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Emotiva RMC-1 AV Processor Review

Doodski

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I disagree with this. In face I feel blue is the worst choice for a dark theatre. Blue light doesn’t hit clearly at the back of the retina and so I always slightly out of focus. This makes it both hard to read and distracting.
I second that. Blue LEDs have a sort of effect that they float in space, have a foggy sort of lack of proper distance and are blurry.
 

Olli

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Wow, epic fail from a "flagship" processor! :( The good news is that I did not trade in my XMC-1 but went a different route (SDP-75, but after nearly four months still have not found time to install the thing and try to set it up!)

Since you have not found time to set it up - Wouldn‘t that be a great opportunity to send it to Amir to get reviewed :)
 

digicidal

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I disagree with this. In face I feel blue is the worst choice for a dark theatre. Blue light doesn’t hit clearly at the back of the retina and so I always slightly out of focus. This makes it both hard to read and distracting.
Though rarely implemented properly, I always prefer white. Sadly in most cases (white or blue for that matter) the fact that LEDs can be cheaply acquired with incredible luminance - does not excuse using the brightest one available.

I so miss the "good ole days" when a reasonably backlit LCD display was good enough... even VFD's are often more comfortably readable in low light than a lot of these newer OLED displays IMO. Of course, I'm a fan of massive arrays of tactile buttons on gear... so I'm definitely not the majority.
 

Doodski

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Though rarely implemented properly, I always prefer white. Sadly in most cases (white or blue for that matter) the fact that LEDs can be cheaply acquired with incredible luminance - does not excuse using the brightest one available.

I so miss the "good ole days" when a reasonably backlit LCD display was good enough... even VFD's are often more comfortably readable in low light than a lot of these newer OLED displays IMO. Of course, I'm a fan of massive arrays of tactile buttons on gear... so I'm definitely not the majority.
I found that I was replacing VFDs often and the driver ICs where failing too.
 

Gedeon

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I think you are on something interesting. The lockdown by format owners means it's doomed to second rate audio. They've killed the golden goose. Av audio is like cassette tape.

So soundbars will (actually are) dominate. Multi channel with quality is hamstrung and super niche. Mostly will die as a non-violable market.

But... do we need more than 16bits/48khz ? Are we able to perceive differences in multichannel between 16/48 and 24/96 ?

I'm unable to perceive differences jn stereo... So multichannel I guess it doesn't worth just give it a try looking for those theorycal differences in real world setups.
 

Tks

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When a multi-decade long veteran of audio is looking at performance and is seeing new anomalies that don't make a shred of sense, or just graphs that are plotting lines that look like as if someones' trying to play a prank.

Meanwhile, me in the background...

man-laughing-background.gif


Though there was an interesting portion..

EBU digital input (balanced version of S/PDIF).

Gonna need me some of that for my OCD lol. Balanced digital?? :cool:
 

digicidal

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You have to wonder with so many product releases being delayed repeatedly (in some cases for more than a year) what is the eventual trigger to release a still-incomplete product to market? It seems that even the normal manufacturers are essentially crowd funding these days... the development of their next version. "Hey buy this crap we never quite got working correctly and we promise the money will go into making the next version actually work - so you can upgrade to that!"

The value of customer driven brand-loyalty (and the product quality and service which generates it) have finally completely died in this century. :(
 

Gedeon

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Yes, no doubt dsp needs to add a bunch of bits to keep precision under control while doing its maths.

But sources, IMHO, are good enough with 16/48.
 

Thomas savage

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You have to wonder with so many product releases being delayed repeatedly (in some cases for more than a year) what is the eventual trigger to release a still-incomplete product to market? It seems that even the normal manufacturers are essentially crowd funding these days... the development of their next version. "Hey buy this crap we never quite got working correctly and we promise the money will go into making the next version actually work - so you can upgrade to that!"

The value of customer driven brand-loyalty (and the product quality and service which generates it) have finally completely died in this century. :(
Umm, sounds like Microsoft when Amirm and his old buddy Bill were knocking out crap operating system software time after time.
 

markus

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Yes, no doubt dsp needs to add a bunch of bits to keep precision under control while doing its maths.

But sources, IMHO, are good enough with 16/48.

18bits would be perfect to satisfy 105dB movie reference but who is actually thinking in terms of "usefulness" when "highres" sells better.
 

Thomas savage

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But... do we need more than 16bits/48khz ? Are we able to perceive differences in multichannel between 16/48 and 24/96 ?

I'm unable to perceive differences jn stereo... So multichannel I guess it doesn't worth just give it a try looking for those theorycal differences in real world setups.
If you want to sell anything yes. You need the sticker and you need cloth pegs to hang your marketing on.
 

digicidal

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Umm, sounds like Microsoft when Amirm and his old buddy Bill were knocking out crap operating system software time after time.
Funny you should mention this... I think the "sell now, patch often" software mindset really was the cause of most of it. Although Microsoft may have been early offenders, in reality broadband Internet availability was the real enabler - and it wasn't like Sun, Apple, Adobe, Oracle, etc. weren't all piling on around the same time.
 

audioBliss

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There is no saving this one. HTP-1 is still by far the best we have got to work with, that is my conclusion at least. And IMO the HTP-1 should get at least one panther better than the headless panther even if it's an edit note. The cut off issue which seems to be the main complaint was later resolved in the thread. Wideband distortion and noise was not any good though :/
 
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Matias

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And the search for a good measuring AVR/processor continues.....
 
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anmpr1

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Somebody is going to be PO'd tomorrow. Namely the folks at Emotiva... sigh* This review was a mind blower, never saw this one coming.
Why would they be angry? If they cared about designing something decent they probably could have done that in house, and from the get-go. Or hire someone who could do it for them. The fact that this sort of thing goes on shows that it must not be a problem for them. Unless the unit is broken, and then you have to wonder about their QC.
 
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PS
If this were to be used with Emotiva’s own XPA-7 amp, which has input sensitivity of 1.5 volts, one would think measurements at 3.8 volts output would be irrelevant, wouldn’t it?

The Emotiva XPA-DR1 650 watt mono power amp, which can be used on stereo channels, has the following spec on the website (RCA):

Input Sensitivity (for rated power; 8 Ohm load): 2.4 V

That is 4.8V balanced.
 

markus

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Why would they be angry? If they cared about designing something decent they probably could have done that in house, and from the get-go. Or hire someone who could do it for them. The fact that this sort of thing goes on shows that it must not be a problem for them. Unless the unit is broken, and then you have to wonder about their QC.

I thought they are developing firmware in-house? The problem is likely upper management. Not too long ago I had a discussion with their CTO about bass management which clearly showed that he did not understand the basic concept. It resulted in me getting banned from their forum by Cathy Laufman. All posts have been deleted. Pure arrogance.
 
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