Emotiva MC-1 Review (Home Theater Processor)

[amirm]

Will we ever see a pre/pro from MiniDSP, Topping, SMSL or the host of other excellent manufacturers that routinely release great measuring and sounding gear?

No. It is entirely different business, far more complex and require a lot more software expertise. It simply is not in the cards.

What is in the cards is next generation of AV Processors and AVRs performing better. Until we came around, no one was paying attention to such things. But now are on the radar of a number of companies who aspire to do better. There is actually simple technique which I call "pure music mode." Activate that and they should be able to disable all the pipeline dynamic range issues and optimize SNR and with it, SINAD. Of course, it doesn't hurt to clean up the DAC implementation as well.

 

[tlin]

Waiting for Topping to release its home theater processor.

Is there real reason to believe this will actually happen? I've seen several mentions of this sort (via scattered posts).

Edit - the post directly above this spells it pretty clearly.......doesn't hurt to hope.

 

[Spkrdctr]

I think if Topping released a proper home theater processor it will not be cheap. Yamaha and Denon spread engineering costs across millions of units sold worldwide. I don't know if Topping is anywhere near able to do that.

 

[JoeWoody]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Emotiva MC-1 13.2 channel home theater AV Processor (AVP). It was purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $999.
View attachment 185125

I really like the slim look of the unit. Many so called processors are AVRs with their amps taken out and still shipped in large boxes. This rules them out in many situations where you don't want or can manage such tall boxes. This one is slim and light as it should be.

What you give up here is balanced output for normal channels although a pair is provided for subs (good idea):
View attachment 185126

I can't figure out why the remote uses hard to push membrane switches. It is not like the remote need to be waterproof or anything.

Operationally, the unit works smoothly and well. The one thing I did not like was lack of acceleration in the rotary encoder for volume. It steps up in half dB which is nice but then it takes forever to go from low to high volume.

Emotiva MC-1 Measurements
I started with HDMI as input and selected Pure/Direct modes. They both produced the same performance across all the measurements so excuse me as I use them interchangeably:

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I adjusted the volume to get our nominal 2 volt output for unbalanced RCA. Distortion is actually decent at -100 dB but there is a pile of low frequency noise which drags SINAD down to 88 dB, planting MC-1 in the poor category for AV products:

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I switched to Toslink and actually disconnected the HDMI cables to make sure its noise is not polluting the output:

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As you the elevated low frequency noise is still there but the bit of jitter we had with HDMI is gone.

The good news is that the unit has plenty of headroom on its output:

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This means that you can drive plenty of power amplifiers to their maximum wattage. And if they have lower gain than normal, gain some signal to noise ratio:

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Multitone was very disappointing:

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There is a lot of noise/intermodulation there. But also, roll off at 20 kHz. This can't as the sample rate for this test is 192 kHz. This means the internal DAC should produce 96 kHz of bandwidth which way, way higher than 20 kHz. Let's do a simple frequency response and see what is going on:
View attachment 185133

I confirmed with the info button that the unit was accepting 192 kHz so there was no conversion on my measurement side. But despite setting Pure/Direct mode, there is internal resampling of sorts that is equivalent to 44 or 48 kHz sample rate. This kind of thing really needs to be advertised to the user when he asks for "info." It should say, "input 192 kHz, output XX kHz." This is something all AV companies are guilty of. Anyway, this is not right. There has to be a way to play 192 kHz content to this unit without conversion.

IMD vs level suffers from same high noise level we saw in the dashboard:

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Linearity gets hit with noise penalty as well:

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Jitter performance objectively is not good:

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Strangely, now Toslink looks worse as opposed to the dashboard where it had the upper hand.

Filter performance is poor both in slow roll off and not enough attenuation out of band:

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An ideal filter would follow my vertical line and disappear from bottom of the graph. When it does not, it causes the following measurement to look worse:

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This however is a lot worse than expected so let's look at the spectrum up to 90 kHz:
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The sloping up is classic "noise shaping" used in some DACs to push audible noise to inaudible spectrum. In this day and age, we don't see it often. Fortunately it is harmless as you are not going to hear it anyway.

Conclusions
The overall form factor and functionality of the unit seems nice but is let down by well below average performance. There are a lot of noise and interference issues creeping into every measurement. And we have that situation with high resolution content being resampled.

BTW, I saw some reference to Emotiva's own room EQ in there. Not sure how good that is. Or what its origins are. If that performs well, that would be a reason to get this unit over some desktop DAC.

I can't recommend the Emotiva MC-1 if you are looking for a well measuring unit. I think they can do better by performing a clean up pass and at least getting rid of that low frequency noise.

Thanks for letting he review sir, appreciate your work

 

[Vacceo]

Probably this is a stupid question, but I'd rather ask and understand: why is it so hard for AVR processors to get a good SINAD? Too expensive parts? Complex designs? Musicality turning into witchery due to Ohm's Law?

 

[Doodski]

Probably this is a stupid question, but I'd rather ask and understand: why is it so hard for AVR processors to get a good SINAD? Too expensive parts? Complex designs? Musicality turning into witchery due to Ohm's Law?

Three reasons for the higher SINAD are: (I'm sure there are more reasons.)
- Cramming all those circuits into a densely populated chassis. Too close together makes it difficult or impossible to reduce SINAD.
- Not using good design hygiene.
- Having the amps all sharing one common power supply.

 

[Vacceo]

Three reasons for the higher SINAD are: (I'm sure there are more reasons.)
- Cramming all those circuits into a densely populated chassis. Too close together makes it difficult or impossible to reduce SINAD.
- Not using good design hygiene.
- Having the amps all sharing one common power supply.

How hard is to create one? I mean, electronically, all licenses from Dolby, DTX and so on aside.

Looking at the elegance of Boxem or Apollon in their creations, I wonder what is preventing the big manufacturers to do as they do.

 

[Miker 1102]

I do what you suggest in running and external DAC with my external front pair amp for music, but that eliminates my ability to use bass management and subs with high fidelity, so it is not a perfect compromise.

In any case, the best solution for reasonable cost is still to buy a Denon receiver and turn the amps off. Incredible that this is still the case. Why Denon hasn't made this product and done it far better is interesting to say the least.

I am voting "Not Terrible" as this unit is probably fine for video, but sadly misses the mark for pure audio and fails to achieve the bar set in their lofty marketing mumbo jumbo.

This has been my conclusion. If I want high res fidelity I need to turn off the amps in my denon and run an outside dac to a sperate amp to the fronts and lose bass management. Why doesn't Denon just make a "true" high res product. I feel like the Denon is processing everything at 24/48.

 

[Vacceo]

That was the very reason why I asked? )Is it that hard to create a separate with a high SINAD? With a DAC, it is equally cheap to implement a great product as a poor one.

In a processor you pay for connections and features, but the elements that decode and pass sound are the same.

 

[peng]

How hard is to create one? I mean, electronically, all licenses from Dolby, DTX and so on aside.

Looking at the elegance of Boxem or Apollon in their creations, I wonder what is preventing the big manufacturers to do as they do.

I believe the main reason is that many of the well established big name manufacturers knew (may be changing now since ASR started measuring not only SINAD, but many other metrics for audio gear almost daily) that they could save time, thereby minimizing cost/maximizing profits by not caring too much about SINAD, IMD, DR and others to measure better than necessary to stay clear the threshold of audibility. They know their marketing blurbs typically would work better for them, instead of publishing THD+N better than say, 0.03% or -70.5 dB.

For example, Audioquest has been (or had been, as I don't know the latest..) successful selling their Dragon Fly DACs at premium price yet many dongle DAC measured on ASR would beat them by a wide margin and can play more high bit depth/rate files.

Jamming too many electronics in one box is one reason, but on all else being equal basis only. In practice, that seems like an old excuse now when, thanks to ASR, and AH to some extent, we can see that aside from the Hypex, Purifi based amps and Benchmark's AHB2 class AB amp, there really aren't not too many two channel amps measured as good as AVRs that in addition to the video parts/circuitry, BT, Ethernet, wifi, Apple Play and many DSP functions, have 7 to 13 channels of power amps onboard, all jammed into one box and a couple of power supplies.

So in my opinion, the answer to your question may boil down to one word, "Profits".

 

[Spkrdctr]

Profits is the biggest elephant in the room. All of our engineers will tell you that they have to design to cost or they are looking for another job. Before a company of any size starts a product development they look at expected engineering/design costs. then add a guesstimate for production cost and finally the expected retail cost based on the profits needed to start the entire project. So, I think the big AVR makers are afraid to make an above average product as it will have to sell for lets say $2,999.00. How many AVR units will they sell at that price point? They could and should IMHO drop the crazy channel count and settle on a basic 7.2.2 system that also does 5.2.2 very well. Then they have a few less channels to worry about and frees up space for the above average design to have great testing products.

I think the big companies are shooting themselves in the foot with higher than 7 channel counts. What regular every day consumer wants more than a great 5.1.2? In my scenario they could buy the unit and go either 5.2.2 or 7.2.2. But that one basic unit would take care of most buyers. So, a unit that measured pretty good to great could be sold in the $2000 to $3000 range. I'd buy one. Plus drop all the old outdated inputs and settle on HDMI for everything. But I know I will never see such a product. So, in the end you just have to buy a soundbar and join the other millions of families that have them! I know a bit of sarcasm!

 

[Vacceo]

I personally think the point of diminishing returns for Atmos and other object based systems starts right after 11 channeles. Subwoofers, are a different story, and 2 or 4 can be equally interesting depending on room.

 

[JoeWoody]

Profits is the biggest elephant in the room. All of our engineers will tell you that they have to design to cost or they are looking for another job. Before a company of any size starts a product development they look at expected engineering/design costs. then add a guesstimate for production cost and finally the expected retail cost based on the profits needed to start the entire project. So, I think the big AVR makers are afraid to make an above average product as it will have to sell for lets say $2,999.00. How many AVR units will they sell at that price point? They could and should IMHO drop the crazy channel count and settle on a basic 7.2.2 system that also does 5.2.2 very well. Then they have a few less channels to worry about and frees up space for the above average design to have great testing products.

I think the big companies are shooting themselves in the foot with higher than 7 channel counts. What regular every day consumer wants more than a great 5.1.2? In my scenario they could buy the unit and go either 5.2.2 or 7.2.2. But that one basic unit would take care of most buyers. So, a unit that measured pretty good to great could be sold in the $2000 to $3000 range. I'd buy one. Plus drop all the old outdated inputs and settle on HDMI for everything. But I know I will never see such a product. So, in the end you just have to buy a soundbar and join the other millions of families that have them! I know a bit of sarcasm!

Love this take, well done

 

[Soundmixer]

he audio that accompanies most video material (cable / streaming /DVD / Bluray / 4k) is compressed / lossy. Yes, there are so-called hi-res lossless formats on some discs, but how much transparency and resolution do you really need to listen to explosions, planes zooming around, actors voices and so on? This thing is good enough for Dolby AC-3, surely, and that is the format used for the vast bulk of video programming / movies.

This is incorrect. The audio from streaming and DVD is lossy, but Bluray and 4K is lossless audio. The individual elements may have compressed them so they can be balanced within the other elements of the mix, but the overall audio is indeed lossless.


Anyone who says AC-3 is good enough has never heard the original master when compared to the output of the Dolby Digital AC-3 encoder. When you have that unfortunately pleasure, you will quickly change your opinion on this.

Lastly, AC-3 is not used on a vast number of movies. It was used on a just few movies when Bluray disc was first released, but it was replaced with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA Lossless. It has not been used at all on the UHD discs. UHD disc primarily uses Atmos and DTS MA Lossless and about 120 movies are encoded with DTS:X

Your information is a tad bit dated (which is an understatement).

 

[Soundmixer]

I personally think the point of diminishing returns for Atmos and other object based systems starts right after 11 channeles. Subwoofers, are a different story, and 2 or 4 can be equally interesting depending on room.

You would think differently when you have actually heard a 32-channel system in a large room. There are dedicated rooms out there that are so large, 11 channels just wouldn't cut it.

 

[FrantzM]

You would think differently when you have actually heard a 32-channel system in a large room. There are dedicated rooms out there that are so large, 11 channels just wouldn't cut it.

That's an experience I would like to have... In my small room, I have the 5 usual Channels + 2 Ceiling Atmos and am wondering what improvement surround back channels would bring.
Asking he question very seriously: Are there content on the usual streaming providers with L,C,R, SR, SL, SBL, SBR and Atmos Ceilings say for at least 9 channels, not counting subwoofers, available? I have seen 5.1 + Atmos displayed on my receiver but have not yet seen anything that would say 7.1 for exemple..

Peace

 

[Vacceo]

You would think differently when you have actually heard a 32-channel system in a large room. There are dedicated rooms out there that are so large, 11 channels just wouldn't cut it.

I don't live in the US anymore. Over here, you'd be the count of who knows what.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This is incorrect. The audio from streaming and DVD is lossy, but Bluray and 4K is lossless audio. The individual elements may have compressed them so they can be balanced within the other elements of the mix, but the overall audio is indeed lossless.


Anyone who says AC-3 is good enough has never heard the original master when compared to the output of the Dolby Digital AC-3 encoder. When you have that unfortunately pleasure, you will quickly change your opinion on this.

Lastly, AC-3 is not used on a vast number of movies. It was used on a just few movies when Bluray disc was first released, but it was replaced with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA Lossless. It has not been used at all on the UHD discs. UHD disc primarily uses Atmos and DTS MA Lossless and about 120 movies are encoded with DTS:X

Your information is a tad bit dated (which is an understatement).

He did say for cable/streaming and DVD. My guess being the majority of people's exposure is over streaming and cable. Do 4k streams have lossless audio encoding?

 

[Soundmixer]

That's an experience I would like to have... In my small room, I have the 5 usual Channels + 2 Ceiling Atmos and am wondering what improvement surround back channels would bring.
Asking he question very seriously: Are there content on the usual streaming providers with L,C,R, SR, SL, SBL, SBR and Atmos Ceilings say for at least 9 channels, not counting subwoofers, available? I have seen 5.1 + Atmos displayed on my receiver but have not yet seen anything that would say 7.1 for exemple..

Peace

One of my theaters is a 7.1.2 system in a small room. What the surround-back channels bring to the game are two additional channels to aim objects or audio effects in the case of the upmixers. It also fills in the rear with actual speakers rather than relying on phantom imaging in a position where are ears are weak at capturing direction. Perceptually, it provides depth to the soundfield, and in the case of the upmixers, it allows them to track flyovers from front to rear better than 5.1.2 can.

If you see 5.1 + Atmos or Dolby Surround, you won't see 7.1. There are more channels being decoded than that.

 

[Soundmixer]

He did say for cable/streaming and DVD. My guess being the majority of people's exposure is over streaming and cable. Do 4k streams have lossless audio encoding?

There is no streaming of any resolution that offers lossless decoding. My comments if you read them were not directed strictly towards streaming or DVD. They were aimed at Bluray and UHD disc - and he did include them both in his comment.