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Emotiva RMC-1 AV Processor Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I really appreciate a sinad higher than 95 dB's and a dynamic range in a dac higher than 110 dB's, and i acknowledge engineering excellence with these measurements.
Amir is doing a really great job, hands down.
I just want to try and find out exactly what we can hear in our listening environment with a truly high fidelity setup, nothing more.
Of course we loose dynamic range with equalization, of course we have to maintain some dynamic headroom, and so on, yes i know.
Amir is doing a really great job, hands down.
I just want to try and find out exactly what we can hear in our listening environment with a truly high fidelity setup, nothing more.
Of course we loose dynamic range with equalization, of course we have to maintain some dynamic headroom, and so on, yes i know.
Absolutely.Well, this is a solid starting point to try to determine the maximum possible dynamic range in a typical room for high fidelity music reproduction.
We can use just 2 diagrams, the first is the average room noise and the second is the 100 phon curve, the maximum tolerable sound level, the pain levels.
View attachment 51781
View attachment 51782
At 20 Hz, listening threshold is at 65 dB's and lets assume that you have the best possible subs to get 130dB's over there to match the 100 phon curve, so the maximum (perceivable by our ears) possible dynamic range is 65 dB's.
At 80 Hz, the average room noise is at 35 dB's and lets assume that you have good speakers to get 105dB's, so maximum possible dynamic range is 70 dB's.
At 1 kHz, the average room noise is at 10 dB's and pain starts at 100dB's over there, so maximum possible dynamic range is 90 dB's at a really really quite room, and i think that 20 dB's of room noise is quite common, so you have 80 dB's of maximum possible dynamic range.
At 10 kHz, listening threshold is at 15 dB's (for very young people) and pain starts at 115dB's over there, so maximum possible dynamic range for a child is 100 dB's, but a child cannot bare so high levels (that's why they are "estimated") and an adult can hear nothing at 15 dB's, so you can say with confidence that the maximum possible dynamic range is between 80-90 dB's over there, depending from age.
Keep in mind, that if you are listening to high levels, the ear has a mechanism of lowering it's sensitivity to adjust at these high levels, and the threshold is raised for a short period, which means that although you may hear a tone at 20 dB's in mid frequencies when your ears are adjusted in a quiet room for enough time, if you listen to music at 100 dB's for more than a minute, then for a 2-5 minutes period you hear absolutely nothing at 20 dB's.
I assume that you can all agree that the maximum possible dynamic range for human hearing, in a quiet room, is frequency depended and it is in the range of 65-80 dB's, and maybe, a little more, just in theory...
I suppose that a dynamic range of 70 dB is a perfect goal for a sound system, and also quite difficult to reach, because your speakers must be able to reach almost 125 dB's at 20 Hz... (The 90 phon curve).
In a real life example, you stated that you were surprised how quickly the enormous lp surface noise disappeared when the music started, at your test of musical fidelity phono stage. The dynamic range of that recording, could not be more that 35 dB's, the sinad and dynamic range of the phono stage is there to see, and i suppose that you were not listening at 125 dB's...
Anyway, i think that you may have to change the maximum possible dynamic range for human hearing at music reproduction, at about 70-80 dB's, and anyway, even in theory, never over 90 dB's.
115? I really don't think so.
Whilst it may be true that the total possible dynamic range of human hearing is >120dB when anybody makes a music recording they record a segment of this range, adjusting the level on their recorder to make sure the peaks don't clip. The low level then looks after itself but, on my recordings of music it rarely drops lower than -50dB during the music and -30dB in the "silent" bits.
On top of this with my system set to my normal listening level a tone at -80dB is inaudible to me.
So my own personal "limit" on performance of electronics is that if the noise level is better than -80dB I am unlikely to hear it.
Ironically most, if not all, audio electronics for music can manage this, whereas Home Theatre kit, where film sound effects may have been recorded in a super low noise studio and have huge peaks and could maybe therefore benefit from >16-bit dynamic range generally is not good enough to do so.
I won't argue with the headless panther on the RMC, and that's mainly because of the bugs, the inability to deliver Dirac and the bizarre FFT and Filter performance graphs -Jitter also.
Lets wait and see Emotiva's measurements on these issues.
But we have to stop comparing two channel DACs to multichannel gear.
Two channel DACs cannot be considered SOTA. This has been scientifically and thoroughly explained by @Floyd Toole in his book. In order to have SOTA reproduction we need
Obviously 2 channel DACs fail on no.3, but the big majority of them fail also on 1. and 2.
Sinad measurements comparing 95 to 115dbs are insignificant when there are no subouts, crossovers and room eq options. Unless you are using headphones.
On the other hand, for sure we need better Multichannel Equipment and Amir helps customers with his measurements. But please, stop considering the 2channel vintage gear as SOTA, they are not.
Lets wait and see Emotiva's measurements on these issues.
But we have to stop comparing two channel DACs to multichannel gear.
Two channel DACs cannot be considered SOTA. This has been scientifically and thoroughly explained by @Floyd Toole in his book. In order to have SOTA reproduction we need
- Room Eq below the Schroeder frequency
- Multiple subs
- and last but not least, Multichannel setups. Everything else is vintage gear.
Obviously 2 channel DACs fail on no.3, but the big majority of them fail also on 1. and 2.
Sinad measurements comparing 95 to 115dbs are insignificant when there are no subouts, crossovers and room eq options. Unless you are using headphones.
On the other hand, for sure we need better Multichannel Equipment and Amir helps customers with his measurements. But please, stop considering the 2channel vintage gear as SOTA, they are not.
digicidal
Major Contributor
With my neighbors... I figure I have 30dB of range... if I'm lucky (and at reference volume). Some day I might move to the country however...
And when some sound is masked by a louder one and the difference is beyond 65-70 dbs it becomes rather difficult (if not impossible) to appreciate.
But... the main issue is the non-technical number .... 5000€ in Europe
But... the main issue is the non-technical number .... 5000€ in Europe
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I second that.Two channel DACs cannot be considered SOTA. This has been scientifically and thoroughly explained by @Floyd Toole in his book. In order to have SOTA reproduction we need
Just read the book everyone.
- Room Eq below the Schroeder frequency
- Multiple subs
- and last but not least, Multichannel setups. Everything else is vintage gear.
And if you can afford it, buy a Trinnov.
Toole bought one.
Just the lacking of dirac, is a good enough reason to cut the panther's head and drop this emotiva to the garbage.
It's useless.
My Devialet amp has a mode which includes an ability to show level meters of the input signal.
Just after writing this post I thought I would look at the difference between the analogue and digital inputs whilst not playing anything.
On a silent digital input it showed -100dB, that is as far as the scale goes. On the phono input, which uses an Ortofon A90 cartridge into an Ortofon T3000 step-up transformer the RH channel shows -80 dB, which I can just hear with my ear 3" from the speaker and -90dB on the LH channel which I may be just able to detect, but maybe not, with my ear up against the speaker.
At my listening seat 11' from the speakers I can't hear any hiss at all, of course.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
Come on, no way it's 11ft, Frank.
In the UK, 11ft is either in the neighbour's house, upstairs in the master bedroom, or across the road on the footpath outside the pub.
No wonder there's no hiss.
Long time lurker here.
There is some serious denial from Emotiva owners here and over at the the Emotiva forums.
If someone bought this and they are happy with it that's fine. Amirm is not doing this to make people feel bad about the gear they have but to show a side that we consumers rarely get see these days.
As a person who have been around the computer industry for decades facts is what we look for. Saying a product sounds great is like saying a game runs great on the computer that you sell but when you look at the measurements you are getting 10fps.
The main point I see some people miss is not that measurements don't tell the whole picture how a products sounds. It tells us how well it was engineered and built and if it lives up to the price tag and in this case I feel that it does not.
There is some serious denial from Emotiva owners here and over at the the Emotiva forums.
If someone bought this and they are happy with it that's fine. Amirm is not doing this to make people feel bad about the gear they have but to show a side that we consumers rarely get see these days.
As a person who have been around the computer industry for decades facts is what we look for. Saying a product sounds great is like saying a game runs great on the computer that you sell but when you look at the measurements you are getting 10fps.
The main point I see some people miss is not that measurements don't tell the whole picture how a products sounds. It tells us how well it was engineered and built and if it lives up to the price tag and in this case I feel that it does not.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
Ha-ha.Come on, no way it's 11ft, Frank.
In the UK, 11ft is either in the neighbour's house, upstairs in the master bedroom, or across the road on the footpath outside the pub.
No wonder there's no hiss.
When we made an extension for an extra bedroom we had to have an extra room downstairs
It is 16'x28' it is my "man cave" and as physically far as possible from the music room where the piano is, so we don't annoy each other.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
See, you're not so "old" and "grumpy" after all.
PS that's a big room. Bigger than my playpen for sure. Awesome.
A user over at the Emotiva forum posted some measurements, https://emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/1022198
I like their surreal messages on their forum: Lonnie said they are getting up early to run measurements (I think that running the Sinad panel on the AP takes less than 5 minutes)
timg
Member
And these measurements mirror the ones posted here. Big spikes at 1/2 and 1/4 input frequency and massively rising THD+N at low frequency. For all of the owners saying the measurements weren't right, they're at least in the ballpark and point out some very interesting issues. I haven't seen any other receivers or processors tested here with similar issues... Bad results yes, but nothing with results that are bad in the same ways.
Tim
A little off topic, but after reading all these posts....
It's always been my opinion that those on the 'subjectivist' side that proclaim that it's more about the bottom line of 'how it sounds' do NOT want to have a world where audio products can be neatly rated using numbers. It would take away their ability to claim that they can somehow hear things that others can't (Ego trip for them, especially when larger amounts of people start believing them).
Being able to objectively define a piece of equipment using measurements (with the understanding that anything not measured would not affect the audible sound quality) would utterly destroy this whole cottage industry of subjectivist reviewers and rags. It would kill the boutiques overnight. Audio equipment would become more commoditized. More effort would go towards functionality, physical build quality and interfaces in order to make up for any lack in measurable quality, which I would be 1000% cool with.
The problem is....exactly how do we PROVE that we have finally found ways to measure everything that affects the 'sound'? I feel like the subjectivist will always fall back on the argument that there's things that affect sound that we can't measure...or don't know how to measure...or just don't understand. That's playing the trump card because...how can we ever disprove that?
And I think that even if it finally comes out that Amir's review is accurate, they'll continue to fall back on the argument of how what really matters in the end is, how it 'sounds', which in a way is a logical argument...but it's a DIFFERENT argument, one I'm happy to have and hash out.
In the meantime, I'm loving this thread!
It's always been my opinion that those on the 'subjectivist' side that proclaim that it's more about the bottom line of 'how it sounds' do NOT want to have a world where audio products can be neatly rated using numbers. It would take away their ability to claim that they can somehow hear things that others can't (Ego trip for them, especially when larger amounts of people start believing them).
Being able to objectively define a piece of equipment using measurements (with the understanding that anything not measured would not affect the audible sound quality) would utterly destroy this whole cottage industry of subjectivist reviewers and rags. It would kill the boutiques overnight. Audio equipment would become more commoditized. More effort would go towards functionality, physical build quality and interfaces in order to make up for any lack in measurable quality, which I would be 1000% cool with.
The problem is....exactly how do we PROVE that we have finally found ways to measure everything that affects the 'sound'? I feel like the subjectivist will always fall back on the argument that there's things that affect sound that we can't measure...or don't know how to measure...or just don't understand. That's playing the trump card because...how can we ever disprove that?
And I think that even if it finally comes out that Amir's review is accurate, they'll continue to fall back on the argument of how what really matters in the end is, how it 'sounds', which in a way is a logical argument...but it's a DIFFERENT argument, one I'm happy to have and hash out.
In the meantime, I'm loving this thread!
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