Long awaited Smyth SVS Realiser NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE - Page 112

dsperber said everything very well. In case you are wondering the PS3 does work directly into the Realiser. Just go into the audio output settings and turn all of the DD/DTS options off, and make sure all of the PCM ones are on. I have no idea how your cable box works. I don't have cable, so I am not even sure how it works here. Just go into your cable box's audio output settings and see what the options are. If you buy it, you should definitely have a studio visit lined up. I forgot what I paid for travel and studio time, but it was a little under $1000. I considered it part of the purchase price.

 

I don't remember reading much about the Headzone. I am sure people who have not used the Realiser like it. 

 

 

silverlight, those Savoy Signature speakers look amazing. I have never heard a pair of Egglestonworks, but I would like to. Two of my friends went to Amsterdam to visit another friend of ours working on his Masters Degree there. If I had known about Wisseloord I may have gone as well. 

Hoax: the whole point of the realiser is to use personalized hrtfs (prirs here). The salesman telling you a library of prirs will be good is a plain liar or is just clueless. Either way, if you're not going to obtain those prirs, just go get a headzone or one of these artificial virtualizers, you'll save yourself a lot of money. Plus, if you're happy with the level of fidelity of such device, why want to spend so much more.

Hoax,

 

I bought the Realiser without access to calibration or PRIR's. A few kind Head-Fi'ers sent me on their calibrations and I have found one that I find works very well for me, better than the personalised PRIR I made with my old midfi- system. Some work pretty well and some are terrible. It's a total crap shoot as to whether or not one of the PRIR's a vendor sends works well for you. Having said that, it may well stilll work out better than the Headzone which is not personalised.

 

If you think you may be able to get a personal PRIR done sometime in the future you may want to go the Realiser route. The PRIR's they give will work to a cetain extent and you may get lucky. 

 

Incidentally the German studio is charging €950 for a stand alone calibration. I'm in Ireland and I can't justify that cost plus flights and accomodation. If they will include a personalisation as part of the €3k cost I'd highly recommend you go down that route if at all possible - are there any budget airlines where you are that can get you to Munich?

 

 

Hi Socrates,

 

How tweakable are the PRIR's ? Is it possible to tweak other PRIR's to a point where you would (almost) get the same result as if you measured them yourself? I know most of you guys are probably perfectionists and aim for that exact clone but if I have no idea how it originally sounded but I can still get a hell of a sound of it that would give me that surround feeling. I would be more than happy :)

 

I live In Holland, next to germany however Munich is still 840 KM away. I really dont mind spending a few hundred euros on a trip and calibration, however I dont have a car so it would be a travel with busses/planes/taxi etc. And i might have to spend a night in a Hotel overnight. I just dont feel like going trough all the hassle just to get a good sounding sound system.

 

@ DSPERBER

 

The headzone actually uses the same concept as the realiser, but it uses a virtual room you have to tweak to your likings unlike the realiser where you could actually clone real setups. The headzone is a more limited because of this and according to the experts it will give a less natural feeling because of this

Edited by Hoax - 4/27/12 at 8:08am

 

 

Hi Hoax,

 

The only tweak I did was to alter the distance of the speakers from me. There is a facility to make the sound nearer or further. The PRIR that worked for me was taken further from the screen than would be the case for me. I know there is a facility for equalizing various bands but I haven't tried any of that out. The PRIR works very well for me, so I don't want to mess around with it. If you download the manual you can see the various tweaks you can do.

 

Socrates

Edited by Socrates - 4/30/12 at 2:00am

Thanks for your reply..

 

I just got a message from the importer, I only got 2 weeks before I have to send it back. So that means having to find my way around this thing to use and tweak is very limited.. I was planning on trying with my beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro's first. However I dont have time to fool around and try another headphone later on if im not happy with the result so I guess its best to just get a good headphone right away .. The importer doesnt sell Stax, I found a shop in my own country selling Stax but they only got the SR 003 & SR 307 as their cheapest ones rather than the SR 202 that Smyth recommends, Is any of these any good or should I try a different one If i cant get the SR 202 ? Also im guessing the 307 would need amp?

 

Edit -

 

Just googled the SR 003 and those are not needed for sure.. remains the 307 as alternative for the 202

Edited by Hoax - 4/30/12 at 7:47am

Yes, any Stax headphone will need their amp/energiser.

 

Based on all the reviews I've read your biggest exposure will be getting a good match on the PRIR. You will make a personalised HPEQ for your DT990's and your ears, and combine this with the PRIR's the vendor will sell you. If it sounds lousy, no headphone will improve it enough to be satisfactory. A number of the reviews have said that the Realiser does an incredible job even with budget headphones, amd I see from reviews the DT990's are well regarded. Unless you were planning to upgrade anyway you may just want to try out the DT990's first, and upgrade later.

 

The main things to check with any setting when using someone elses PRIR are (i) how is the out of the head experience, are the speakers where they should be (they can be isolated using the remote so you can check each one individually, the centre speaker being the most important)  and  (ii) are they too bright or too dull, or acceptable.

 

You don't need to go electrostatic either, a good set of dynamic headphones would be fine. Before I got my Audeze LCD2, I used the Sennheiser HD650 and it was excellent. One thing I did need was an amp, the built in amp in the Realiser was insufficient to drive the headphones without clipping or distortion at high volumes or with deep bass notes. I also used a Stax 3030 headphone/amp combo. I found it worked very well except that the plastic shell of the stax cans seemed to creak  a bit when I moved my body.

 

If you go ahead with the purchase and want some additional PRIR's I can send you what I've got.

 

 

 

Edited by Hoax - 4/30/12 at 8:53am

Having some troubles with the new Emotiva UMC-1 preamp.

 

Previously everything worked for 7.1 channel audio using my PC soundcard as the source. Now with the Emotiva as a source, it will only recognize the Realiser as a 2 channel amp.

 

PC - HDMI > Emotiva - HDMI > Realiser.

 

 

Tried all options for input selections.

 

Last thing I can think of is that the Emotiva is reading the headphone jack, but how (I am using the Realiser headphone jack for now)? The Realiser has 7.1 channel input.

 

Maybe a DAC with Optical input from the Realiser will solve this problem.

 

I have sound with the Realiser, but no C, LS, LB, RS, RB.  Only stereo works.

 

 

Also I have a HDMI output from the Realiser to a display port on my PC, this is only a dummy, I have a D-DVI input from the PC for a 120hz screen.

Edited by HDMan - 5/1/12 at 1:48am

I spent some time looking for a pre-pro that would output multi-channel PCM. I could not find one in my price range that does this and I checked the manuals of half a dozen. I'm guessing it is a limit from the content providers who are concerned that if the encrypted input is converted to multi-channel PCM, it can easily be copied. (Total nonsense, ofcourse.) I'm unsure why the Oppo can output multi-channel PCM on HDMI, but pre-pros don't. Smyth's HDMI solution is very limited because they don't decode any of the common multi-channel formats other than PCM.

 

Agreed, would have been a great inclusion, but presumably the licensing costs would have affecting pricing?  I happen to do some movie viewing from my computer (Mac Mini w/ HDMI out), and I definitely had to go through some hoops to convert some blu ray ISO's I keep on my media server (TrueHD/DTS-MA/etc into PCM and remuxing into an MKV file, etc.) in order for it to work on the computer.  Enough of a hassle I won't be doing that too often...  Will try to get going with just using the Oppo 93 as BD player and media server

For those of you who have done you measurements at AIX, I have a question:

 

Lorr has told me that there are two possible systems I can be calibrated to.  the first would be to do a 7.1 and 5.1 with their B&W/profounder system.  The other choice is to do that, plus their JBL 5.1 cinema system.  Anyone done both?  If so what are the differences?  I have a few weeks to decide before I go to LA, but thought I get your opinions.  Thanks,

 

will

 

Having just been there a couple weeks ago, at AIX's suggestion I just stuck with the B&W setup.  They viewed that the JBL setup was less impressive than the B&W configuration, and I was running a little short of time so didn't do measurements with them.  Its not that much more to have the JBL done while you're there and you'll get the choice on the fly to do it or not.  So not actual feedback, but hope this is helpful.