Ok, I finally got to play around with it. What a mess of a product.
I would not recommend it for any of its intended uses because while it kind of works like a undergraduate class project, the amount of glitches, the sorry state of the PlayFi software from DTS (who should be ashamed of putting out such an app, it is beyond bad) but necessary for its intended use is a showstopper. This was a failed Sonos competitor and why they are clearing it out. There are also significant security gaps in the way this is initially configured and it has an unprotected web interface where the firmware can be updated. So, make sure that this unit is not ever used in any public, shared or compromised networks. This is a common problem with many of these IoT units.
However, I would recommend this product as a S/PDIF inline DRC unit with pretty good Anthem Room Correction to play around with. The results are pretty good and it is the cheapest one at this clearance price with a decent DRC and an included calibrated mic and is far more user friendly than REW to get setup quick.
As to the noise between tracks, I narrowed it down to non-muting or perhaps delayed muting of the S/PDIF output while syncing up to the beginning of the input stream.
This is a problem that has plagued many early and/or cheap DACs and AVRs but this particular configuration is not encountered frequently because S/PDIF in and S/PDIF out is not a common use case. From what I can see, this unit does mute the analog out for and S/PDIF in and analog in should not have this particular problem of a pop/noise (but may have other issues like chopping off the beginning if the DSP is slow to wake up, I have not tested these configurations). There is some evidence that muting and unmuting is very slow on this machine. For example, if you are using a PC as a source, the short system clicks and other short UI sounds are dropped (it will only play one out of 3 or 4 coming in quick succession).
Of course, use of the analog introduces the use of the DAC (to do DRC) which may introduce noise except at lower output levels as the measurements show.
The solution to this is to use player software that pre-gaps any track (unless it is present as a non-gap playlist which will not have this problem) with a caveat. What triggers this seems to be stopping the input bits for silence and starting again for the next one which requires renewed syncing processing by the unit. However, silence can also be “played”, in other words the input frames are coming in but the content input levels are zero. Even if a new stream starts with this played silence, the pop will happen but it is a silent one. This is why music that starts naturally with silence or low volume seems immune to this problem.
To be fair, I don’t particularly find even a pop that problematic but tracks that start with a bang can be startling because it plays the bits without syncing and restarts after syncing. So YMMV as to its acceptability. Great if you can have player software that ensures silent playing at the beginning with a setting. Different software does this differently.
But once you are past that, it works very well as an ARC room correction box for two channel PCM sound (I will have a post later on how you can do 2.1 correction or SW integration with this unit if you have an AVR or powered speaker that has crossover settings). The PW Amp has SW out and so can do 2.1 and bass management on its own using ARC genesis. Not PW link unless you can do a workaround since ARC genesis sees only two speakers to configure this unit.
Whether they will have an update to fix the muting problem, I doubt it. This looks like an abandoned child at Paradigm for the core firmware but this appears to be built for modular updates.
The PlayFi subsystem can be updated independently by DTS software without requiring a core firmware update and this is done via the app. Similarly, ARC does its own update to ensure compatibility with ARC protocol/api and so is able to support the latest ARC genesis to be used on this.
As an experimental DRC box that is relatively cheap, it has a lot of potential. The calibration files for the included mic for use with REW can be done if one has access to another calibrated mic like the minidsp one that works with REW. But this mic can be used with REW for a number of things that does not require calibration like speaker delay settings, etc. Also works reasonably well in REW for level balancing using pink noise without calibration.
The ultimate experimental goal would be to reverse engineer the protocol between the ARC Genesis and the PW link and spoof an Anthem unit with multiple channels to get the filter definitions for use with any parametric equalizer like a miniDSP or software like Equalizer APO. Purely for educational purposes, of course.
Will have some posts later on how to get the most out of ARC with 2.0 or 2.1 setups using the professional mode to get the tonal balance you like and smoothing out the response across the spectrum.