Emotiva Stepped On Their D!<% Again

[muslhead]

Thanks to @Jbrunwa for the heads up on this as the info validated some crazy stuff I was hearing with my Emotiva processor. Not sure which of their AV product line are affected (I believe its only Gen3) but I know for sure my XMC2 is, unfortunately.

It appears some gremlins in the processor are applying somewhere between a 3 and 10 boost to bass frequencies (one example showed more than 20db) when using the processor's internal bass management. The range is dependent upon a number of things including size of speakers, audio mode, xo's, number of subs, etc. Due to the number of variables and the fact its in its early stages, there are no fixes and Emotiva is just now finding out about it thanks to someone who did a lot of work testing a bunch of different scenarios (see chart below) and posted on their forum. Emotiva has yet to say anything publicly and when speaking to them about it, at least they do acknowledge there is a problem but have no idea what's causing it, how long it will be until its fixed or even provide a temporary solution. There response to this has dimmed any possibility for me to buy anything of theirs in the future. As we all know its not about having problems (as that is just normal SOP in this business) its how you address them and take care of your customers (immediately think of the best example of doing it right which is how @JohnYang1997 does business)

In case you are wondering ... No, its not a Dirac issue nor can it be fixed with Dirac. If you think you may be affected or if you are interested to find out more since i am just scraping the surface of detailing the problem, you can go to their forum (i think you may have to sign up) and go to this link
https://emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/58985/g3p-elevated-bm-lfe-issue

After a huge spike when i first became aware of it, I am now hearing weird output out of my subwoofer. It may have been overdriven and damaged it. But I asked Emotiva on who i should be talking to if i need to get it fixed and they ignored my question. I thought the elevated bass i was hearing was caused by a coincidental dirac re-configuration I did.

 

[Martin]

Do manufacturers actually test anything anymore?

Martin

 

[muslhead]

I love rhetorical questions as there is no way to give the wrong answer LOL

 

[muslhead]

I just got a response from their "technical guru" about this issue who responded

"What's happening is that, with multiple subs, the bass should be SPLIT between them, and it is being routed fully to each. We are looking into when and why this is happening and I expect it to be taken care of shortly."

 

[DonH56]

Whatever "shortly" means these days...

Dirac Live knows nothing about bass management, and the way DL is placed in the signal chain by Emotiva means DL will not compensate for the boost (or the crossover, for that matter). You should be able to go in and adjust the target curves for the individual subs, a somewhat painful process, or the trim level for the subs (for a while Emotiva did not expose that control after DL, no idea if it is available now).

 

[muslhead]

Whatever "shortly" means these days...

Dirac Live knows nothing about bass management, and the way DL is placed in the signal chain by Emotiva means DL will not compensate for the boost (or the crossover, for that matter). You should be able to go in and adjust the target curves for the individual subs, a somewhat painful process, or the trim level for the subs (for a while Emotiva did not expose that control after DL, no idea if it is available now).

Yah, that is one solution BBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT
I would have to have a target curve for every different mode and input as it varies

 

[DonH56]

Yah, that is one solution BBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT
I would have to have a target curve for every different mode and input as it varies

Lovely. One reason my XMC-1 is sitting in its box, not traded in for a XMC-2 or whatever, and replaced by another AVP in my main system these days. It's been what, 3-4 years since the RMC-1 was announced, at least a couple of years since it was generally available, and still has major bugs? At least this particular bug should be an easy fix.

 

[muslhead]

Oh, now you tell me.
Thanks a lot. Where were you when i planked my hard earned money down for this POS?
I guess in this space there seems to be nothing that is not, in some way or another, plagued some problem or another (unless you got $20k to drop for a trinnov)

 

[Jbrunwa]

Oh, now you tell me.
Thanks a lot. Where were you when i planked my hard earned money down for this POS?
I guess in this space there seems to be nothing that is not, in some way or another, plagued some problem or another (unless you got $20k to drop for a trinnov)

In my mind the XMC-2 is a few bugs and features short of being a really excellent product. If they could fix the bass management bug, make the Dirac Bass Control option available assuming that Dirac has solved their own bass management bug, get rock solid video switching, and add html configuration I would be very satisfied. I so hope that Emotiva is successful with this platform.

 

[DonH56]

A look through the Emotiva Lounge will provide a list of owners quite satisfied with their XMC-2/RMC-1 products and who claim no significant flaws are present in their systems. And that all other processors have bugs as well. To some extent that is true, but by and large most other AVR/AVP manufacturers seem to either release with fewer bugs or be able to fix them more quickly. And perhaps others have just as many issues but not as active a lounge website? But AVS and other sites provide plenty of outlets for users to voice criticism and praise...

While my XMC-1 had a lot of HDMI switching issues after the HDMI board upgrade, I am not sure anything has absolutely rock-solid HDMI negotiation with all HDMI source/sink combinations. As a spec HDMI has plenty of its own shortcomings. My XMC-1 prior to the video board upgrade was pretty stable, needing a reboot maybe once or twice a year. (After the upgrade, it was many months before it got anything close to reliable.) Just following a few processors (Denon, Emotiva, Marantz, Pioneer, Trinnov, Yamaha, etc.) I do not recall any with as many problems that took (take?) so long to fix as the Emotiva XMC-1 after the upgrade and the XMC-2/RMC-1 family, at least whilst I was researching and then following their progress on various audio fora. And, while it apparently works, the RaspberryPi add-on for Dirac Live still feels like a kludge to me...

But, it is one-half to one-third or less the price of a Trinnov unit, the usual counter argument to any criticism. As more and more "mainstream" AVRs and AVPs with 16 or more channels are released Emotiva will have to contend with more and more competition.

That said, JBL did themselves no favors with their SDP-55 roll-out...

 

[apgood]

Have Emotiva released any expansion modules for their RMC-1 yet. Seem to remember that was supposed to be one of the selling points.

 

[Worth Davis]

I had a few of their pre Dirac processors, never again. The old amps were a good price point, new stuff isn’t really as good a price and performance ratio. I might pick up the monoproce 16 channel pre amp. Still running a denon for theater and SHD for music.

just replace the driver if it’s crackling, it’s on its way to blown. I think I blew a few drivers back in the day when Batman dark knight came out and I had it cranked up to divorce levels

 

[Jbrunwa]

Have Emotiva released any expansion modules for their RMC-1 yet. Seem to remember that was supposed to be one of the selling points.

No. I saw something in May about plans for phono stage, additional balanced inputs, additional balanced outputs, maybe this year, but have not heard any news since then.

 

[sealman]

So here we are 2 months later and still no fix for the bass bug. Actually I should say 8-9 months since they were aware of it in January this year and possibly earlier than that.

 

[muslhead]

So here we are 2 months later and still no fix for the bass bug. Actually I should say 8-9 months since they were aware of it in January this year and possibly earlier than that.

Bur, be assured, they are working on it

 

[sealman]

And another month goes by with no fix for the Bass bug. I will point out that the bug was not always present as it was introduced after the 1.9 firmware.

 

[muslhead]

And another month goes by with no fix for the Bass bug. I will point out that the bug was not always present as it was introduced after the 1.9 firmware.

This should be no surprise to anyone except those with their heads in the sand or who have not been a part of the emotiva product CF, disappointing as it is.

 

[ElectricKoolAid]

My first post on here, I follow the Emotiva Lounge regularly. I'm pretty frustrated at the lack of any updates or even mention of this by Emotiva. It seems their strategy is to keep quiet until they release the next firmware. I'm guessing it comes from the history (so I'm told) of over promising and under delivering. My guess is that they've adopted a new strategy which is to not promise, and hopefully overdeliver - since there was no mention of anything to begin with.

I can understand being a small company and the challenges something like this can present, but any kind of update would be great, even acknowledgement of the issue at all. What's even worse is some Emotiva employees will interject comments on the forums about random discussions, but has not even once commented on the Elevated Bass issue thread over there (as far as I can remember).

The only reason I have any hope that they are working on this is cause the user who reported this issue has said that Emotiva is making some progress, but there have been no updates in weeks and so who knows when or if this will be fixed. It's crazy to me there's only been two firmware updates this year for these processors, honestly none of them have really made my processor function any better if I'm being honest...

 

[muslhead]

Welcome to ASR.
If you step back and look at Emotivas actions (or lack thereof) it sends a clear message
What you do with it is up to you, for me, I will never own another Emotiva item. Ever. Again

 

[sealman]

honestly none of them have really made my processor function any better if I'm being honest...

Other than the persisting bass issue the last update did improve the HDMI handshake time in my system. It (XMC-2) also gets along with my Nvidia Shield much better than the last 3 firmware's.