Ntrain42's UMC-1 first impressions and review...

[ntrain42]

Got my UMC-1 in yesterday, I am in the process of hooking it up right now and will be giving first impressions, along with some head to head tests with an Onkyo 886 pre/pro and a pair of Onkyo AVRs(805 and 906).

Stay tuned.............

[elwicksto]

can't wait! i'm sure it will be entertaining one way or another...

[RadTech]

Let the fun begin!

PS: Sell me your 886 and, you can have 80% of the dunking booth profit. ;D

[ntrain42]

Mar 3, 2010 17:48:46 GMT -5 RadTech said:

Let the fun begin!

PS: Sell me your 886 and, you can have 80% of the dunking booth profit. ;D

The 886 drives my main HT setup, don't think Im going to sell it till the XMC comes out, and even then its a question mark, will be seeing how the UMC itself performs.........

[tempsteel]

Mar 3, 2010 19:05:17 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Mar 3, 2010 17:48:46 GMT -5 RadTech said:

Let the fun begin!

PS: Sell me your 886 and, you can have 80% of the dunking booth profit. ;D

The 886 drives my main HT setup, don't think Im going to sell it till the XMC comes out, and even then its a question mark, will be seeing how the UMC itself performs.........

Hey...get back to work.

[ntrain42]

OK, expect a long drawn out review..........Im going to try and hit every combo imaginable with this unit.

So here is the first portion:

CROSSTALK..........there is a significant amount going on. Im not sure if its the UMC-1 itself directly, or the UPA-7(Which had very low amounts when driven by my Adcom GCD-700 directly), or a combination of both. Im going to update my UPA-7 review to potentially reflect this. But anyway, for example, when I run the zone 2 output(my weight lifting room)with the cd player, the other 5 channels in my bedroom have significantly audible musci running through all the other 5 channels. Same vice versa when I run music through my bedroom HT, I hear significant music coming out of the speakers in the weight room and the other 3 channels in the bedroom........the Onkyo AVR's are 100% superior in the fact they have no audible crosstalk through any of the channels when using powered zone 2/the main channels and or a combination of the 2......."white noise" though is very low on the UMC-1 and its analog inputs are better in this respect.


I'll be doing more in depth look on the crosstalk and see if I can isolate it to the amp and/or the UMC processor.........more to come later tonight........

[bigred7078]

Interesting....i did not have any issues with crosstalk on the umc-1. This is the first time I have read of someone having that issue with the UMC-1. Perhaps its fautly?

[ntrain42]

Could very well be the amp...........but its there, no matter the volume level in one zone, the other zone and all channels have a constant amount of bleed through at a set level. It was just never there when the Adcome cd was plugged in direct to the amp bypassing any preamp or processor...........again I'll be doing a more in depth look all day tommarow.

[bigred7078]

Mar 4, 2010 0:03:08 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Could very well be the amp...........but its there, no matter the volume level in one zone, the other zone and all channels have a constant amount of bleed through at a set level.

Do you have another amp to test?

[paintedklown]

Ntrain42, I will be looking forward to read your full review of the UMC-1.

I think that you are very specific in what you do/don't like, and you are able to articulate your thoughts on gear very well. Should be an interesting/informative read for sure.

Congrats on your new processor.

[ntrain42]

Mar 4, 2010 0:04:10 GMT -5 bigred7078 said:

Mar 4, 2010 0:03:08 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Could very well be the amp...........but its there, no matter the volume level in one zone, the other zone and all channels have a constant amount of bleed through at a set level.

Do you have another amp to test?

I have other amps......rpoblem is they are extremely heavy mono blocks, otherwise I just have AVRs................Im looking into having a friend bring over a 5 channel Rotel amp today which we know has very low(basically inaudible)crosstalk between channels, to try and rule out one component.

Previously when I tested the UPA-7, I used an Adcom changer directly into it. All 7 channels were hooked up to their respective speakers with only 2 being used, and all the channels were tested for crosstalk. THe one thing that I didnt have though was 7 sets of rca inputs connected to the amp. So Im wondering if with 7 inputs connected to an active preamp it would bring up the crosstalk. Will be delving into that further today with differing combos...........

[BillBauman]

Mar 4, 2010 8:51:31 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Mar 4, 2010 0:04:10 GMT -5 bigred7078 said:

Do you have another amp to test?

I have other amps......rpoblem is they are extremely heavy mono blocks, otherwise I just have AVRs................Im looking into having a friend bring over a 5 channel Rotel amp today which we know has very low(basically inaudible)crosstalk between channels, to try and rule out one component.

Previously when I tested the UPA-7, I used an Adcom changer directly into it. All 7 channels were hooked up to their respective speakers with only 2 being used, and all the channels were tested for crosstalk. THe one thing that I didnt have though was 7 sets of rca inputs connected to the amp. So Im wondering if with 7 inputs connected to an active preamp it would bring up the crosstalk. Will be delving into that further today with differing combos...........

You actually do have a very nice amp to try, but I don't know where it's physically located or its accessibility. Simply for the purposes of ruling out the amp, you could use the multi-channel ins on your TX-NR906 to use it as an amp for this particular test.

[ntrain42]

Mar 4, 2010 12:27:38 GMT -5 BillBauman said:

Mar 4, 2010 8:51:31 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

I have other amps......rpoblem is they are extremely heavy mono blocks, otherwise I just have AVRs................Im looking into having a friend bring over a 5 channel Rotel amp today which we know has very low(basically inaudible)crosstalk between channels, to try and rule out one component.

Previously when I tested the UPA-7, I used an Adcom changer directly into it. All 7 channels were hooked up to their respective speakers with only 2 being used, and all the channels were tested for crosstalk. THe one thing that I didnt have though was 7 sets of rca inputs connected to the amp. So Im wondering if with 7 inputs connected to an active preamp it would bring up the crosstalk. Will be delving into that further today with differing combos...........

You actually do have a very nice amp to try, but I don't know where it's physically located or its accessibility. Simply for the purposes of ruling out the amp, you could use the multi-channel ins on your TX-NR906 to use it as an amp for this particular test.

My BAT and Aragon monoblocks are in my den/personal room. Problem is they each weight about 100lbs, and I have alot invested in them so the less I move them the better.

So I am going to do what your implying swapping in the 906/886/805 using the amp outputs to the UPA-7. Since the 906/805 have already been tested and have no crosstalk using their own amp channels in any configuration, Ill use their outputs to see if I can reproduce the results, Im actually in the process of doing that right now(swapping out gear). Once I am able to localize where the crosstalk is coming from I will continue on my review of other aspects of the UMC-1. I just want to try and thoroughly test out all important aspects of the units pros/cons and give everyone a solid no BS review of what to expect.

But anyway, one thing I do like about the analog inputs/section of the UMC-1 is that there is very little background/white noise. Its noticeable lower than both the 805 and 906 Onkyo AVR's and right on par with the 886(with the 886 slightly edging it out possibly), but its so close between the 2 to be a non factor. Very happy with this portion of it so far.

So hopefully by early afternoon today Ill have the crosstalk isolated to one component.

[strindl]

The kind of bleed through you are reporting is very unlikely to be power amp related. I've certainly never experienced anything like that in all my years involved in high end audio. The only thing the power amp channels share in common is the power supply...which carries no audio signal.

[monkumonku]

Mar 4, 2010 14:28:47 GMT -5 strindl said:

The kind of bleed through you are reporting is very unlikely to be power amp related. I've certainly never experienced anything like that in all my years involved in high end audio. The only thing the power amp channels share in common is the power supply...which carries no audio signal.

But if that is the case then why do amps come with a crosstalk spec? Or why the supposed advantage of two UPA-1's over an XPA-2 regarding crosstalk? I'm confused.

[BillBauman]

ntrain42, just to be clear on what I was recommending, use your UMC-1 as the Pre/Pro, run its pre-outs to the multi-channel in of your 906, and turn off all processing on the 906. That will turn your 906, effectively, into an amp with a POT. Make sense? Or, maybe you already knew what I meant.

[strindl]

But if that is the case then why do amps come with a crosstalk spec? Or why the supposed advantage of two UPA-1's over an XPA-2 regarding crosstalk? I'm confused.

audible bleed through like was being described here is not anything you would experience in a decent power amp.

[ntrain42]

Little update.......looks like the crosstalk is coming from the zone 2 analog section of the UMC-1.............been working all day on it...........pretty confident thats the specific issue.........

[lewers]

Mar 4, 2010 19:25:16 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Little update.......looks like the crosstalk is coming from the zone 2 analog section of the UMC-1.............been working all day on it...........pretty confident thats the specific issue.........

I'm not hearing anything like that so lemme make sure I'm doin' what you are:

Set zones one and two to different inputs.
• Zone one on CD input. Analog to the UMC-1. ERC-1 on but stopped. Stereo mode.
• Zone two to Directv playing music from sonic tap. HDMI to the UMC-1.

Zone one volume 10 - Zone two 30
• Nothing from zone one. Ear to the tweeter, hiss that can only be heard within a foot of the tweeter.
• Volume at 50 for both zones. No change.

[Update]
Reverse inputs - One has the Directv and two is on the CD input.
Same results. No evidence of anything in zone two.
There was no volume up to 50 for zone one as that would drown out anything that I'd be able to hear in zone two. Though you'd mentioned that the issue was independent of volume settings so this may not be needed.

[ntrain42]

Mar 4, 2010 20:02:58 GMT -5 lewers said:

Mar 4, 2010 19:25:16 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

Little update.......looks like the crosstalk is coming from the zone 2 analog section of the UMC-1.............been working all day on it...........pretty confident thats the specific issue.........

I'm not hearing anything like that so lemme make sure I'm doin' what you are:

Set zones one and two to different inputs.
• Zone one on CD input. Analog to the UMC-1. ERC-1 on but stopped. Stereo mode.
• Zone two to Directv playing music from sonic tap. HDMI to the UMC-1.

Zone one volume 10 - Zone two 30
• Nothing from zone one. Ear to the tweeter, hiss that can only be heard within a foot of the tweeter.
• Volume at 50 for both zones. No change.

[Update]
Reverse inputs - One has the Directv and two is on the CD input.
Same results. No evidence of anything in zone two.
There was no volume up to 50 for zone one as that would drown out anything that I'd be able to hear in zone two. Though you'd mentioned that the issue was independent of volume settings so this may not be needed.

Set them to the same input, but turn main zone down to 0..........see if your getting anything doing that even........