Nasty distortion in surround mode but not neural X

[Percussionista]

I've been binge-watching The Expanse on Amazon Prime on my theater system - XMC2 is the processor, input from the Sony TV's Amazon Prime app, sound via the TV's optical out. There's often some slightly "tortured" sound design in the background presumably to indicate tension. But then, I noticed this seemed to get worse and go on and on and was not pleasant at all. I switched to the Neural X (?) surround mode and all was well. I can also switch back to regular Surround Sound and it seems fine. This problem is not always present. Does this sound like a known or past issue? I haven't run DIRAC yet, just the regular PEQ set-up. I also am still running with the initial OS version, which is probably at least 2 or 3 versions beyond the current one.

[ttocs]

On my last Movie Night! I noticed hugely compressed and squeaky sounding audio, like it was being forced through a kazoo, from Amazon Prime movie rental Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid in UHD while it was streamed from my TiVo EDGE, but the audio was great from the TV4K. I even checked a day later and the audio was still messed up via TiVo.

Both devices are fed to XMC-2 via HDMI.

edit: So the same movie via TV4K was perfect at the same time that TiVo was not.

[marcl]

I hear it about once a month when playing something Dolby 5.1 or Atmos on AppleTV4K. Usually evident in the center or surround, rarely fronts. A hard reboot fixes it. This is all with Dirac on.

[Percussionista]

So... It seems like multiple people have similar transitory problems, using entirely different sources and decoding, with different solutions. It sounds like there is a transitory problem with the source's surround encoding that starts happening and won't resynch until things are switched around. This reminds me of keyboard synth days when a patch was enabled and played but sometimes a reverb setting was messed up where the "reverb-on" is received and acted on by the synth but the "reverb-off" command is not received so previous sounding notes keep going (reverb-wise). If the problem is in the source data then it looks like there's nothing the XMC-2 et. al. can do by themselves, and we can just turn things on/off or switch modes to fix it.

[ttocs]

Aug 25, 2021 13:58:07 GMT -5 Percussionista said:

So... It seems like multiple people have similar transitory problems, using entirely different sources and decoding, with different solutions. It sounds like there is a transitory problem with the source's surround encoding that starts happening and won't resynch until things are switched around.

In my case, it seems it was the delivery system - TiVo -that was not being a team player. I didn't try any additional sources other than the TV4K, but probably should have just for fun. I always play a little bit of a movie prior to folks showing up so I know what to expect, and that weird audio kinda got me scrambling for alternatives. The dialogue in the Center channel is what sounded awful.

[AudioHTIT]

I too get it on occasion (I like ‘tortured’), a mode change and back fixes it.

[calle]

I got the same issue, sometimes.. switching to neural x then it sounds OK.
Dirac is not configured.
Sometimes the sound just hangs and I need to restart xmc-2..
On 2.3 firmware.
Hdmi startup is also slower and sometimes picture flashes a pop before picking up the signal.

Have been thinking of contacting emotive support but since it seems to be more owners with same issue let's hope it is identified and will be fixed in 2.4..

[Priapulus]

I also sometimes have distortion in Surround; sort of like snares from a snare drum softly buzzing in the background. All I have to do is to change something (eg, from auto to stereo, the back to auto) and the distortion is gone. (Auto reverts back to Surround.) Any source, newest firmware, using Dirac.
/b

[jamieattfield]

I’m having a similar issue but haven’t been able to resolve it. Center channel audio is distorted in surround modes but not in all channel stereo. Tried factory reset, full power down, input switching, different sources. The speaker is working fine and in fact I bought a new center thinking it was the speaker and it worked fine for a week, then the same issue with the brand new one. Have tried reloading Dirac, using preset 1.2.3. Even the speaker test tone is distorted. Sounds like it may need to go back to Emo, but any suggestions greatly appreciated.