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Emotiva RMC-1+ AV Processor Review

Rate this AV Processor:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 192 88.1%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 21 9.6%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 1 0.5%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 4 1.8%
  • Total voters
    218
SuicideSquid said:
Couple that with the really abysmal performance, which might be borderline-acceptable in a budget product but is unforgiveable in a pre/pro at this price and with this feature set, and I had to vote "Terrible". Emotiva needs to get their act together.
Click to expand...
Agree completely!
If I remember correctly the XMC-1 measured (?) better at half the price.
 
Alas, I am an owner of an RMC-1L. I started with the XMC-1. Upgraded the HDMI board, then upgraded to the RMC-1L. I have been waiting on this review to see if it's worth me spending my cash, bread, money on upgrading, yet again. I don't think that'll happen now.

For me the worst part of owning this unit has been its unreliability. It's so fickle, you have to develop a strategy to turn it on. Bizarre, I know.

I have the RMC hooked up to a power conditioner as I found that it would spontaneously misbehave, especially around dinner time with lots of appliances going. This is my turn-on routine:

With my projector turned off, I turn on the power conditioner first, then the RMC, which takes about 2 minutes to fully boot. There are tell tale signs that this is proceeding smoothly. About 10% of the time it doesn't get to the end of the boot process, so I have to turn everything off and wait 10 minutes then try again.

Once the RMC has booted up I wait a little while, then I take it out of standby. Once it has settled down and tuner looks like it is working, I turn on the power amps and power-up my active speakers. Last I put on the projector. I use the remote to switch the HDMI inputs, avoiding cycling though inputs, waiting about 15 seconds between input changes. This a major reason for crashing the RMC.

Then, if we are lucky, we get to watch a movie. However, if I'm using my Apple TV and the audio codec changes, I will have to change the audio processing settings to get the RMC to get back in sync with the audio codec. It's like it's possessed by some vengeful demon.

It's painful. My wife hates this box more than any other in the house. Yet I have given Emotiva the benefit of the doubt for a decade, hoping that will finally get their shit together. Alas, after Amir's review, I think that's it. They seem like really nice people. They just can't deliver a product that works well.

Thanks again Amir for your stellar work. I think you are now the cat among the pigeons on the EmotivaLounge boards.
 
Last edited:
GXAlan said:
This shows how much of a deal and opportunity the Monolith HTP-1 was. Had that been championed as one of the best 16 ch processors from 2019 (!) there may have been more sales giving a larger user base for both updates and upgrades.
Click to expand...
The HTP-1 is still in production:

Monolith by Monoprice HTP-1 16-Channel Home Theater Processor with Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro-3D, Roon Ready, and Dirac Live Bass Control Compatibility - Monoprice.com

The Monolith™ HTP‑1 is an "AVR" or "Pre‑Processor" designed for use in home theaters. It supports Dolby Atmos®, DTS:X®, Auro‑3D®, and Dirac Live
www.monoprice.com

That being said, for a little less money, I will upgrade my Sony STR-za5000es to a Sony STR-az7000es. As much as I would like to go with a pre/pro and separate amplification, there are just too many quirks to do so when the Sony is an extremely polished product with “good enough” fidelity.
 
I've always been of the opinion these AV Processors are rip-offs: Worst electronics, placed in oversized cases with all kinds of flashy lights so the rubes think they're getting something, and lack of support and replacement components so three years down the road another $5 k purchase is required if they want to continue to show Disney Pixar films on family movie nights. All that, and lousy performance most of all.

And really, what are these processors but uni-tasking firmware driven computers married to multichannel Dacs and amps--and the crappiest dacs and amps at that?

So I keep harping on it: Why can't they just give us a piece of software that does all the processing, let us run it on our PCs and send an LPCM stream of the decoded sound to a great multichannel Dac, like a Motu, or an Octo or a Topping? Not only would such a set up take up less real estate in our living rooms, but it would be more energy efficient, and certainly would not need to cost anywhere near $5 k or more.

Sell PCs with the licensing fees for Atmos, Dts-x and Auro 3D already bundled in. JRiver already has the software, and Dac manufacturers could as easily make 16 channel USB Dacs as they do two channel ones. Computer manufacturers could then upgrade video HDMI output to include Dolby Vision and HDR+, and eARC. And the computer that does all that could be the size of a pack of playing cards and cost way, way less than $5 k.

That's just a saner way to do things and it would encourage more people to get into home theater with modest and affordable rigs. Rather than trying to sell this stuff exclusively to the guys with 5000 sf McMansions in the exurbs, the Codec overlords would find themselves making more money by finding millions of people willing to add Atmos decoding to their PC's for an extra $50 or so. There is more than one way to make your money, guys. The whole, entire business model needs to be rethought.

Good review, Amir, thank you.
 
phoenixdogfan said:
I've always been of the opinion these AV Processors are rip-offs: Worst electronics, placed in oversized cases with all kinds of flashy lights so the rubes think they're getting something, and lack of support and replacement components so three years down the road another $5 k purchase is required if they want to continue to show Disney Pixar films on family movie nights. All that, and lousy performance most of all.

And really, what are these processors but uni-tasking firmware driven computers married to multichannel Dacs and amps--and the crappiest dacs and amps at that?

So I keep harping on it: Why can't they just give us a piece of software that does all the processing, let us run it on our PCs and send an LPCM stream of the decoded sound to a great multichannel Dac, like a Motu, or an Octo or a Topping? Not only would such a set up take up less real estate in our living rooms, but it would be more energy efficient, and certainly would not need to cost anywhere near $5 k or more.

Sell PCs with the licensing fees for Atmos, Dts-x and Auro 3D already bundled in. JRiver already has the software, and Dac manufacturers could as easily make 16 channel USB Dacs as they do two channel ones. Computer manufacturers could then upgrade video HDMI output to include Dolby Vision and HDR+, and eARC. And the computer that does all that could be the size of a pack of playing cards and cost way, way less than $5 k.

That's just a saner way to do things and it would encourage more people to get into home theater with modest and affordable rigs. Rather than trying to sell this stuff exclusively to the guys with 5000 sf McMansions in the exurbs, the Codec overlords would find themselves making more money by finding millions of people willing to add Atmos decoding to their PC's for an extra $50 or so. There is more than one way to make your money, guys.

Good review, Amir, thank you.
Click to expand...
About 10-20 years ago, the industry tried making what you propose and marketed them as “HTPC” machines. They didn’t sell well.
 
Last edited:
In China, there seems to be a twin brother of this kind. https://en.tonewinner.com/

It's also a bulky device with over a dozen audio channels, priced at approximately 1K in US dollars. But when sold at 5K, I think it's a bit outrageous...
 
Emotiva at one point made great gear for the money. I own their Gen.2 stuff (Amp, pre-amp, DAC) and it's given me flawless performance for over a decade now. Their Gen.3 stuff on the other hand, has suffered from unreliability and lackluster performance. I've yet to see a positive review for their A/V processors. At this point, Emotiva wouldn't be on my shopping list.
 
GD Fan said:
It has gotten to where AVR / AVP tests are my favorites - they seem to always leave the most room for improvement and therefore really need Amir's ASR treatment.

We need a fifth voting option for the piggybank panther!
Click to expand...
It is so frustrating, because there are enough decent (though expensive) AVRs and AVPs to establish that better performance is possible. And I'm guessing that improving performance would not significantly raise product BOMs -- it would require prioritizing better performance and investing a bit more in NRE. Obviously most brands have made the calculation that they will not be penalized for bad performance.

Funny because our small audiophile community is demanding better bench test performance of the general type that earlier generations of audiophiles rejected when guys like Julian Hirsch performed them.
 
Drop shipped to you?

My bet is that Emotiva will be getting at least one return on this device.
 
NicS said:
Alas, I am an owner of an RMC-1L. I started with the XMC-1. Upgraded the HDMI board, then upgraded to the RMC-1L. I have been waiting on this review to see if it worth me spending cash, bread, money on upgrading it yet again. I don't think that'll happen now.

For me the worst part of owning this unit has been its unreliability. It's so fickle, you have to develop a strategy to turn it on. Bizarre, I know.

I have the RMC hooked up to a power conditioner as I found that it would spontaneously misbehave, especially around dinner time with lots of appliances going. This is my turn-on routine:

With my projector turned off, I turn on the power conditioner first, then the RMC, which takes about 2 minutes to fully boot. There are tell tale signs that this is proceeding smoothly. About 10% of the time it doesn't get to the end of the boot process, so I have to turn everything off and wait 10 minutes then try again.

Once the RMC has booted up I wait a little while, then I take it out of standby. Once it has settled down and tuner looks like it is working, I turn on the power amps and power-up my active speakers. Last I put on the projector. I use the remote to switch the HDMI inputs, avoiding cycling though inputs, waiting about 15 seconds between input changes. This a major reason for crashing the RMC.

Then, if we are lucky, we get to watch a movie. However, if I'm using my Apple TV and the audio codec changes, I will have to change in the audio processing settings to get the RMC to get in sync with the audio codec. It's like it's possessed by some vengeful demon.

It's painful. My wife hates this box more than any other in the house. Yet I have given Emotiva the benefit of the doubt for a decade, hoping that will finally get their shit together. Alas, after Amir's review, I think that's it. They seem like really nice people. They just can't deliver a product that works well.

Thanks again Amir for your stellar work. I think you are now the cat among the pigeons on the EmotivaLounge boards.
Click to expand...
Why do you have it in low power mode? It turns on in like 5 seconds otherwise. While I agree that my XMC2 has issues in that it loses sound with the eARC board, it’s only in this case it takes a while to reboot from scratch…it’s not the norm.

Btw, I’m also not planning on upgrading to the + model since it’s hardly an upgrade. I’ll live with the occasional reboot…most times the XMC2 stays off anyway since I have a dedicated 2 channel preamp and I just watch stuff in stereo and listen to music with much higher quality sound. Just need the Emotiva for movies.

Quite disappointing with the measurements considering how the + owners were raving about the sound improvements. It measure 10 points worse than the RMC1.
 
Cogito said:
Emotiva at one point made great gear for the money. I own their Gen.2 stuff (Amp, pre-amp, DAC) and it's given me flawless performance for over a decade now. Their Gen.3 stuff on the other hand, has suffered from unreliability and lackluster performance. I've yet to see a positive review for their A/V processors. At this point, Emotiva wouldn't be on my shopping list.
Click to expand...
There gen2 stuff was decent for the price but it certainly wasn’t close to being considered “high end”. Then gen3 they doubled the price and has worse sound with the switching transformers.

When one of your focus on the next generation is reduced shipping costs, it’s not a great recipe for success.
 
daniboun said:
From inside

View attachment 477945
Click to expand...
That seems to be the XMC 2+, not the RMC-1+. ;)

The RMC-1+ is a fairly new model, released late '24.

@amirm tested the RMC-1 back in 2020, however the measurements appear to be quite different so I assume there has been design changes... that had more harmonic distortion and less noise, whereas this seems to have the reverse.

1758683088425.png



JSmith
 
I owned the XMC-1 for 4-5 years.
Had the HDMI board die after about 2-3 years.
I traded it in for the XMC-2.
First problem was the cpu died and required a replacement about 4 months after purchasing.
Sometime later a firmware update introduced the bass bug which persisted for several subsequent firmware updates and over 1-1/2 years.
Then the HDMI board died and the bass bug was still there.
That was enough for me and I bought a Denon 3800.
 
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