Emotiva MC-1 Review (Home Theater Processor)

[milosz]

Hmmm, revisiting this thread, I see that one of the things that really spoils the measured performance is low frequency noise.

One question though- given that human hearing is not very sensitive to lower frequencies, has anyone ( like Amir, for example ) HEARD that noise under any listening conditions?

While I like to see the state of the art in digital audio products advancing as shown by performance, it seems to me that the point of review measurements is to seek out equipment that provides a good listening experience. It's not about equipment that provides a good measuring experience, is it? ( Unless maybe you are an engineer and will spend your time with the product hooked up to an analyzer...)

I really think that we need some additional science up in here, more double-blind listening analysis to establish more firmly how the gear sounds to humans. (My typical rant. I should just bookmark this...)

That said, I have owned some Emotiva pre-pro's and they all failed within three years of owning them. One of them I sent back for "free" warranty repair of the failed power supply, but Emotiva charged me $75 for the "stock" packaging to ship it back in, they wouldn't ship it back in the box I sent it to them in. I sold that unit and bought a newer model which failed also. I sold it for parts, and resolved to never buy anything from Emotiva again.

 

[Sal1950]

While I like to see the state of the art in digital audio products advancing as shown by performance, it seems to me that the point of review measurements is to seek out equipment that provides a good listening experience. It's not about equipment that provides a good measuring experience, is it?

While in general I don't disagree, there's a horrible mine path laid there.
Crammed full of subjective opinions, opposite claims over gear quality and listeners abilities,
and the procedures used.
To end with any real solid conclusions, it would have to be done on a fairly large scale.

I really think that we need some additional science up in here, more double-blind listening analysis to establish more firmly how the gear sounds to humans. (My typical rant. I should just bookmark this...)

Your house or Amir's. LOL

 

[TonyJZX]

just had a squizz at the official forum thread and over the 2 yrs this has been available there's been no update so i guess to them they didnt need to get Tonewinner to squeeze out a new firmware because why fix what's not broken?

 

[milosz]

While in general I don't disagree, there's a horrible mine path laid there.
Crammed full of subjective opinions, opposite claims over gear quality and listeners abilities,
and the procedures used.
To end with any real solid conclusions, it would have to be done on a fairly large scale.

Your house or Amir's. LOL

Well, Amir's OF COURSE!

Proper double-blind test design eliminates subjectivity.

I've done some small scale double-blind testing at my house with a number of listeners, to try and determine if any of them could tell the differences in a statistically reliable way between DACs playing music from Red Book files. I had non-audiophiles, audiophiles and musicians as my test subjects. So far I have yet to find any listeners that could hear the difference between an Audio-GD DAC with dreadful measurements and a near-state-of-the art DAC from Topping. ( There was some evidence of some listeners being able to hear the difference on pure tones, but not on music )

But while this is interesting ( especially to me ) it is not what I think the audio field needs. What's needed is institutional investigation on a bigger scale. But there is unlikely to be any funding coming from the audio industry for a scientific effort to prove that their products aren't more "musical" than others on the market. I bet that the snake oil companies would actively fight that! The crystal ground box, quantum noise blockers and meson-treated wire companies would likely send hitmen....

 

[ctbarker32]

I for one have been using the MC-1 for the past several years as a surround processor. In that role it works exceptionally well and I am very pleased. I switched to the MC-1 after I could not get an XMC-2 to work properly with my Sony OLED TV using ARC. The MC-1 has proven to be very compatible in this regard.

For critical two channel listening, I use a Benchmark DAC3 HGC in home theater bypass mode. This arrangement gives me the best of both worlds (home theater and high-resolution stereo) without compromise. I purchased the MC-1 for $750 on sale and believe it is a relative bargain at that price point.

Taking time to optimize the path for Home Theater and Two channel can be very beneficial.

 

[617]

Well, Amir's OF COURSE!

Proper double-blind test design eliminates subjectivity.

I've done some small scale double-blind testing at my house with a number of listeners, to try and determine if any of them could tell the differences in a statistically reliable way between DACs playing music from Red Book files. I had non-audiophiles, audiophiles and musicians as my test subjects. So far I have yet to find any listeners that could hear the difference between an Audio-GD DAC with dreadful measurements and a near-state-of-the art DAC from Topping. ( There was some evidence of some listeners being able to hear the difference on pure tones, but not on music )

But while this is interesting ( especially to me ) it is not what I think the audio field needs. What's needed is institutional investigation on a bigger scale. But there is unlikely to be any funding coming from the audio industry for a scientific effort to prove that their products aren't more "musical" than others on the market. I bet that the snake oil companies would actively fight that! The crystal ground box, quantum noise blockers and meson-treated wire companies would likely send hitmen....

There is no intuitive reason to believe any differences in non-broken or deliberately distorting audio electronics should sound different.

Go to this link and click on the sound samples simulating the sound of different STC ratings for walls. That should illustrate how quiet -30db is.

A SINAD of 30, which is absurdly low, has a similar amount of signal impurity as the audio you hear at STC 30, compared to the reference signal. More importantly, the distortion takes the form of noise (which tends to be inaudible in the presence of any signal) and harmonic distortion (which is musically correlated to the signal - it is only loud when the music is loud, and thereby masked).

I would guess for a piece of audio electronics to have reliably audible distortion it would have to have a SINAD of around 20 or less, and distortion in the form of gross frequency response deviation, which is extremely rare (+-3 db at 20k is not going to do much)

 

[milosz]

There is no intuitive reason to believe any differences in non-broken or deliberately distorting audio electronics should sound different.

Go to this link and click on the sound samples simulating the sound of different STC ratings for walls. That should illustrate how quiet -30db is.

A SINAD of 30, which is absurdly low, has a similar amount of signal impurity as the audio you hear at STC 30, compared to the reference signal. More importantly, the distortion takes the form of noise (which tends to be inaudible in the presence of any signal) and harmonic distortion (which is musically correlated to the signal - it is only loud when the music is loud, and thereby masked).

I would guess for a piece of audio electronics to have reliably audible distortion it would have to have a SINAD of around 20 or less, and distortion in the form of gross frequency response deviation, which is extremely rare (+-3 db at 20k is not going to do much)

Yes. The difference between a DAC with an 85 dB SINAD and one with 110 dB SINAD is very likely inaudible to any human listener under listening room or home theater conditions. ( I say "likely" because I haven't actually tested this hypothesis or seen data from anyone who has, so it is a testable assumption at this point, but that means still an assumption. )

I think relatively small changes in amplitude response in midrange frequencies can be noticed in A/B tests, maybe a change of response in the 1=>2 kHz octave of 0.5 dB might be audible with music signals; this just from my own experience- I have no actual data. I think possibly the same for 500=> 1000 Hz octave and so on down to the low midrange or upper bass regime.

A corollary here is that few listeners who can afford high-end audio gear have the ability to hear much above 13,000 Hz, due to age. This is assuming average wealth-vs-age characteristics across US society. Sure, some folks are born rich and can afford whatever gear they want in their teens, when many people can hear up to 20 kHz. Usually, however, it takes time to pull together some wealth and by then the upper range hearing is lost.... especially if you went to a lot of rock shows as a youth and so damaged your hearing.

Measurements do matter, because they show careful engineering. But I don't think it's meaningful to say that a DAC with a sinad of 112 dB is "better" than one with a 109 dB sinad. It MEASURES better but it is not any better for the intended purpose of audio gear, which is for listening by humans.

Now, if you are doing recording production, or measuring sound for engineering purposes like jet engine noise control, then some of these numbers change in importance. Certainly if you are building up layers of sound in the studio, you want only the intended signals and not noise or the spuriae of distortion- and for making engineering measurements you want the highest levels of accuracy and precision you can get. But to play Smoke on the Water or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik at home - chasing DAC sinad to these levels doesn't seem likely to improve the experience.

 

[rccarguy]

Hmmm, revisiting this thread, I see that one of the things that really spoils the measured performance is low frequency noise.

One question though- given that human hearing is not very sensitive to lower frequencies, has anyone ( like Amir, for example ) HEARD that noise under any listening conditions?

While I like to see the state of the art in digital audio products advancing as shown by performance, it seems to me that the point of review measurements is to seek out equipment that provides a good listening experience. It's not about equipment that provides a good measuring experience, is it? ( Unless maybe you are an engineer and will spend your time with the product hooked up to an analyzer...)

I really think that we need some additional science up in here, more double-blind listening analysis to establish more firmly how the gear sounds to humans. (My typical rant. I should just bookmark this...)

That said, I have owned some Emotiva pre-pro's and they all failed within three years of owning them. One of them I sent back for "free" warranty repair of the failed power supply, but Emotiva charged me $75 for the "stock" packaging to ship it back in, they wouldn't ship it back in the box I sent it to them in. I sold that unit and bought a newer model which failed also. I sold it for parts, and resolved to never buy anything from Emotiva again.

Pity there can't be a custom made stereo amplifier where you can switch mode , for personal opinions. With people with "golden ears"

a) Great SINAD say 120db
b) Poor SINAD say 65db

Or a switch say every 20dB difference and see where you notice it.

Same amplifier similar quality components, and then able to see if that much difference is noticeable.

 

[somebodyelse]

Not an amp, but an effects plugin that lets you dial in different levels of different harmonics:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ing-beta-test-of-pkharmonic-vst-plugin.19063/

 

[Blumlein 88]

Pity there can't be a custom made stereo amplifier where you can switch mode , for personal opinions. With people with "golden ears"

a) Great SINAD say 120db
b) Poor SINAD say 65db

Or a switch say every 20dB difference and see where you notice it.

Same amplifier similar quality components, and then able to see if that much difference is noticeable.

There are plug-ins or the distort software from Pkane. One can add things in other software so you are simply changing the source file so the end result is like different levels of sinad. You can even add power supply hum or whatever you wish. The idea lesser performance sounds better hasn't really ever been shown to be so. The right kind of 65 db sinad is not going to be much audible. Our hearing is both incredible and not very discriminating at the same time. All this is beating a very dead horse. The rumors of its life are greatly exaggerated to paraphrase Mark Twain.