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Emotiva BasX MC1 13.2 Dolby Atmos & DTS:X Processor

benny1201

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I'm just hoping that the performance difference & usability is worth it to buy over a similarly priced AVR.
I personally think it would be really interesting to connect unbalanced studio monitors to it to create an active speaker spatial setup.
 

rccarguy

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Lack of 2.1 doesn't bother me in the slightest, not a console peasant gamer anyway.

As for room EQ well the tonewinner makes it sound worse, so I guess if a good and working one does a good job, maybe I'll use it. I have it disabled on the tonewinner.
 

DonH56

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DonH56

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Why?

I've got a at-300. For the price recommend it. It's no frills AV pre.
I skimmed very quickly, and have glanced at the Emotiva Lounge thread. For the AT-300, there appear to be some FW/SW glitches. I did not read through the thread, just remembered it was there, and my personal experience with Emotiva processors has not been the best so I may just be hyper-sensitive. No-frills is OK, but having problems establishing HDMI connections, switching sources, and such without a power cycle is vexing. Those problems are very system-dependent, and of course the ones who post tend to be those with problems.
 

rccarguy

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I skimmed very quickly, and have glanced at the Emotiva Lounge thread. For the AT-300, there appear to be some FW/SW glitches. I did not read through the thread, just remembered it was there, and my personal experience with Emotiva processors has not been the best so I may just be hyper-sensitive. No-frills is OK, but having problems establishing HDMI connections, switching sources, and such without a power cycle is vexing. Those problems are very system-dependent, and of course the ones who post tend to be those with problems.

I don't have those issues
 

DonH56

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I don't have those issues
Good! A lot of folk have not had problems with other Emotiva AVPs, but many of us had/have, and are very hesitant to bet on them again.
 
OP
flyzipper

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Measurement thread...
 

Sprint

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AVRs are 99% their room correction algorithm. Tread carefully.

That's what I thought as well. I had the AT-300 clone - IOTAVX AVX17 in my living room for few days. I did not use any room correction. Simple bass management to route 80hz and below to 2 subwoofers. Room correction was done & stored in my Genelec speakers.

Subjectively, the sound from IOTAVX was very good for movies but though decent it was a bit flat for 2 channel music in straight mode. Auto umpixing (assume Dolby Surround) for 2 channel was better than straight mode. Because of the delay in HDMI hand shake, lack of bass level adjustments without touching eq, I went with my next option Yamaha CX-A5200.

With the same settings in Yamaha as in IOTAVXi.e. no eq, no room adjustments, same volume levels, same distance - to my ears 5200 sounded different. More clarity, smooth, airy and sound was more engaging in YAMAHA compared to IOTAVX. Not that I was not happy with sound of IOTAVX but it it definitely different. I would say IOTAVX in 2channel was bit flat and harsh whereas Yamaha was engaging.

I feel that the DACs along with the implementation made the difference in sound. ESS 9026 Pro vs Cirrus Logic CS42528.
 

Aron3000

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That's what I thought as well. I had the AT-300 clone - IOTAVX AVX17 in my living room for few days. I did not use any room correction. Simple bass management to route 80hz and below to 2 subwoofers. Room correction was done & stored in my Genelec speakers.

Subjectively, the sound from IOTAVX was very good for movies but though decent it was a bit flat for 2 channel music in straight mode. Auto umpixing (assume Dolby Surround) for 2 channel was better than straight mode. Because of the delay in HDMI hand shake, lack of bass level adjustments without touching eq, I went with my next option Yamaha CX-A5200.

With the same settings in Yamaha as in IOTAVXi.e. no eq, no room adjustments, same volume levels, same distance - to my ears 5200 sounded different. More clarity, smooth, airy and sound was more engaging in YAMAHA compared to IOTAVX. Not that I was not happy with sound of IOTAVX but it it definitely different. I would say IOTAVX in 2channel was bit flat and harsh whereas Yamaha was engaging.

I feel that the DACs along with the implementation made the difference in sound. ESS 9026 Pro vs Cirrus Logic CS42528.
Hi there, so for movies with subwoofer and room correction how close was the IOTA to the Yamaha. I am also very interested in buying Denon 4700 and using it as pre pro. Basically I have £1500 to spend on pre pro so Denon and IOTA fit the bill perfect plus power amp.
Many thanks.
 

rccarguy

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Hi there, so for movies with subwoofer and room correction how close was the IOTA to the Yamaha. I am also very interested in buying Denon 4700 and using it as pre pro. Basically I have £1500 to spend on pre pro so Denon and IOTA fit the bill perfect plus power amp.
Many thanks.

There also the tonewinner, basically the same as the iota, some slight output differences.

The tonewinner is ok for £1000, considering the price differences of other AV pre. The room correction in my experience is crap.

If all you want is budget AV pre and don't require bells and whistles it's ok.

Would I have bought it again? Possibly because what else is there.

Just a shame room eq is awful in this unit I'd at least hoped it wouldn't make it sound worse - just "different" as it did minor correction
 

Aron3000

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Tonewinner is a no no for me, IOTA is UK based which is where I am so any faulty device will be easier and faster to fix since we are talking about budget machinery. Regarding room correction I actually spoke to the owner of IOTA MR Ian lovely man he said that their next processor is going to have Dirac and its going to be 9 channel processor. And time scale is 18months from now followed by 17 channel processor probably 2+ years from now. So in other words I might just get Denon 4700 and use it as pre pro, upgrade to IOTA when Dirac is available.
 

rccarguy

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Tonewinner is a no no for me, IOTA is UK based which is where I am so any faulty device will be easier and faster to fix since we are talking about budget machinery. Regarding room correction I actually spoke to the owner of IOTA MR Ian lovely man he said that their next processor is going to have Dirac and its going to be 9 channel processor. And time scale is 18months from now followed by 17 channel processor probably 2+ years from now. So in other words I might just get Denon 4700 and use it as pre pro, upgrade to IOTA when Dirac is available.

Fair enough with UK support. I would agree regarding power amps because more likely to fail, if they do that's big expensive, also unless it's modular then need to send whole lot back.

If main board or PSU in tonewinner dies if they send a new one it's easy enough to replace myself the PCB are easy to access.

However AV pre generally reliable.
 

rccarguy

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The iota costs £450 more than the tonewinner..

50% higher price? Nah not worth it
 

rccarguy

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What do you think about Denon 4700 in pre pro mode with IOTA 7 ch power amp. I believe its about 175 watts per ch all ch driven 4homs.

It won't have that much power

Denon do have more customisation, with pure direct, 2ch preset and regular crossover preset and better room correction, heos, room correction app control.

As for sound? No idea.

Denon 3700 has 100w x5
 

rccarguy

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Denon 3700 is similar price to my tonewinner. Looking back would I prefer now having denon 3700? Not sure probably 60/40 favour in Denon. Mostly because audyssey better than tonewinner EQ, multi app control,. having two subs now mean lousy tonewinner EQ now a negative. But use I use XLR

I wouldn't use any of the amps as got all poweramps so Denon be in pre amp mode.
 

Sprint

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Hi there, so for movies with subwoofer and room correction how close was the IOTA to the Yamaha. I am also very interested in buying Denon 4700 and using it as pre pro. Basically I have £1500 to spend on pre pro so Denon and IOTA fit the bill perfect plus power amp.
Many thanks.

I did not use the room correction of IOTA as I use the room correction of Genelec and DIRAC for subwoofers. For movies, I would say IOTA is as close as 70-80% of Yamaha. However the sound signature is different. Yamaha is more refined and IOTA is earthy and I agree to the review here. For me the sound from Yamaha is more emotionally engaging especially in music. In addition, there are several DSP options and AI which is not there in IOTA. I do not use them. One important feature that I use in Yamaha was when I use Dolby surround as up mixer for 2ch music, I have an option to use center spread. This is absolutely great. In addition since I love bass, I had more options to tune Bass in Yamaha with several Volume trims for Bass and subwoofer trim. Therefore I did not mind spending 500 euros more for Yamaha and I do not regret it :).
 
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