UMC-1 Some perspective

[Chris]

Hi,

As a new owner of a UMC-1 I wanted to offer some thoughts as I have observed them.

I have owned my UMC-1 for a week and a half and have been very pleased with its performance. The audio and video quality seem to be stellar. So far, the UMC-1 for me at least has performed perfectly. I have not had one single problem. For those of you having problems, I am entirely sympathetic, but for me at least in the way I use the product it has performed very well. I will admit that I do not use EMO EQ and only watch High Definition video sources and listen to high quality audio via a network based music system (Squeezebox). This may be why I have had an easy ride?

On the subject of Auto EQ, I wanted to pass on some tidbits of information that might put things in perspective.

I would highly encourage people to take a listen to the Home Theater Geeks podcast at:

twit.tv/htg10

In this episode, Kevin Voecks is interviewed. He is Director of Product Development High Performance Division at Harmon International. He oversees brands such as Mark Levinson and Revel speakers. The entire interview is worth listening to.

At the 1:03:18 mark (towards the very end) the host asks Kevin about Auto EQ and room correction (apparently Kevin coined this term).

Q: What do think about the auto room correction systems? Do you think they are very effective?

A: Automatic is the holy grail. Not sure Automatic will ever be as good as assisted. We have brought in most of the well known Auto EQ players and measured how they perform. We found that some made it sound worse! Our dealers say the same thing. Sometimes it's random.

I found this short exchange fascinating and I think might be food for thought when coming to terms with Emotiva's own Auto EQ system.

There is a lot in this podcast about EQ and speaker testing and I encourage you listen to it in its entirety.

Hopefully everyone will understand this post in the positive manner it is made and keep the discussion civil.

-CB

[DYohn]

Good post!

Here's a comment I made in another thread that your post reminded me of:

An analogy has sprung to mind: The UMC-1 is like a professional 35mm SLR camera. It is extremely powerful and has a ton of auto-programmed modes, but it's not a point and shoot pocket camera. You have to focus it, you have the ability to set the aperture and speed, you must be smart enough to know how it works and what it's doing, you need to adjust the presets, and you have to be patient while setting it up. It's a professional tool for taking professional photos, not an auto focus digital for vacation snapshots.

This could be said about most if not all "auto" systems, IMO.

Although the Neptune system seems to be quite good... for $4K it better be!

[SticknStones]

Feb 24, 2010 11:44:32 GMT -5 Chris said:

Hi,

As a new owner of a UMC-1 I wanted to offer some thoughts as I have observed them.

I have owned my UMC-1 for a week and a half and have been very pleased with its performance. The audio and video quality seem to be stellar. So far, the UMC-1 for me at least has performed perfectly. I have not had one single problem.

Hopefully everyone will understand this post in the positive manner it is made and keep the discussion civil.

-CB

Nice post CT. I see we are both from Maryland and I looked at the Metro DC Audio Society you had referenced. I signed up for it as it looked interesting.

[ntrain42]

Feb 24, 2010 11:44:32 GMT -5 Chris said:

Hi,

As a new owner of a UMC-1 I wanted to offer some thoughts as I have observed them.

I have owned my UMC-1 for a week and a half and have been very pleased with its performance. The audio and video quality seem to be stellar. So far, the UMC-1 for me at least has performed perfectly. I have not had one single problem. For those of you having problems, I am entirely sympathetic, but for me at least in the way I use the product it has performed very well. I will admit that I do not use EMO EQ and only watch High Definition video sources and listen to high quality audio via a network based music system (Squeezebox). This may be why I have had an easy ride?

On the subject of Auto EQ, I wanted to pass on some tidbits of information that might put things in perspective.

I would highly encourage people to take a listen to the Home Theater Geeks podcast at:

twit.tv/htg10

In this episode, Kevin Voecks is interviewed. He is Director of Product Development High Performance Division at Harmon International. He oversees brands such as Mark Levinson and Revel speakers. The entire interview is worth listening to.

At the 1:03:18 mark (towards the very end) the host asks Kevin about Auto EQ and room correction (apparently Kevin coined this term).

Q: What do think about the auto room correction systems? Do you think they are very effective?

A: Automatic is the holy grail. Not sure Automatic will ever be as good as assisted. We have brought in most of the well known Auto EQ players and measured how they perform. We found that some made it sound worse! Our dealers say the same thing. Sometimes it's random.

I found this short exchange fascinating and I think might be food for thought when coming to terms with Emotiva's own Auto EQ system.

There is a lot in this podcast about EQ and speaker testing and I encourage you listen to it in its entirety.

Hopefully everyone will understand this post in the positive manner it is made and keep the discussion civil.

-CB

Wow, someone from my old home town, I used to live on McComas Ave. right across from the Nursing/rehab facility near Wheaton Plaza(if its still even there, LOL).

[bones]

With all due respect, most of us here are aware of the limitations of auto room correction eqs. I don't think anyone will be experiencing the sudden manifestation of the essence of an auto room eq that you might be expecting,

[moodyman]

ok...some more posts that vaguely imply that UMC issues are more user related than actual HW/SW problems...

[littlesaint]

Feb 24, 2010 12:23:54 GMT -5 bones said:

With all due respect, most of us here are aware of the limitations of auto room correction eqs. I don't think anyone will be experiencing the sudden manifestation of the essence of an auto room eq that you might be expecting,

Really? There sure are a lot of posts suggesting people are expecting a holy grail and not getting it, and that it's something that needs to be fixed.

[moodyman]

Feb 24, 2010 12:29:10 GMT -5 littlesaint said:

Really? There sure are a lot of posts suggesting people are expecting a holy grail and not getting it, and that it's something that needs to be fixed.

Wrong. People just want the EMO-Q "tool" (cuz we all agree..its just that..a tool) to correctly detect the speakers they have, come up with reasonable crossovers, and properly save those settings. Nobody hear expects miracles from EMO-Q or any other room correction SW..nor should they.

[littlesaint]

I guess having some perspective on expectations was too much to ask then. Nice effort though.

[odeen]

The UMC-1 may indeed be a professional SLR when a typical mass-market receiver is a point-and-shoot. It has features that can significantly enhance (or diminish) the user's experience that a mass-market receiver does not.

Saying that auto room EQ can make things sound "worse" is a cop-out. "Better" or "worse" is a matter of opinion, and computer systems don't have opinions per se. What the UMC-1 and a mass-market receiver both have is the ability to measure volume and tone and adjust their internal processing so that the volume and tone achieved is closest to reference level.

----------------

After I got on the UMC-1 waiting list in 2008, I bought a $500 MSRP receiver, a Yamaha RX-V663. Nothing special - it was the cheapest receiver available that digitized analog video for HDMI output (so I could run 1 cable to my display) and had pre-outs for a power amp.

When I ran YPAO (Yamaha's auto-eq), the receiver detected speaker distances (to within a foot), suggested a 60hz crossover (my center and front speakers are NHT M6's and can do 62hz at -3db), figured out that I have a 5.1 setup with surround speakers but not back speakers, and even caught the fact that the woofers on one of my M6's were malfunctioning by setting either the fronts or the center as "small", depending on where I had the defective M6 set up.

Was the equalization that the Yamaha came up with perfect? Probably not. Did it make things sound better? A bit. But it got things that I could check _reasonably correct_ (i.e. speaker existence, distances, and crossover point).

When the user sees that the receiver got the "easy" things right, he is inclined to believe the more advanced settings, such as the equalization curve. If the manual says 62Hz, and the receiver sets crossover to 60 or 70hz, that's reasonable, and the user can make a reasonable assumption that everything else is set up reasonably well too.

If you have a professional-level tool that has the same automatic features as a consumer-level tool, these automatic features shouldn't fail on the professional tool, even if the professional tool has more sophisticated adjustments available.

Setting 250hz crossover points, and detecting rear speakers, but not surround sides may be the "expected" behavior given what Emo-Q does, but it undermines the user's confidence in his equipment. After all, if the processor can't figure out the size of the speakers that it's connected to, it can hardly be expected to measure room response and set the EQ properly...

This isn't meant to be a criticism of Emo-Q. I'm sure it does things that are far more sophisticated than what YPAO does on a cheapie receiver. However, if Emo-Q gets something "easy" wrong, the user is less likely to use Emo-Q to get things that are more "difficult", such as room EQ, right.

So - perspective:
Be better than a regular receiver, but at the very least, don't be worse than it.

[DYohn]

odeen, Emotiva has recognized there are errors in the way Emo-Q is working in some settings and if you read Dan Laufman's latest update, they are again revising the software and the calibration package for the supplied "puck" microphone in an attempt to correct them.

[moodyman]

Feb 24, 2010 14:42:24 GMT -5 DYohn said:

odeen, Emotiva has recognized there are errors in the way Emo-Q is working in some settings and if you read Dan Laufman's latest update, they are again revising the software and the calibration package for the supplied "puck" microphone in an attempt to correct them.

We all know that Emotiva is gonna make things right....Odeen is merely pointing out that..again...we don't expect miracles from EMO-Q...but we do expect it to get the basics right. And I'm sure it will when Emotiva is done tweaking it some more...

[darien87]

Feb 24, 2010 15:03:55 GMT -5 moodyman said:

Feb 24, 2010 14:42:24 GMT -5 DYohn said:

odeen, Emotiva has recognized there are errors in the way Emo-Q is working in some settings and if you read Dan Laufman's latest update, they are again revising the software and the calibration package for the supplied "puck" microphone in an attempt to correct them.

We all know that Emotiva is gonna make things right....Odeen is merely pointing out that..again...we don't expect miracles from EMO-Q...but we do expect it to get the basics right. And I'm sure it will when Emotiva is done tweaking it some more...

I feel EXACTLY the same way. Look, I love Emotiva too and I seriously doubt I will be sending the UMC-1 back. But as other people have said, if it can't even get the phase, distance or crossover of my speakers right, and even tells me that I have speakers that don't exist, how can I trust ANYTHING it says?

I just bought a $60 HDMI splitter from Monoprice to go around the UMC-1 cable audio dropout issue. Not a huge deal since I was kind of leery of having my UMC-1 on for the 4 or so hours a day that I just watch TV, (using the UMC-1 for this is unnecessary in my opinion). But it kinda sucks that I had to go and spend another $60 to work around my $700 pre-pro.

[moe]

I agree with the original post 100%,and always have,and also read it in the positive manner in which it's posted.For me there is no such thing as auto room correction,that is truly the holy grail.

So....I don't see the op taking a stand,just providing info.

So......great post!

[klinemj]

I agree 100% w/the original post.

On auto-EQ, I have Audyssey, and it consistently gets distances wrong, consistently get the front's phase wrong, and it's reco's make my system sound bad. I mean...bad. And, none of the post auto-EQ adjustments it does make it sound any better. Net, I do not use the allmighty Audyssey.

On the issue of finding non-existent speakers and the like, if there's an Emo-Q issue - I am sure Emotiva will find it and eliminate the issue.

On the issue of the 250 hz x-overs and the like on front, I am now convinced (based on data shared in this forum) that Emo-Q is really finding a big drop at 200-250 hz on some speakers/in some rooms. I am leaning to thinking it's the floor-bounce frequency effecgt most likely - not a UMC-1 issue...just an issue the UMC-1 is effectively showing people clearly now. That said, perhaps knowing this often appears in some setups, the Emo-Q software could either be trained to ignore it OR...people could just do the obvious...if it's found, try to make room/speaker adjustments to eliminate it or simply set the x-over's manually knowing that there's a big frequency dip in their system.

Anyway, great post to OP!

[moovtune]

Feb 24, 2010 18:36:04 GMT -5 klinemj said:

I agree 100% w/the original post.

On auto-EQ, I have Audyssey, and it consistently gets distances wrong, consistently get the front's phase wrong, and it's reco's make my system sound bad. I mean...bad. And, none of the post auto-EQ adjustments it does make it sound any better. Net, I do not use the allmighty Audyssey.

That just goes to show the variables possible in using these "tools". I also have Audyssey and it measured all speakers correctly (7.1) set the crossovers within 10 hertz correctly and measured distance to a half foot. When I decided to move my sweet spot 1/2 foot back and reran it, it showed that 1/2 foot change in the distance. Not everyone has the same experiences using the same devices. That would be alot to expect for a piece of gear that's in different size rooms, different acoustics, different speakers etc.

[klinemj]

yep...and the weird thing w/mine is that all speaker distances are fairly accurate...except the sub. It consistently says my sub is 15-25' away...truth is that it is ~11'

[loopinfool]

Feb 24, 2010 19:01:26 GMT -5 klinemj said:

yep...and the weird thing w/mine is that all speaker distances are fairly accurate...except the sub. It consistently says my sub is 15-25' away...truth is that it is ~11'

That's pretty common. The crossover circuitry in subs often adds a delay to the signal coming in.
By setting the distance farther, the pre-pro will send signals to the sub before the other speakers, thus correcting for the built-in delay.

- LoopinFool

[klinemj]

interesting...