't know exactly what it is supposed to be doing. No room correction system can or will deliver a system with perfectly flat frequency response and perfectly accurate phase response. (And, as I mentioned again below, even if they could, you probably wouldn't like the way ti sounded.)
What they are doing is to make some very careful decisions about what can or should be corrected - and then correcting those things as well as possible. Both their algorithms and the way they perform their measurements are predicated by how they choose to do this.
And how well they succeed will be determined by how the result sounds.
Think for a second about all the discussions about "room correction curves". Dolby chose "the Dolby X curve" as sounding good to most people in movie theaters. The "Harman Curve" was chosen, as far as I know, to sound good in most typical home environments (whatever exactly that means). And, likewise, Dirac Live's "default Target Curve" was chosen by Dirac to sound good in most typical home environments. (I wonder if most typical listening rooms in Stockholm sound like most typical listening rooms in Nashville... ) (About the only thing everyone agrees on is that a truly flat frequency response doesn't seem to sound very good to anyone.)
I guess what I'm getting at here is a bit of advice to try to avoid getting buried in the minutiae of the situation...
And focus more on how well the results turn out.... And less on the exact details of how you got there.... Unless, of course, you really do plan to decorate your living room walls will colorful response graphs and phase plots...
So, maybe, spend a little less time making measurements, and a little more time listening to music.... Using Front Speakers set to Large for Bass Management, then using a dedicated sub for LFE only. So marcl , how do you go about measuring a specific channel, let's say the Right Surround Small, to make sure that the bass for that channel makes its way to the Front Right Large speaker? I've been thinking about this today while baby sitting some HVAC contractors at one of out projects, and I can only come up with using a Dolby demo that cycles through the speakers one at a time. Is this how you do it? I didn't quite understand what you did in the subsequent post (I'm not familiar with Mac) but it's good you were able to verify. Can you send to 7.1 channels from REW via HDMI? What I do to test bass management through the fronts: Set crossover of a small speaker (surround or center) to 200Hz and turn off the amp for the small speaker. Send a sweep to the small speaker and you will verify that the bass comes out of both fronts, and you can measure to see that it's good up to 200Hz. Then put the crossovers back to where they need to be and sweep each small speaker to see that integration at the crossover point is good. Tweak the crossover point as needed, and possibly tweak the Dirac target curve of the small speaker to help even out the transition. This is among the situations where it's unfortunate that Dirac doesn't sweep with bass management on. When I used subwoofers for bass management, and PEQ, I would sweep every speaker with bass management on and create a filter for each speaker, even though the bass is all coming from the same place. I'd first create filters for the subwoofers, then sweep each small speaker with the crossovers set and create filters for each of them as integrated with the subwoofers for bass management. Works really well with PEQ. Unfortunately you can't do it with fronts for bass management until we get the fix for the bug. And you can't do it at all with Dirac. BTW, it's also unfortunate that there's no way to test more than 7 channels with REW ... just have to trust that the top/height speakers' Dirac filters are good.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Aug 14, 2020 11:06:28 GMT -5
I'm not even going to get into the finer details of this discussion... But I am going to mention something else which I suspect many people aren't aware of... It's not always as simple as "decide how you think something should be done and then do it that way"...
For example, Dirac is not the only player in the game here... You may think it would be a great idea if Dirac Live was in charge of all the crossovers (and that's certainly what they would prefer)... And, to be quite honest, we'd sort of like to be able to decide how we'd like to handle that for ourselves...
However, Dolby Labs, who provide that neat Atmos technology, are rather insistent that THEY should control the crossovers... (And, as a condition of the license that allows us to include that neat Atmos technology, we sort of have to agree to do it their way.)
As I said - I'm not prepared to discuss all the minutiae and technicalities here...
But it's not always as simple as "lets all do it the way we think we should"... (Unless, of course, you want to design your own processor from scratch... )
I didn't use REW to send noise to each channel, I used the Audio Midi Setup in the Mac utilities. It's very basic and only sends noise to whichever speaker that is clicked. I just wanted to check that the bass was going to the fronts, nothing official. If Dirac would sweep a small speaker with the bass going to the fronts, wouldn't that have a possibility of getting double bass, or double filters, if a setting wasn't quite right? The fronts would have a filter, and the smalls would have a filter, so are both filters competing in the fronts? I wasn't aware of the 7 channel limit for REW, haven't gotten that far with it yet to know. In trying to figure out how to send noise to a certain channel I looked at Pro Tools that I have and it also has a 7.1 channel limit. I was thinking about making my own sweeps test. The double filter issue is there for PEQ too. There is no real tutorial on how to do PEQ filters with REW and an XMC/RMC. If someone has most or all speakers set to small and bass management going to subwoofers they could really get screwed up results by measuring the small speakers full range before first measuring and correcting the subs. And even then, if you just measure the subs using output 4 in REW, that only plays to the LFE channel in the processor which rolls off about 12db/octave above 100Hz. So if you need bass management above 100Hz and need to correct the subs up that high you have to measure the subs in the way I described above ... setting a small speaker to 200Hz crossover and turn off its amp. Dirac would have to measure the subs first and download their filters, then measure the rest of the channels with the subs and their filters engaged per the bass management crossovers. The sub filters would remain unchanged and the other channel filters would incorporate the integration point at the crossover frequency. Presumably Dirac would also correct impulse response for each small speaker while seeing the subs as though they were a woofer in a large speaker. For those venturing into using REW for multichannel measurements via HDMI, here are the channel assignments: 1 - Left Front 2 - Right Front 3 - Center 4 - LFE 5 - Left Back 6 - Right Back 7 - Left Surround 8 - Right Surround And when you measure this way the processor will apply the +10db boost to the LFE so channel 4's results will show +10db on the plot. If you do the bass management measurement I described, those results will be same amplitude as other channels even though they come from the subwoofers. There is no way that I've found to use REW to measure channels other than these. You could physically swap cables and send a sweep to, for example, the left surround output ... but actually have it wired to the left top front amplifier. But you would also have to temporarily change the distance for the left surround channel. And you would have to clear the filters for the left surround channel. And then after creating filters for the left top front, actually load them to the left surround first in order to verify. And ... none of this will work for Dirac.
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Post by megash0n on Aug 14, 2020 11:14:07 GMT -5
There is a bit of philosophy that bears mentioning at this point.
The very basis of "immersive surround sound systems" like Dolby Atmos is that they are "perceptual". They are designed to create an illusion. And how well they work is determined by how effectively they do so.
(This is also true for "simple" stereo systems - but it is more true of complex systems like Dolby Atmos.)
For example, you can have two speakers with identical on-axis response, yet which sound very different in a room. (Because they have very different directional dispersion characteristics.)
And, even worse, those same two speakers may measure very differently in different rooms. And each one of them will measure differently, in the same room, depending on exactly how you measure it. And, to make matters more complicated, even the differences between them will themselves be different, when measured in different rooms.
My philosophical point here is that we have crossed over into a sort of virtual realm... You cannot test whether Dirac is doing precisely what it should because you don't know exactly what it is supposed to be doing. No room correction system can or will deliver a system with perfectly flat frequency response and perfectly accurate phase response. (And, as I mentioned again below, even if they could, you probably wouldn't like the way ti sounded.)
What they are doing is to make some very careful decisions about what can or should be corrected - and then correcting those things as well as possible. Both their algorithms and the way they perform their measurements are predicated by how they choose to do this.
And how well they succeed will be determined by how the result sounds.
Think for a second about all the discussions about "room correction curves". Dolby chose "the Dolby X curve" as sounding good to most people in movie theaters. The "Harman Curve" was chosen, as far as I know, to sound good in most typical home environments (whatever exactly that means). And, likewise, Dirac Live's "default Target Curve" was chosen by Dirac to sound good in most typical home environments. (I wonder if most typical listening rooms in Stockholm sound like most typical listening rooms in Nashville... ) (About the only thing everyone agrees on is that a truly flat frequency response doesn't seem to sound very good to anyone.)
I guess what I'm getting at here is a bit of advice to try to avoid getting buried in the minutiae of the situation...
And focus more on how well the results turn out.... And less on the exact details of how you got there.... Unless, of course, you really do plan to decorate your living room walls will colorful response graphs and phase plots...
So, maybe, spend a little less time making measurements, and a little more time listening to music.... I didn't quite understand what you did in the subsequent post (I'm not familiar with Mac) but it's good you were able to verify. Can you send to 7.1 channels from REW via HDMI? What I do to test bass management through the fronts: Set crossover of a small speaker (surround or center) to 200Hz and turn off the amp for the small speaker. Send a sweep to the small speaker and you will verify that the bass comes out of both fronts, and you can measure to see that it's good up to 200Hz. Then put the crossovers back to where they need to be and sweep each small speaker to see that integration at the crossover point is good. Tweak the crossover point as needed, and possibly tweak the Dirac target curve of the small speaker to help even out the transition. This is among the situations where it's unfortunate that Dirac doesn't sweep with bass management on. When I used subwoofers for bass management, and PEQ, I would sweep every speaker with bass management on and create a filter for each speaker, even though the bass is all coming from the same place. I'd first create filters for the subwoofers, then sweep each small speaker with the crossovers set and create filters for each of them as integrated with the subwoofers for bass management. Works really well with PEQ. Unfortunately you can't do it with fronts for bass management until we get the fix for the bug. And you can't do it at all with Dirac. BTW, it's also unfortunate that there's no way to test more than 7 channels with REW ... just have to trust that the top/height speakers' Dirac filters are good. But, how does one determine if what they are hearing is ideally the best it could or could not be without some proof with data? Just because I like how my system sounds right this minute with Dirac doesn't mean that I don't also "know" it isn't correct due to phase and other sorts of alignment items. You often like car analogies. It's like moving from a Honda Civic to a Nissan GTR. If that GTR has a shitty tune because some weekend mechanic jacked with it, it will still be impressive compared to our previous knowledge and experience. Having someone show you the graphs and plots displaying areas of improvement can make a tremendous difference in how that GTR performs. We don't know what we don't know until we know. We don't get there without some empirical evidence that leads us there. Both opinions are valid and important. There's also a whole conversation around using evidence to prove things are actually working as intended, but I won't go down that road.
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Post by mikoz on Aug 14, 2020 11:31:26 GMT -5
Something interesting occurred to me here....
If I read this correctly you are trying to play Midway from a Zappiti player... And, as far as I know, Midway is being sourced from a commercial disc... So, in fact, you are playing a copy of Midway that the Zappiti box has ripped from the disc and played on its own hard drive...
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Midway (in specific) is well known as causing problems for current disc ripping software.... (If you simply Google "rip Midway" you will find many threads about people trying unsuccessfully to get a clean rip of Midway with various software.) (Apparently there is something specifically problematic about the copy protection on that specific movie - and a few others.)
I wonder if the problem is simply that the software on the Zappiti box is also unable to make a perfectly clean rip of that particular movie disc.
(And, starting with a flawed video rip, different players and processors handle the flawed file a bit differently.)
I watched midway and there were probably about 1000 audio stutters in the movie. Here’s something... the audio delays seem cumulative. In other words, with each stutter of the rmc1 there appears to be more lip sync delay. If I hit pause the rmc1 will resync and correct the lag. Note it’s not a network stutter, as the video remains uninterrupted, only the rmc1 drops audio. Within an hour, the delay was extremely noticeable... hit pause and then play,,and it goes away. Source was zappiti over wired lan. As mentioned, not a network issue since the video remain clean, only the audio dropped. Each stutter was a fraction of a second, not long enough to trigger the OSD to come up with a resync. I have tried to attach a video of this. I had to compress it by a huge amount to get it to fit. But still you can make out the cutouts amd the fact that the video isn’t a problem.
I am returning my RMC1. However, for the benefit of others, the movie was ripped onto a NAS in native folder format and played over local internet via GbE (as I mentioned in my original message). The movie plays without stuttering in 1.10. It stutters with 2.0 using Dirac filters. It also played without issue on an 8805 using the same player and same network. When trying to watch the movie, I used the RMC1 for about 6 hours and had to power cycle it 7 times.
Finally, the Zappiti doesn't "rip", I rip from a PC. The zappiti just plays the media from a mounted drive on my NAS.
I grew too tired of playing these games, I need something that plays media reliably and just works. The RMC1 cannot do this, I've given it 20 months, my family and I are tired of the constant effort required to attempt to make it work.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Aug 14, 2020 11:34:04 GMT -5
I absolutely agree... But I will add that there is ALWAYS the question of priorities...
For example, a few years ago, when we were still developing the RMC-1, we attended a certain audio show...
And, since our new Atmos processor wasn't able to decode Dolby Atmos yet, we outfitted our sound room with our amps and speakers... And we had one of our older processors doing 7.1 channel audio...
But, for Atmos decoding, we stashed a $3k processor made by one of our favorite competitors under the counter... And, after that show, it remained connected in our demo theater for a while (so we could play Atmos content until our RMC-1 was ready).
And, as far as I know, that Atmos processor performed flawlessly...
However, oddly, many people who heard both it and our other processor commented that our processor "sounded noticeably better"...
All of the channels were there with that Atmos processor, probably in the right places, but the sound quality was just a little bit lacking... (We were actually a bit surprised that so many people found the difference so obvious not only with music but with movies.)
And, if I was being smarmy, I might say that I would expect a reputable company to be able to deliver good sound quality from a $3 processor.
I might also suggest that they might have been able to do so if they'd actually moved that up their priority list a little bit.
(So, clearly, we ALL have our expectations, and our priorities ...)
I should also make one short comment on what someone said about "expecting a certified 4k cable from a reputable company to just work". We absolutely agree. However you might find it quite enlightening to look into exactly what the term means. (For example, who tests those cables, and who penalizes manufacturers who make unjustified claims...) Haha, I am an engineer and should be more literal as my profession madates, I am slipping... it's from not being f2f with other engineers as much I think. The first sentence should have read "... it has to be able to do ALL of the following in one revision of firmware":
If you glance at many of the back and forth times between folks on here, I think you'll find that those who have a structured, engineering type background in environments that have to be optimal at all times are the ones who are far less tolerant because we've seen plenty of representation from companies that put more effort into product development and stability. Doesn't mean anyone is wrong necessarily... We just have different expectations and tolerance levels. We expect root cause analysis to be performed, changes made and remediation to occur.
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NicS
Sensei
Will the G4 upgrade help quell my RMC1-L frustrations...?
Posts: 210
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Post by NicS on Aug 14, 2020 12:05:20 GMT -5
The signal path for a DSD audio signal is actually pretty simple...
When you play something in actual DSD the digital DSD signal is basically passed straight to the DACs which convert it into analog... (The DACs we use can accept a DSD audio input directly...)
From there it goes through ALL ANALOG circuitry - including the Volume Control.
(DSD audio signals are not and cannot be "processed" by normal DSPs - including ours...) Therefore they bypass all of that circuitry entirely...
Dolby Atmos content is about as far in the other direction as it is possible to go... First the digital data stream must be demultiplexed to separate the digital video and audio signals... Then the digital audio and Atmos metadata streams must be separated out and processed by the decoder... Then, finally, you have digital audio data which can be sent to the DACs to be converted into analog...
(And, along the way, you can apply additional digital audio processing like bass management, equalization, and Dirac Live processing.) And, after all that, you have analog audio which goes to the analog circuitry.
And, yes, if your disc player outputs PCM when you play SACD discs, then it is internally converting DSD to PCM... And, if your disc player outputs PCM when you play Dolby Atmos discs, then the Atmos data stream is being decoded by your disc player...
I use direct mode and bass management on the center only. Try removing the variables on by one. Bass management and then time alignment (all set the same) to identify the problem. - Rich Thanks Keith. You are very generous with your time. It's very much appreciated. So I've been chasing my tail a bit. I've recently finished restoring my LCR ATC SCM100ASLs re-coning all the drivers, replacing the tweeter diaphragms and ferrofluid, recapping the tri-pack amps. It's being done with the assistance of Charlie Bolois in LA, who looks after the same model of speaker used by both Roger Waters and Dave Grohl in their home studios. I've been running them in for a while, adding 4 height speakers with the move to Atmos. Consequently I've been buying and listening to quite a bit of Atmos music. My go-to reference Atmos recordings are Abbey Road, INXS - Kick & the Kraftwerk 3D box set. All of which have amazing mixes in Atmos, though I've been hitting this distortion issue. I made the assumption that the Atmos encoded material was of high quality and that the RMC1-L was passing it in much the same way as DSD is being handled. From what you have said, I was very much mistaken. If I listen to one of my reference SACDs (Steely Dan's Gaucho is one favorite for this purpose) passing DSD from the BluRay player via HDMI on the dedicated "high quality" Audio circuit, the distortion I hear on the Atmos recordings dos not seem to be there. I certainly do not get listening fatigue like I experience with the Atmos disks. When listening to Atmos, the upper frequencies can sound unbearably harsh. Initially I thought this was a problem with the speakers, though when I ran measurements I couldn't identify any major issues. Playback from vinyl in Reference Stereo mode sounds pretty good, and I wrongly assumes this was because the vinyl rolls off it's high frequency response in a way that did not create the distortion I was hearing with the Atmos recordings. I'm left with absolutely no confidence in the fidelity of the Atmos decoding and playback. While I like the soundscape, the inherent distortion is so much worse musically that DSD in 5.1, which I have grown to absolutely love. I'm not trying to be bitchy here. I know you guys make a solid product to a very reasonable price. I'm not expecting miracles but I do believe there is something going on in the Atmos decoding that is wrecking the audio fidelity. Just flagging it up.
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Post by JKCashin on Aug 14, 2020 12:11:54 GMT -5
I absolutely agree... But I will add that there is ALWAYS the question of priorities... <Content snipped for brevity> Keith, I am really glad to read this. For me, I will accept some issues, but I won't accept compromized sound. You have explained your position and it mimics my own philosophy. When my XMC-2 works, it's a beautiful thing, and being honest, it works most of the time. I have had to make some adaptations to the order I turn things on in to reliably get sound, but I have confidence that Emotiva is more annoyed by these issues than their customers... it's about reputation. Keep at it and know that many of us are rooting for you (collective you). Some have given up... we each have our pain (in the butt) threshold... but for me it's about ROI... return on investment, where the investment includes my time.. time to get things working. Am I annoyed? Sure. But only occasionally, and when it works, the sound says everything for me, that's the "return" part of the ROI, and it's HUGE. So tell your developers there's a silent group of us are rooting for them.
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Post by megash0n on Aug 14, 2020 12:46:10 GMT -5
I absolutely agree... But I will add that there is ALWAYS the question of priorities... <Content snipped for brevity> Keith, I am really glad to read this. For me, I will accept some issues, but I won't accept compromized sound. You have explained your position and it mimics my own philosophy. When my XMC-2 works, it's a beautiful thing, and being honest, it works most of the time. I have had to make some adaptations to the order I turn things on in to reliably get sound, but I have confidence that Emotiva is more annoyed by these issues than their customers... it's about reputation. Keep at it and know that many of us are rooting for you (collective you). Some have given up... we each have our pain (in the butt) threshold... but for me it's about ROI... return on investment, where the investment includes my time.. time to get things working. Am I annoyed? Sure. But only occasionally, and when it works, the sound says everything for me, that's the "return" part of the ROI, and it's HUGE. So tell your developers there's a silent group of us are rooting for them. I think you said this well. I was considering a post that touched on some of this. We talk about specific issues and hardware from time to time. What we should pay more attention to is the "brand". People buy from you at least once if you are lucky because you made something they want. They buy from you for life because of your brand. I agree with most here that each of this issues will eventually be solved, but we collectively need to be more concerned with the "brand". The brand is what you are known for and consists of your day to day operations over time. I too am rooting for a local business to me, and hope they are extremely successful. I just personally would like to see the brand changing course a bit to reassure the community that it is a good, long-term investment. I'm considering keeping my current bedroom gear as I have it today and fully building my HT room back out. It is really difficult for me to consider what direction I want to go.
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Post by marcl on Aug 14, 2020 12:48:41 GMT -5
Observations on some combinations of bass management:
1 - If you have Center Sub=LFE and Fronts=Large, and no other Sub, Enhanced Bass is an option ... but nothing will happen. Nothing will be sent to the Center Sub because it is LFE-only. 2 - If you have Center Sub=LFE and Fronts=Large, and no other Sub, and you change your Fronts=Small ... Center Sub will automatically be changed to Mono. If you then change Fronts=Large again, Center Sub will still be Mono (you have to change it back).
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cawgijoe
Emo VIPs
"We made too many of the wrong mistakes." - Yogi Berra
Posts: 4,914
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Post by cawgijoe on Aug 14, 2020 13:14:00 GMT -5
<Content snipped for brevity> Keith, I am really glad to read this. For me, I will accept some issues, but I won't accept compromized sound. You have explained your position and it mimics my own philosophy. When my XMC-2 works, it's a beautiful thing, and being honest, it works most of the time. I have had to make some adaptations to the order I turn things on in to reliably get sound, but I have confidence that Emotiva is more annoyed by these issues than their customers... it's about reputation. Keep at it and know that many of us are rooting for you (collective you). Some have given up... we each have our pain (in the butt) threshold... but for me it's about ROI... return on investment, where the investment includes my time.. time to get things working. Am I annoyed? Sure. But only occasionally, and when it works, the sound says everything for me, that's the "return" part of the ROI, and it's HUGE. So tell your developers there's a silent group of us are rooting for them. I think you said this well. I was considering a post that touched on some of this. We talk about specific issues and hardware from time to time. What we should pay more attention to is the "brand". People buy from you at least once if you are lucky because you made something they want. They buy from you for life because of your brand. I agree with most here that each of this issues will eventually be solved, but we collectively need to be more concerned with the "brand". The brand is what you are known for and consists of your day to day operations over time. I too am rooting for a local business to me, and hope they are extremely successful. I just personally would like to see the brand changing course a bit to reassure the community that it is a good, long-term investment. I'm considering keeping my current bedroom gear as I have it today and fully building my HT room back out. It is really difficult for me to consider what direction I want to go. I know this was meant for Keith, but I wanted to throw my .02 in concerning the Brand. I've been a long time customer of Emotiva having discovered the company when I was searching for a reasonably priced amplifier to replace an old Acurus three channel amp I picked up used on Craigslist. I wanted to go to a five channel amp. With kids in college, I didn't have the money to spend on expensive audiophile amplifiers. I wanted something new, was that even possible? I searched and found both Outlaw and Emotiva. Doing research and running the manufacturers by a good EE friend of mine, we came to the conclusion that either company would be fine, but the Emotiva XPA-5 at about $860 shipped was just too good to pass up. Since then, I have purchased multiple Emotiva products and for the most part they have been rock solid. If I had an issue like when my ERC-1 remote control stopped working AFTER the warranty expired and was fully prepared to buy a new one, I called and they sent me one for free! The heavy metal one. Great customer service. Easy to talk to. As far as I'm concerned....great brand. This was re-affirmed by attending an Emofest in Franklin a couple of years ago. Friendly people. Great environment. Met forum members. Great giveaways (even though I didn't win). Lonnie, Big Dan, Keith, and all the others are great people to talk to and deal with and you can tell that they are dedicated to making great products and to making their customers happy. This company means alot to them. it really is a family. They have been good to me....I will be good to them and wait for that next firmware update.
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Post by ttocs on Aug 14, 2020 13:20:50 GMT -5
Observations on some combinations of bass management: 1 - If you have Center Sub=LFE and Fronts=Large, and no other Sub, Enhanced Bass is an option ... but nothing will happen. Nothing will be sent to the Center Sub because it is LFE-only. 2 - If you have Center Sub=LFE and Fronts=Large, and no other Sub, and you change your Fronts=Small ... Center Sub will automatically be changed to Mono. If you then change Fronts=Large again, Center Sub will still be Mono (you have to change it back). Good points! I also played with settings that changed what was available to the different subwoofers under various other speaker settings. Hadn't looked into the Enhanced Bass however, so that's a good catch! Enhanced Bass option should not show up when Fronts=Large.
I think it would make sense for all options to be visible in the Menu, however, the options that will not work under currently selected speaker setup should be greyed out so we all know what is possible so long as other settings are changed.
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