Long awaited Smyth SVS Realiser NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE - Page 157

Hard to say exactly what could account for each and every one of your problems, but the "skill of the calibrator" could certainly contribute greatly.  The proper placement of the two microphones in your ears is THE most crucial factor when doing either PRIR or HPEQ calibration.  If they are in too far, or misaligned/rotated, then the resulting sound that "they hear" will not provide an accurate representation of what your own ears hear.  If the microphones are jostled a bit, or move when the headphones get put over them for the brief HPEQ calibration process, again the results will be impaired.  It's like similar non-optimal results from knocking your prescription eyeglasses out of alignment, or sitting on them, or even worse trying to borrow someone else's prescription eyeglasses and think you will be able to see properly.  You have similar non-optimal performance from the Realiser when you just try to use someone else's PRIR!

Also, although it takes somewhat longer, my own personal method of doing a PRIR is to do (a) long sweep of 12 seconds through each speaker vs. short sweep of 4 seconds, and (b) number of repetitions 4 vs. just 1 just to minimize the effect of involuntary body movements and other things which might get picked up in the microphones, with the results averaged out by the Realiser.  That's a total required time of 12x longer to create the PRIR, but my own feeling is that is will probably produce a "more accurate result" (though that may be a bit placebo effect).

Also, I can say that while the entry-level Stax headphone system is "acceptable" in providing what SVS requires, it cannot compare to the high-end Stax systems in just being a high-quality headphone system.  The better the headphone system, the better EVERYTHING sounds... including trying to duplicate a high-end speaker system through the Realiser. And I'm not just talking about loudness or "tonal quality" (although inevitably the brain handles sound with "louder seems better"), I'm talking about the ability to do what is needed to accomplish in analog form what the digital signal processing in the Realiser/PRIR/HPEQ system is trying to accomplish which also has a "spatial relationship of sound direction" aspect to it.

Bottom line, there could be a number of factors which contributed to your less-than-satisfying demonstration experience but I would "blame" the calibrator probably in microphone placement in your ears, since you say the actual sound in the room was very high-end and wonderful.  Your lofty expectations of being able to have the Realiser be able to duplicate EXACTLY all of the audio and spatial direction cues your own ears/brain pick up when listening to real speakers, well these are probably well-founded although this is obviously still just a process of trying to "simulate" multi-directional sound via DSP and just two L/R stereo headphones.  And of course listening to anything through headphones is not going to move huge air masses against your body like big speakers will for experiencing low-frequency sound the same way.  After all, it is fundamentally "headphone sound", not speakers, and the fundamental differences are obvious.  And if it was simply the entry-level Stax headphone system being used for the demo, well that too is a factor even for just listening to 2-channel stereo sound "straight through".

The Realiser does an amazing job of making that all happen, though a better headphone delivery system side of the process certainly adds to the illusion quality.  But at the core, the PRIR/HPEQ is really the most critical component.

Maybe give it a second try, given these new insights?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HerbHHH 

I will probably give it another go, but its a two hour drive to the dealership.   I could hear very clearly the great potential in the system but I don't exactly see how I can get that potential realized given all the complexities involved.  I would guess only a few folks really know how to set these up.

Just to show that "not all demos are unsuccessful" and obviously can vary somewhat due to lots of variables and factors, here's a quote of a private conversation I had with a member of the Oppo BDP-103 "owners thread" over on AVS Forum.  He had seen my comments about being motivated to buy the 103 mostly for its external HDMI inputs, so that I could plug my cable DVR into the 103 via HDMI and take advantage of the 103's ability to decode to LPCM and put it out over its HDMI-2 output (with video going out over its HDMI-1 to my HDTV).  The HDMI-2 audio-only decoded LPCM output then goes to the Realiser's HDMI-input, thus allowing me to use HDMI input on the Realiser for any source coming through the 103: true BluRay discs, or external HDMI input such as HDTV from my DVR.

Anyway, he was intrigued and told me about a private demo he'd had last year at DTS Headquarters, of a "new technology" he now decided was strikingly similar to SVS in the Realiser.  They didn't tell him what it really was or even have a name for it, though in retrospect their description sure sounds like SVS.  A bit of personal research by him after his visit uncovered the existence of the Smyth Realiser itself.  He has since concluded they might be working on a licensed version, to include somehow in DTS codec packages they already license to equipment manufacturers. When he told me about this, I observed it sounded very similar to the Yamaha project rumored to exist some years back to do the same type of thing, i.e. come out with a low-priced playback-only "imbedded" version of SVS technology which would not include PRIR measurement capability but could use a PRIR for listening... much like Dolby Headphone works in many AVR's.

Assuming he was getting a "demo" of something like SVS with a "generic PRIR" rather than a personally measured PRIR, here are his comments:

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I don't believe that DTS is trying to build an AVR. I believe (and, again, this is just speculation) that they're trying to build a processor/decoder that they can license to AVR manufacturers the same as they license their current DTS decoders. What they played for me was fed from a computer workstation.

Whether this theoretical product will be playback-only or something else, I don't know. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to build the PRIR calibration into a receiver, similar to Audyssey and similar auto-calibration tools in receivers now.

In any case, when I visited, this was all proof-of-concept. They aren't ready to announce anything formally yet.

However, having experienced this, I was then very intrigued to learn that Smyth already has a working product available now. Sadly, it's a little out of my price range at the moment.

In answer to your question, I did not have a PRIR calibrated to me. They had me listen to one that they said reflected an "average listener" and told me that it would be even better with a personalized profile. The "average listener" one was pretty darn amazing.

First, they played an audio clip through the 11.1 speaker system in the studio. Then they had me put on the headphones and played the same clip. At first, I thought they had screwed something up and were still playing through the speakers. But I was puzzled as to why the headphones over my ears didn't muffle the sound coming from the speakers. I had to take the headphones off and put them back on to fully process what was happening. The clip sounded absolutely identical to their speaker array, down to the precise location and directionality of each speaker. I couldn't tell the difference at all.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by darthmatin 

I would like to know whether realiser supports 2 headphones at once through rca and optical out. Anyone tested it?

There are analog L/R headphone outputs on both rear and front (primarily for connection convenience, as the outputs are otherwise identical).  So on the analog side, the device itself supports two separate headphone output paths with identical signal, which could be delivered to two separate headphone/amp paths.  Just remember you'd be sharing one common PRIR/HPEQ with this method, which might be fine for the person who "owns" the calibration set, but will force the second listener to be using the first listener's "ears" (not optimal at the very least, and not good at the very worst).

Alternatively, if both listener's have had their own PRIR/HPEQ calibrations done, the Realiser can run in "dual user mode".  In this setup with proper PRIR/HPEQ pairs selected for each user, the 3/4 main outputs on the rear serve as the L/R headphone outputs for the second user's PRIR/HPEQ set.  In other words, two totally independent internal CPU processes are going on simultaneously, with the results of listener #1's set of PRIR/HPEQ being delivered to the front/rear main analog headphone outputs, and the results of listener #2's set of PRIR/HPEQ being delivered to 3/4 main output on the rear.  You will of course need two separate headphone/amp delivery paths to go to the two listeners but you already implied you had that available.

In the digital world, there is only one optical output on the rear.  This is strictly for single user mode, or listener #1 in dual-user mode (as a digital alternative to the analog rear/front headphone outputs which is still available... for listener #1) with listener #2 still being delivered output on 3/4 of rear main output.

All outputs are always active.