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Post by PaulBe on Jun 18, 2020 7:50:02 GMT -5
I've got to make what amounts to an editorial comment here...
I've been listening to "upmixers" since the 1970's - when I got my first "SQ-4 four channel receiver". If you play a recording that was SQ-4 encoded through an SQ-4 decoder then it acts as a decoder (although not a very accurate one). If you play a two channel recording through an SQ-4 decoder it acts as an "upmixer" (which is another name for "channel synthesizer").
Dolby Digital, and DTS, and later Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X, are true decoders. Specific content is encoded by the encoder and, when you decode it, you get back those original channels. In contrast... "upmixers" are just faking it. They look at the incoming signal in certain ways, analyze certain details, then guess what content should go where.
Dolby PLIIx was sort of like SQ-4. You could encode content with the idea that, by encoding it a certain way, you could encourage the decoder to decode it a certain way. It wasn't exact for the same reason - because things like phase shifts in the original content could cause the results to vary from what you planned.
We then progressed to encoders like Dolby Digital and DTS - which actually save each channel separately - and retrieve it exactly. And then to encoders like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X - which store the locations of individual objects - and recreate the original when they decode it.
Both the current Dolby Surround Upmixer, and the DTS:X Neural-X Upmixer, do essentially the same thing as SQ-4 and PLIIx. They analyze the signal very carefully and, based on what they figure out, they make a guess about where various sounds should be directed. The new ones are much smarter, and so do a better job of faking it, in ways that are more often pleasing to more people....
However, and here is the point I was getting to, they are still faking it.
Because of this simple fact any discussion of which is more accurate constitutes a sort of surrealism... The only question is of which one sounds better, to you, on your system, with the particular content you happen to be listening to...
Personally, I would rather listen to Dolby Atmos movies in Dolby Atmos, and stereo movies in stereo... (And I still prefer The Maltese Falcon in original black and white...)
I know plenty of people who find the results of various upmixers to be quite pleasant... However, personally, I agree that they all sound "unnatural"... Thank's Keith for demonstrating that you read these posts at least. That is very clear about differences between decoders and upmixers roles. I think the consensus response from us will be that we do appreciate that the upmixers are extrapolating known (the specific channel encoding of audio and objects) to unknown and "guessing / calculating / faking" which of the user's channel(s) it will mix audio signals into, using a variety of algorithms. Our issue is that many of us do not believe that DTS Neural:X is being fed information it can reliably understand and interpret about WHICH speakers a user has, based on what is set in the speaker configuration. We believe this is causing odd results depending on which speakers are specified as being present. I have confirmed that the effect we are describing does not occur in 7.1.4 setups on a Marantz 8805 so the Marantz is doing something better, and doing it reliably. The XMC-2 and RMC-1 are not necessarily doing it as expected for all speaker configurations with height vs top vs Dolby vs no upper speakers. DTS's big "sell point" for DTS;X and Neural:X is that it does not matter where the user's speakers are. The decoder/upmixer will adapt. However, this relies on the DTS decoder and upmixers getting information relayed to them by the hardware (Emotiva's programming and the user's interface) about a users speakers in a way that it can interpret and understand and adapt to. I prefer Dolby's prescriptive speaker placement recommendation approach, but Emotiva and HT users have to work with DTS. We. as users. require that the DTS Neural:X is fed information it can appropriately use to give us the up-mix that the DTS upmixer "thinks" it is giving us. This does not seem to be the case. Neural:X can sound fantastic on other systems (As good as Dolby and in some situations, better, as it doesn't elevate as much "general" audio to the heights as Dolby but gives more dramatic height specific audio and leaves most of the sound at the normal 7.x and 5.x speakers) but on the Emotiva's it is not reliably doing what it should be doing for all users despite doing nothing different than for the people who don't get problems. A prescriptive approach only works over time when you don't change the approach. Upmixing may collapse under the weight of immersion speaker layout marketing schizophrenia.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Jun 18, 2020 8:38:20 GMT -5
Despite my prompting, only 1 other vote now shows up...and that's OK. But, given the responses and results, I have to conclude that if only 12 people are having enough passion to vote that they have the issue, that one or more of the following are true: 1) A pretty rare problem 2) A problem exists, but people just don't think the issue is severe enough to be a problem for them (and some have said they hear a volume drop but not enough that they have an issue with it) 3) Some don't use upmixing so it doesn't affect them (I'm not an upmixing fan myself, actually). 4) There are a lot of people who have the products, have the issue, and are not reading the forum so are not responding to the poll or talking about it here.
And, with no additional data, if there is an issue - it seems to be related to enabling heights.
Glad you did the poll...and I hope nobody minded me trying to prompt more votes/responses. I like data...
Mark
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Post by ttocs on Jun 18, 2020 8:50:55 GMT -5
^^^^^^ 2, 3 & 4.
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Post by megash0n on Jun 18, 2020 12:10:59 GMT -5
Despite my prompting, only 1 other vote now shows up...and that's OK. But, given the responses and results, I have to conclude that if only 12 people are having enough passion to vote that they have the issue, that one or more of the following are true: 1) A pretty rare problem 2) A problem exists, but people just don't think the issue is severe enough to be a problem for them (and some have said they hear a volume drop but not enough that they have an issue with it) 3) Some don't use upmixing so it doesn't affect them (I'm not an upmixing fan myself, actually). 4) There are a lot of people who have the products, have the issue, and are not reading the forum so are not responding to the poll or talking about it here. And, with no additional data, if there is an issue - it seems to be related to enabling heights. Glad you did the poll...and I hope nobody minded me trying to prompt more votes/responses. I like data... Mark Didn't mind at all. Appreciate the help.
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Post by markc on Jun 19, 2020 4:44:24 GMT -5
I too have listened to surround formats since the 70's. I was never an early adopter of these technologies. The best I heard in the early days of multi-channel sound was 4 ch. 8 tracks. Channels were discrete. It wasn't till about 15 years ago when I made my first multi-channel purchase - an HK AV receiver. Tried it's upmixing capabilities and didn't care for them, even when the sound was pleasant. The current crop of upmixers is an evolution. It is my opinion - based on what I read at this thread, the predominant problem here with upmixers is unrealistic expectations, encouraged by over enthusiastic marketing from both Dolby and DTS. Dolby being the marketing champs. The real argument about upmixers, and formats, is between Dolby and open sourced DTS, and is about politics, power, and money. Sound is a secondary consideration. DTS is the underdog. DTS is the peoples's format. DTS has the overall edge in sound quality and versatility. Follow the money. PaulBe, unfortunately you seem to read and observe other peoples posts but not reflect or understand. We accept your preferences and get that you have nothing to contribute to this thread, so there was no need to. This thread never had any place for a debate about the merit of up-mixers or personal preferences thereof. To make it worse you then impose your own tunnel vision into interpreting other peoples opinions and then ascribing your own thoughts on what our opinions are, coloured by your own preferences and prejudices against up-mixers. Our opinions are our opinions as stated and they are not open to being modulated by your thoughts on what our expectations may be with your disregard of other peoples view on wanting to utilise the standard integrated up-mixers. Contrary to your biased conclusion based on the fact that you prefer to listen without up-mixers / de-matrixers, the predominant problem expressed here is not of a failure of expectations of what an up-mixer can do but that, and this is important, the current Surround Sound Processors from Emotiva are not reliably implementing a fairly standard and established, licensed piece of software in the way in which it is intended and in which other manufacturers seem to have achieved. The variable results between other users here supports that in simple, standard recognised arrays of home theatre setups. this equipment doesn't reliably do what it should in enabling dts Neural:X. For my own part, I have a 7.1 system. Up-mixing 5.1 to 7.1 is very standard and should be easily achieved by manipulating correlated audio in the two side surrounds and moving that to the rear surrounds as a logical step towards filling in the gap in sound emanation. That's all. No volume change. No front channel manipulation. Should be simple. It even barely counts as up-mixing because by placing identical discrete audio signals into both left and right side surrounds of 5.1 but not in the front, the studio mixing technicians are automatically implying rear surround directionality. The brain knows that identical sound from both ears is unlikely to be two identically placed left and right sources and in the absence of front channel cues, will automatically and inherently perceive it as coming from the rear. This is an innate instinctive irrefutable process that aids both hunter and prey. 5.1 to 7.1 de-matrixing (better term than up-mixing) takes this a step further and actually extracts the correlated audio that is identical in both L & R surround but not appearing in the fronts and makes this audio actually emanate FROM the rear surrounds for even greater directional cues. This is as intended by the studio mixer and therefore Purist. This argument is the same with Dolby Stereo (In use since 1976, so a feature of a good many stereo soundtracks, even if not labelled.). It contains four channel audio and has matrixed sound built into it as intended by the mixing technician to be processed and sent to a centre and ambient surround speakers. By NOT using an upmixer due to your Purist prejudice, you are NOT hearing these soundtracks as intended. There is fudged surround audio embedded within the Dolby Stereo which sounds OK, listened to in stereo, but sounds as the mixer intended when expanded with the relevant upmixer, which is therefore the more Purist. My problem is that my XMC-2 wont do this simple up-mix of 5.1 to 7.1 without applying other audio effects, no matter what configurations I set in any of the menu items! Matrixed rear surround sound has been a part of DTS since 2000! Since this time, every other enabled surround sound processor from every manufacturer, including the XMC-1, using every other relevant upmixer from either Dolby or DTS has reliably managed this task, except in the Emotiva XMC-2 and RMC-1 with dts Neural:X Failure of expectation? Yes, I expect dts Neural:X to work as it should (and as it does in other processors) in all selectable speaker configurations! Incidentally, your irrelevant to this thread views on DTS having the defacto edge in sound quality and versatility over Dolby are tremendously outdated and are merely an echo harking back to the DVD era (some of us might remember those too!) at the end of the 90's!!! Way back then, DTS, with it's 755 or 1509kpbs vs Dolby's 384, 448 or possibly 640kbps probably had a quality edge in some circumstances. Since 2006, this debate is no longer relevant for user contemplation as both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA were established as part of the Blu-ray specification and are lossless. Broadcast and streamed sources do not offer any choices between DTS or Dolby in the stereo or multichannel options. The DTS vs Dolby debate is now about up-mixers and studio mixing of positional audio, not quality (Atmos/DTS:X). This debate is about the implementation of one of these up-mixers in our processors. For now we just have to wait and see what the next revision of the firmware holds with regards to this. I can see from the leaked beta Dirac enabled firmware that a user's speaker placement communication to the DTS software and the implementation of Neural:X is unlikely to be fixed in the upcoming formal Dirac enabling firmware release. I appreciate that Dirac is the priority, so at least until the following firmware release I will have to continue to keep any and all DTS away from my Emotiva by every means possible and continue to only use the Dolby Surround Upmixer for everything.
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Post by hsamwel on Jun 19, 2020 12:38:23 GMT -5
I've got to make what amounts to an editorial comment here...
I've been listening to "upmixers" since the 1970's - when I got my first "SQ-4 four channel receiver". If you play a recording that was SQ-4 encoded through an SQ-4 decoder then it acts as a decoder (although not a very accurate one). If you play a two channel recording through an SQ-4 decoder it acts as an "upmixer" (which is another name for "channel synthesizer").
Dolby Digital, and DTS, and later Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X, are true decoders. Specific content is encoded by the encoder and, when you decode it, you get back those original channels. In contrast... "upmixers" are just faking it. They look at the incoming signal in certain ways, analyze certain details, then guess what content should go where.
Dolby PLIIx was sort of like SQ-4. You could encode content with the idea that, by encoding it a certain way, you could encourage the decoder to decode it a certain way. It wasn't exact for the same reason - because things like phase shifts in the original content could cause the results to vary from what you planned.
We then progressed to encoders like Dolby Digital and DTS - which actually save each channel separately - and retrieve it exactly. And then to encoders like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X - which store the locations of individual objects - and recreate the original when they decode it.
Both the current Dolby Surround Upmixer, and the DTS:X Neural-X Upmixer, do essentially the same thing as SQ-4 and PLIIx. They analyze the signal very carefully and, based on what they figure out, they make a guess about where various sounds should be directed. The new ones are much smarter, and so do a better job of faking it, in ways that are more often pleasing to more people....
However, and here is the point I was getting to, they are still faking it.
Because of this simple fact any discussion of which is more accurate constitutes a sort of surrealism... The only question is of which one sounds better, to you, on your system, with the particular content you happen to be listening to...
Personally, I would rather listen to Dolby Atmos movies in Dolby Atmos, and stereo movies in stereo... (And I still prefer The Maltese Falcon in original black and white...)
I know plenty of people who find the results of various upmixers to be quite pleasant... However, personally, I agree that they all sound "unnatural"...
Thanks for your editorial. I tried to state some of what you said in an earlier and first post at this thread: I too have listened to surround formats since the 70's. I was never an early adopter of these technologies. The best I heard in the early days of multi-channel sound was 4 ch. 8 tracks. Channels were discrete. It wasn't till about 15 years ago when I made my first multi-channel purchase - an HK AV receiver. Tried it's upmixing capabilities and didn't care for them, even when the sound was pleasant. The current crop of upmixers is an evolution. It is my opinion - based on what I read at this thread, the predominant problem here with upmixers is unrealistic expectations, encouraged by over enthusiastic marketing from both Dolby and DTS. Dolby being the marketing champs. The real argument about upmixers, and formats, is between Dolby and open sourced DTS, and is about politics, power, and money. Sound is a secondary consideration. DTS is the underdog. DTS is the peoples's format. DTS has the overall edge in sound quality and versatility. Follow the money. Excuse me but I think you and Keith misunderstand. Most do not have unrealistic expectations.. If Neural:X works as expected on other platforms and not on Emotiva should we not report this? Stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine? On my settings with 7.2.4 with top front and rear Neural:X upmixes correctly with the same volume and clarity as with Surround (Straight) mode. Unless I play 96khz tracks, then it only upmixes to surround back and simply ignore height/top speakers for some reason. If I change speaker settings to heights instead of tops the volume lowers instantly. Same if I remove all height speakers for a 7.2 setup. And it’s not only a volume drop, you feel the sound is not as clear as it was before. Even if I raise the volume. This clearly is a fault. It shouldn’t depend on a specific speaker setup, and certainly not drop in volume and clarity like it does. Again if not clear enough, my current settings (7.2.4) produces good Neural:X upmix. Also it’s fine that you feel you can’t contribute. I hope you understand that not all feel the same as you on the subject? Peace!
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Post by hsamwel on Jun 19, 2020 12:59:26 GMT -5
Despite my prompting, only 1 other vote now shows up...and that's OK. But, given the responses and results, I have to conclude that if only 12 people are having enough passion to vote that they have the issue, that one or more of the following are true: 1) A pretty rare problem 2) A problem exists, but people just don't think the issue is severe enough to be a problem for them (and some have said they hear a volume drop but not enough that they have an issue with it) 3) Some don't use upmixing so it doesn't affect them (I'm not an upmixing fan myself, actually). 4) There are a lot of people who have the products, have the issue, and are not reading the forum so are not responding to the poll or talking about it here. And, with no additional data, if there is an issue - it seems to be related to enabling heights. Glad you did the poll...and I hope nobody minded me trying to prompt more votes/responses. I like data... Mark I also think some actually not hear the difference. Depending on source it can be difficult to detect. On other sources it’s amazingly easy. Enabling heights or a 7.x setup produces the same effect on my RMC-1. But I do have perfecr results from 7.2.4 with tops. In the worst case scenario RMC-1/XMC-2 have some obscure bug that only appears on some users machines. Making some not hear any faults simply because there aren’t any for them.
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Post by hsamwel on Jun 19, 2020 13:11:51 GMT -5
I've got to make what amounts to an editorial comment here...
I've been listening to "upmixers" since the 1970's - when I got my first "SQ-4 four channel receiver". If you play a recording that was SQ-4 encoded through an SQ-4 decoder then it acts as a decoder (although not a very accurate one). If you play a two channel recording through an SQ-4 decoder it acts as an "upmixer" (which is another name for "channel synthesizer").
Dolby Digital, and DTS, and later Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X, are true decoders. Specific content is encoded by the encoder and, when you decode it, you get back those original channels. In contrast... "upmixers" are just faking it. They look at the incoming signal in certain ways, analyze certain details, then guess what content should go where.
Dolby PLIIx was sort of like SQ-4. You could encode content with the idea that, by encoding it a certain way, you could encourage the decoder to decode it a certain way. It wasn't exact for the same reason - because things like phase shifts in the original content could cause the results to vary from what you planned.
We then progressed to encoders like Dolby Digital and DTS - which actually save each channel separately - and retrieve it exactly. And then to encoders like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X - which store the locations of individual objects - and recreate the original when they decode it.
Both the current Dolby Surround Upmixer, and the DTS:X Neural-X Upmixer, do essentially the same thing as SQ-4 and PLIIx. They analyze the signal very carefully and, based on what they figure out, they make a guess about where various sounds should be directed. The new ones are much smarter, and so do a better job of faking it, in ways that are more often pleasing to more people....
However, and here is the point I was getting to, they are still faking it.
Because of this simple fact any discussion of which is more accurate constitutes a sort of surrealism... The only question is of which one sounds better, to you, on your system, with the particular content you happen to be listening to...
Personally, I would rather listen to Dolby Atmos movies in Dolby Atmos, and stereo movies in stereo... (And I still prefer The Maltese Falcon in original black and white...)
I know plenty of people who find the results of various upmixers to be quite pleasant... However, personally, I agree that they all sound "unnatural"...
I made my report. I said I don’t like either upmixers. They both have problems, and sound unnatural to me. I have no other reference to show me if they are doing what they are supposed to do or not. Don’t presume to know what I want to contribute. I have no interest in what you are investigating here. Since there are only 21 votes so far, 12 who have problems, among 10,000 owners, (so I read), I’d say there aren’t many other owners who have an interest in what you are investigating here. Carry on. Thanks for your input. But better still if you could comment on issue at hand. I also do prefer listening to 2ch and surround sound in their native modes. But this is not a thread about preference. It’s about a bug and bad performance.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Jun 19, 2020 13:42:32 GMT -5
In the worst case scenario RMC-1/XMC-2 have some obscure bug that only appears on some users machines. Making some not hear any faults simply because there aren’t any for them. I think I posted this elsewhere before, but if it were some obscure "bug" on only some machines: 1) I can't imagine it being software (FW). If it were, re-flashing the FW would solve that. 2) It's really a stretch for me to believe it would be some limited hardware bug. But...if it were, those affected could return their gear for a replacement. If that solved the issue (with identical settings), then we'd know that was it. I also add that the other option is that is could be specifics in setup OR the sources we've not yet isolated. For setup, if we could find 2 people who had identical speaker layouts, and 1 had issues and the other did not, they could save their setups on USB drives and send them to each other.., then each could load the others' setup and try it out. If it's setup issues, then the person with no issues should start having them and the person with issues should see them resolved. As for sources, I know there's been a lot of "I hear it on this specific section of this specific disk" and others say they don't hear it. And, there's been speculation that it's ripping vs. disk. That could be harder to isolate/track short of sending disk players and disks between users or sharing rips that work vs. don't. In any case...it seems rare. Mark
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Post by megash0n on Jun 19, 2020 14:59:12 GMT -5
Despite my prompting, only 1 other vote now shows up...and that's OK. But, given the responses and results, I have to conclude that if only 12 people are having enough passion to vote that they have the issue, that one or more of the following are true: 1) A pretty rare problem 2) A problem exists, but people just don't think the issue is severe enough to be a problem for them (and some have said they hear a volume drop but not enough that they have an issue with it) 3) Some don't use upmixing so it doesn't affect them (I'm not an upmixing fan myself, actually). 4) There are a lot of people who have the products, have the issue, and are not reading the forum so are not responding to the poll or talking about it here. And, with no additional data, if there is an issue - it seems to be related to enabling heights. Glad you did the poll...and I hope nobody minded me trying to prompt more votes/responses. I like data... Mark I also think some actually not hear the difference. Depending on source it can be difficult to detect. On other sources it’s amazingly easy. Enabling heights or a 7.x setup produces the same effect on my RMC-1. But I do have perfecr results from 7.2.4 with tops. In the worst case scenario RMC-1/XMC-2 have some obscure bug that only appears on some users machines. Making some not hear any faults simply because there aren’t any for them. There's another logical conclusion.... They just didn't bother to compare trusting that it is working as it should. I've noticed a large group of people on this forum like to set things up and not worry about it any longer. There are probably many people that don't even realize this issue because they aren't paying attention. Which, is fine. Just don't tell us the issue isn't there or that it isn't important.
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Post by megash0n on Jun 19, 2020 15:07:51 GMT -5
In the worst case scenario RMC-1/XMC-2 have some obscure bug that only appears on some users machines. Making some not hear any faults simply because there aren’t any for them. I think I posted this elsewhere before, but if it were some obscure "bug" on only some machines: 1) I can't imagine it being software (FW). If it were, re-flashing the FW would solve that. 2) It's really a stretch for me to believe it would be some limited hardware bug. But...if it were, those affected could return their gear for a replacement. If that solved the issue (with identical settings), then we'd know that was it. I also add that the other option is that is could be specifics in setup OR the sources we've not yet isolated. For setup, if we could find 2 people who had identical speaker layouts, and 1 had issues and the other did not, they could save their setups on USB drives and send them to each other.., then each could load the others' setup and try it out. If it's setup issues, then the person with no issues should start having them and the person with issues should see them resolved. As for sources, I know there's been a lot of "I hear it on this specific section of this specific disk" and others say they don't hear it. And, there's been speculation that it's ripping vs. disk. That could be harder to isolate/track short of sending disk players and disks between users or sharing rips that work vs. don't. In any case...it seems rare. Mark It seems rare based on the poll feedback for sure. I can produce the same result with a ripped Bluray via HTPC using multiple players bit streaming as I do putting the physical disk into an Xbox One X and a different input. I don't need a specific scene, although quiet uneventful dialogue isn't going to be obvious. Anything with presence or action.... It is night and day different with anything but Tops enabled. I do agree with your 1 and 2 unless the hardware is sourced from different places at the time a batch is produced. I spent months listening to DTS Neural and being unhappy with it until I finally tested Surround. It immediately became obvious there was an issue. I'd venture to guess that most anyone with heights that aren't Tops just don't realize they have this issue because they didn't know to compare. I think this will get attention after Dirac is released.
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Post by BigE on Jun 20, 2020 4:24:57 GMT -5
This is not a scientific test; no DB meters and thus somewhat subjective. Wife and I watched the Eagles Farewell DVD disc 1 in "DTS 5.1". Great concert, but not so much when channels are missing. Wife didn't notice this, but I did. After she went to bed, I experimented with disc 2 - yielding disappointing results. I ran the XMC2 thru its paces with the Xbox 1S configured as 7.1 uncompressed, 5.1 uncompressed, Bitstream DTS, and Bitstream Dolby Atmos. Xbox1S is normally set to Atmos as default.
With XBOX set to 7.1 uncompressed, I did notice the high end was missing under DTS Neural - almost like the muddiness others have described. There's no doubt that Neural is significantly lower (10+ dB)and changing between Presets 1 set to small front height and small rear height vs Preset 2 as small top front and small top rear made little difference. I haven't touched the EQ settings/filters at all. Having two subs, necessitates utilizing all 6 matched overhead speakers configured as Front/Rear heights + Rears - rather than front/middle/rear. I do have EMO Surrounds. NO WIDES. After 90+ minutes of testing and note taking, this went South pretty quickly. - Surrounds NEVER worked at all in DD, Surround, Neural - Only in ALL STEREO. - Neural and Surround modes worked mostly similarly: LR ONLY; no surround, no heights or rears, and no center. It didn't matter which way XBOX 1S was configured. Thinking I didn't hear my 6 overhead speakers over the JBL 4312s, I flipped off the amp powering the LCRs. Only sub bass. -In XMC2 Dolby Digital mode all channels played, except center and surrounds - plus at a higher dB. Obviously when Xbox 1S was set to DTS output, DD wasn't an option. The thing about no surrounds was off-putting. With the amp LCR off, I put the XMC2 in standby and then flipped off the power switch in the back. Low & behold the surrounds came to life. I flipped the power for the LCR back on and no sound. I rebooted the XMC2 again and now I had lots of sound: LCR, Surrounds, ...]. Glancing at XMC2's display, I saw it had changed to PCM2. As I scrolled through the choices, I again lost the surrounds and I'm not sure what else.
I like tinkering, but that's not WHY I purchased an expensive processor. Firmware patches are for adding features, security patches, and minor bugs [ie slow interface]. This is now beginning to feel like swapping out drivers on a new Windows PC to get a piece of hardware to work properly - be it an external scanner or the sound chip on the motherboard. The Emo seemed like a good middle ground between my other two choices Marantz 7705 [lacking features] or 8805 [over budget]. Clearly lots of folks are voicing issues with Neural, but I'm not certain DD isn't buggy as well. This needs to be fixed and I'm hoping it doesn't come back as some compatibility issue with XBOX. I like the Xbox; it' simple; it works. I say "Alexa, off to the movies" and the dot brings Xbox out of standby - powering up the projector and XMC2 - which in turn powers up the XPA11 Gen3. Alexa "volume up 20". Alexa "xbox off". Simple. I gave up a feature rich pre/pro because I wanted to maintain that simplicity and get a high quality home theater pre/pro that I could also use to spin vinyl on occasion. Looks like I'll have to move around a stand-alone Sony blu ray player - removing the XBOX from the equation - after my wife has finished watching the rest of Outlander.
It strikes me as odd that these issues would come up with such a main stream device as an XBOX 1S; In other words, I'm eliminating something from the equation I feel should be a non-issue nowadays. I'd imagine mainstream compatibility should include: Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, PS5, XBOX, Roku, Blu Ray players, perhaps even Mac/PC. Other manufacturers are including extras such as bluetooth, phono inputs, built-in wifi, app streaming, Alexa, Google Assistant. I'm simply trying to get my Xbox1S to work properly with a pre-pro playing up to 7.2.4 channels; DIRAC would also be nice. Out of the box w/o firmware upgrades, Audyssey MultEQ XT configured my THX Onkyo TX-SR875 7.1 channels, but lacked 3D pass thru, the additional channels and ATMOS.
I've waited patiently for 7+ months, enjoying my $5.5K of EMO gear along the way; however, I'm left wondering when my dream Atmos system w/DIRAC will be ready.
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Post by ttocs on Jun 20, 2020 7:28:20 GMT -5
BigE please send Emotiva an email noting your findings.
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Post by JKCashin on Jun 20, 2020 15:38:46 GMT -5
Interesting.. when I switch my XMC-1 (yes, I know, different model) to DTS-ES Matrix it is a little quieter...
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Post by hsamwel on Jun 20, 2020 17:21:20 GMT -5
In the worst case scenario RMC-1/XMC-2 have some obscure bug that only appears on some users machines. Making some not hear any faults simply because there aren’t any for them. I think I posted this elsewhere before, but if it were some obscure "bug" on only some machines: 1) I can't imagine it being software (FW). If it were, re-flashing the FW would solve that. 2) It's really a stretch for me to believe it would be some limited hardware bug. But...if it were, those affected could return their gear for a replacement. If that solved the issue (with identical settings), then we'd know that was it. I also add that the other option is that is could be specifics in setup OR the sources we've not yet isolated. For setup, if we could find 2 people who had identical speaker layouts, and 1 had issues and the other did not, they could save their setups on USB drives and send them to each other.., then each could load the others' setup and try it out. If it's setup issues, then the person with no issues should start having them and the person with issues should see them resolved. As for sources, I know there's been a lot of "I hear it on this specific section of this specific disk" and others say they don't hear it. And, there's been speculation that it's ripping vs. disk. That could be harder to isolate/track short of sending disk players and disks between users or sharing rips that work vs. don't. In any case...it seems rare. Mark Although I’m still not convinced that those ”not having an issue” actually don’t have.. I’m more believing the Megash0n line of some just don’t care enough to hear the differences. I have done a complete factory reset and reloaded my settings. All my testing has been with blu-ray or 4k with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks. This have all been with HDMI input with bitstream until now. It’s not that I don’t hear the issue on some scenes, but rather that it’s easier to detect on some scenes. But low quality sound can make it harder to detect, like the movie The Others. Switching between Surround and Neural:X should have zero difference in a normal scene without heavy action. If the volume changes, even so slightly there’s something wrong. Batman Begins and Dark Knight movies are good dynamic movies to try. Eric Clapton Slowhand At 70 is great to test with. This is also a 96khz track which don’t upmix to heights/top speakers at all. Just tested blu-ray 1917 DTS-HD MA 5.1 with my SPL meter.. Maybe I will have to retract some of my previous comments. Seems I have the same lower volume on both Surround and Neural:X with tops. Also got no sound from the tops when sending decoded DTS with tops. Still a pretty much 6dB lower sound when Neural:X is used. Chapter 2, the first part walk, about 25 seconds. dBC, slow, Lo with Max volume on. Volume set to -25 on RMC-1 7.2.4 with tops: Bitstream + Surround : 79-80 dB, lower than PCM and compared to heights Bitstream + Neural:X: 79-80 dB, sound from all speakers. PCM 5.1 + Surround: 85-86 dB, much higher volume PCM 5.1 + Neural:X: 79-80 dB, NO sound from the tops, sound from surround back (tried several times) 7.2.4 with heights: Bitstream + Surround: 85-86 dB Bitstream + Neural:X: 79-80 dB, sound from all speakers PCM 5.1 + Surround: 85-86 dB PCM 5.1 + Neural:X: 79-80 dB, sound from all speakers 7.2: Bitstream + Surround: 85-86 dB Bitstream + Neural:X: 79-80 dB, sound from surround back PCM 5.1 + Surround: 85-86 dB PCM 5,1 + Neural:X: 79-80 dB,sound from surround back Now switched back to tops. Tried the scene again.. ONLY sound from side surrounds and bass??? This in Surround mode with PCM output. Changing to Neural:X and I get sound back. Tried Surround again and it plays fine.. These kind of things makes you distrust the RMC and what it outputs. Still the same lower sound from Surround compared to Neural:X with bitstream. Still NO sound from tops with Neural:X on PCM input.
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Post by ttocs on Jun 20, 2020 17:47:23 GMT -5
Interesting.. when I switch my XMC-1 (yes, I know, different model) to DTS-ES Matrix it is a little quieter... This is relevant, old vs new - but more of the same lower volume. Interesting.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Jun 20, 2020 21:17:53 GMT -5
Although I’m still not convinced that those ”not having an issue” actually don’t have.. I’m more believing the Megash0n line of some just don’t care enough to hear the differences. Believe what you want, but...14 people say they have one of the polled issues. While it's clearly an important issue for you and a few others, it's just not common given the # of units likely out there. If it were, there would be a lot more than 14 people saying "yes". You know...like the "please wait" issues and switching issues, etc...lots of people clearly had those. It got resolved by Emotiva. At this point, if I were Emotiva - this issue would be a very low priority. But, I'm not Emotiva. My suggestion of things to try remains. I don't see anyone jumping to try those things. Mark
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Post by megash0n on Jun 21, 2020 4:33:25 GMT -5
Although I’m still not convinced that those ”not having an issue” actually don’t have.. I’m more believing the Megash0n line of some just don’t care enough to hear the differences. Believe what you want, but...14 people say they have one of the polled issues. While it's clearly an important issue for you and a few others, it's just not common given the # of units likely out there. If it were, there would be a lot more than 14 people saying "yes". You know...like the "please wait" issues and switching issues, etc...lots of people clearly had those. It got resolved by Emotiva. At this point, if I were Emotiva - this issue would be a very low priority. But, I'm not Emotiva. My suggestion of things to try remains. I don't see anyone jumping to try those things. Mark I thought we already decided it wasn't a setup issue through all our testing. But sure, who has a 5.1.4 setup, with NO DTS issues, that would like to zip up the USB contents and email them to me? We'll assume that my TV and source won't matter for this test. I don't know that there is anything wrong by using Tops. It would take isolating each speaker and to compare that to what the speaker should be getting in order to determine if that is correct. Maybe we just have a bad batch of processors with faulty hardware. Or, maybe only 100 people view this site enough to even see this thread. If so, given that half probably won't even realize the issue for a number of reasons, I'd say at that point... It isn't rare. As you say, you like data. What is our actual sample size here? One thing is for sure, some of us are having real issues that create ongoing doubt in every aspect of this system.
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Post by markc on Jun 21, 2020 5:10:35 GMT -5
At this point, if I were Emotiva - this issue would be a very low priority. But, I'm not Emotiva. If I were Emotiva and I knew that, with my supposedly flagship processors which tout themselves based on audio quality, it was absolutely true and 100% confirmed that simple expansion of 5.1 to 7.1 DTS sources (let alone the problems when trying to use ceiling speakers!) could not be reliably achieved without affecting the front and centre channels then I would make it a top priority. I wouldn't want people defecting to the Marantz 8805 which effortlessly achieves this simple feat, as have all Processors from all manufactures since the year 2000!
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Post by jonstatt on Jun 21, 2020 5:31:29 GMT -5
One point and one question
My theory. When the output is quieter this is a fail where the 6dB drop is the missing sound that should be coming out other speakers. Either it is being sent to non existent speakers or thrown away. This will give the muddy sound on certain scenes because quite simply audio energy is completely missing!! The fact that Neural X is not always quieter is evidence of this.
Second, where do Atmos speakers fit into this poll or discussion?
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