Emotiva RMC-1 AV Processor Review

[digicidal]

Not an original idea on my part—when what was intended to be your customers become your beta testers, your company is in a state of crisis.

That's what I find particularly odd about the criticism of @amirm "not giving them enough notice" before publication. If they had sent a pre-production device for testing, I would agree with that criticism... this is a device which has been for retail sale for months! The day you start taking customer dollars and shipping a product... that's the same as saying "development had ended - this is the result".

Sure (to continue the automotive analogy) you might have to issue a recall or TSB when an unexpected problem occurs... but you don't get to say "you can't judge us on that problem" after you've marketed and sold them. Or at least that's not how other industries work... audio is definitely a bit different it seems (at least to many manufacturers).

 

[Gedeon]

I'm not here for subjective @amirm conclusions, no matter if I could agree or disagree with those.

I'm here because, by now, I still trust in @amirm methods and goals, way more than most of tons of, obviously also respectable, reviewers out there.

Probably most of us, with his knowledge and experience would have done somethings in different ways, but it doesn't lower the value of the job in any substantial way. We must learn to read the data and adapt to our own requirements, decisions and setups. Just that.

I still have so much to learn... I think it's the best part of this hobby... I'm not a pro.

 

[TimoJ]

Not sounding awful is not our criteria here. We are used to superb measured performance, fantastic design and great usability in audio products. We won't stop until we identify such jewels and shower them with our praise.

No AV product tested so far meets the performance bar that is advertised (implicitly or explicitly). We are going to continue to test them. We don't care about your criteria because we are advocates for consumers. Your criteria is met with any audio product regardless of competence in its design and ultimate fidelity.

I still think that the Monoprice HTP-1 got a bad wrap. Sure there are problems, but it seems to be a much higher class device in performance, features, software and support than the RMC-1. Still both got the same headless Pink Panther. Monoprice really should contact you for doing a follow-up review.

 

[Costas EAR]

My problem with DIRAC is it samples down to 48khz

Why dirac samples down to 48 kHz?

 

[markus]

Why dirac samples down to 48 kHz?

Reduced amount of data that needs to be pushed through the DSP. High sampling rates increases the amount of data significantly while the audible benefit is insignificant.

 

[Gedeon]

Reduced amount of data that needs to be pushed through the DSP. High sampling rates increases the amount of data significantly while the audible benefit is insignificant.

And FIR filters must be different sets. Each sampling rate requires a different set of taps which should be reloaded each time the sampling rate varies. Delays also could vary.

Audyssey acts in the same way. Everything is resampled to 48khz.

 

[Costas EAR]

Reference Stereo Mode is the highest quality two channel mode. It’s used by all when not listening to multichannel

No, not "all", just you.

"All" are listening the 2-channel music with auro 3D upmixing.

You should read Dr Floyd Toole's book.

And even his comments here in ASR:

Now with bolds (just to be sure you noticed)

Adding upmixing is a significant improvement on raw stereo.
Copyright by Dr Floyd Toole.

It's obvious that a 5.2 is the minimum setup, and a full immersive 3D setup is the SOTA.
Money and room dimensions are the common problems.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

There is a lot of overwrought worry about both sample rates and bit depth. People often point to professional recording practices to justify both, yet ignore the reasons why. Tracking and mixing is usefully served by a 24/96 path. It provides important guards against truncation of samples, overs and unders, and allows for trivial pitch adjustments or other processes that might run afoul of a sample rate that skate close to the required final bandwidth. Once you have a final mix down and mastering complete the signal can be downsampled to 16/48 or 16/44.1 to yield a final result that has no audible deficiency relative to the 24/96 master.

However, that final result is frozen , and can’t be messed with without a lot of care. But there is never any justification for sample rates higher than 48kHz unless you are performing things like pitch change.

A doubling in sample rate whilst preserving the bandwidth gains you one extra bit of resolution. So in principle a 16/96 data stream has the same resolution as a 17/48. But if the signal was properly dithered 16/48 already has closer to 18 bits in the critically audible bands.

That dither is why care must be taken in the processing chain. It is why I think more than a few of us worry about all of these processing black boxes, and the potential for errors in implementation and integration to cause problems. I don’t trust any of the HT processors to get it right without verification. Nor the software vendors. This mistake by Emotiva is just a simple example of a great swath of potential ills.

 

[Costas EAR]

Reduced amount of data that needs to be pushed through the DSP. High sampling rates increases the amount of data significantly while the audible benefit is insignificant.

So, the problem is cpu load.

To add things up, dirac reduces sampling rate to 48 kHz and reduces SINAD 8 dB's from just starting to use it, so from SINAD 100 you go to SINAD 92 and from a 24/192 file you get only 24/48 or.. 16/48...

Oh, nice to know!


PS. I love dirac. I don't want to listen any setup without the proper target curve and something like dirac for room equalization, even in a perfect treated room.

PS.2. Sorry that i cannot provide double blind tests, but i have tried everything for more than 20 years now, and you have to take my word for that: Trinnov's software is a huge improvement over dirac. Huge. As from sinad 60 to sinad 150. For real.

 

[markus]

dirac [...] reduces SINAD 8 dB's

Why 8dB? Dirac Live applies a max. boost of 10dB. Will have to check again for DL2 once they release a version that fixes gain compensation.

 

[mant]

So, the problem is cpu load.

To add things up, dirac reduces sampling rate to 48 kHz and reduces SINAD 8 dB's from just starting to use it, so from SINAD 100 you go to SINAD 92 and from a 24/192 file you get only 24/48 or.. 16/48...

Oh, nice to know!


PS. I love dirac. I don't want to listen any setup without the proper target curve and something like dirac for room equalization, even in a perfect treated room.

PS.2. Sorry that i cannot provide double blind tests, but i have tried everything for more than 20 years now, and you have to take my word for that: Trinnov's software is a huge improvement over dirac. Huge. As from sinad 60 to sinad 150. For real.

I'm afraid I couldn't agree with you. I listened to Trinnov Alt-16 and StormAudio in a direct comparison and I liked Storm with Dirack better.

 

[audioBliss]

Why dirac samples down to 48 kHz?

It's not a limitation of Dirac but of the implementation/hardware. Dirac is in studio products with 192kHz sampling rate and even higher. This is a limitation of consumer hardware. My Arcam for instance has 48kHz internal Dirac sampling frequency for multichannel but 96kHz for 2 channel. They just need to put more powerful chips in the device as I understand it.

 

[markus]

It's not a limitation of Dirac but of the implementation/hardware. Dirac is in studio products with 192kHz sampling rate and even higher. This is a limitation of consumer hardware. My Arcam for instance has 48kHz internal Dirac sampling frequency for multichannel but 96kHz for 2 channel. They just need to put more powerful chips in the device as I understand it.

Correct. It's just a matter of available processing power. DSPs in AVRs/AVPs are rather limited.

 

[mant]

StormAudio has intentionally omitted 96/192, which does not bring any advantages for the customers.

 

[Costas EAR]

I'm afraid I couldn't agree with you. I listened to Trinnov Alt-16 and StormAudio in a direct comparison and I liked Storm with Dirack better.

Thanks for sharing your findings.

I would like more information about the whole setup and the room measurements, and target curve used to evaluate your opinion.

Storm audio is an excellent possessor and should be the first choice if you want digital outputs, because Trinnov with digital outputs costs more than the double.

Harman group has both of them available with the JBL logo, and at different price points. I suppose that they have an opinion for both of them and a reason for offering both of them and at that price.

 

[mant]

It was an optimized room at the Trinnov Integrator. The target curve was not changed on either instrument. I think with an adjusted curve you can't tell the instruments apart, but the spatiality of the Trinnov is unbeatable.
I am now waiting for MK-2, which comes with AES67.

 

[thxultra]

So, the problem is cpu load.

To add things up, dirac reduces sampling rate to 48 kHz and reduces SINAD 8 dB's from just starting to use it, so from SINAD 100 you go to SINAD 92 and from a 24/192 file you get only 24/48 or.. 16/48...

Oh, nice to know!


PS. I love dirac. I don't want to listen any setup without the proper target curve and something like dirac for room equalization, even in a perfect treated room.

PS.2. Sorry that i cannot provide double blind tests, but i have tried everything for more than 20 years now, and you have to take my word for that: Trinnov's software is a huge improvement over dirac. Huge. As from sinad 60 to sinad 150. For real.

Yet people like the sound better with room correction turned on. Just shows it is about more then just numbers and you have to listen with your ears. Have to use a combination of both I believe. In the case of the RMC1 the numbers found a problem that Emotiva says they fixed.

 

[RichB]

Yet people like the sound better with room correction turned on. Just shows it is about more then just numbers and you have to listen with your ears. Have to use a combination of both I believe. In the case of the RMC1 the numbers found a problem that Emotiva says they fixed.

Some people and that depends at least upon some of the following:

• The room issues they experience
• The ability to create room curves that act as tone controls
• The inability to compare
• Bias confirmation, after all those, predictive charts look wonderful

Most keep running room correction until they like the sound. If the first three are bad and the fourth is good. Hey great. But please don't consider this the apex of the scientific method.

- Rich

 

[thxultra]

Some people and that depends at least upon some of the following:

• The room issues they experience
• The ability to create room curves that act as tone controls
• The inability to compare
• Bias confirmation, after all those, predictive charts look wonderful

Most keep running room correction until they like the sound. If the first three are bad and the fourth is good. Hey great. But please don't consider this the apex of the scientific method.

- Rich

It is pretty easy to turn room correction off and on to compare. All that being said I do feel that my current processor sounds much better then my last one did and my last one had room correction and my current one doesn't (at least as of now). Even once they release DIRAC I don't know that I will use it for 2 channel listening and know I will not for Analogue sources.

 

[Russ_L]

No, not "all", just you.

"All" are listening the 2-channel music with auro 3D upmixing.

You should read Dr Floyd Toole's book.

And even his comments here in ASR:

View attachment 52053

Now with bolds (just to be sure you noticed)

Adding upmixing is a significant improvement on raw stereo.
Copyright by Dr Floyd Toole.

It's obvious that a 5.2 is the minimum setup, and a full immersive 3D setup is the SOTA.
Money and room dimensions are the common problems.

I guess I could have been a little clearer it my statement above; the highest quality listening mode, in any of the XMC or RMC prepro for TWO CHANNEL ONLY listening, is the Reference Stereo Mode. In Bolds to make sure you noticed.