[malibusteve]

I've known the Aftermaster Team for over 5 years and not only are they superior in their field, but if you look at the group they've put together, the collaboration is genius.
I can say this because I'm not on the Board... you guys who are calling the team "liars" or the product "a scam" are truly uneducated. ( that was not my first choice of words, I just know they would not approve of what I actually wanted to say ). Go to the website. Aftermasterhd.com. You don't win awards at CES in 16 and 17 if you don't exist. Is it frustrating as a consumer to have a backup of over a year to receive a product you paid for assuming you'd receive it within 3 months? Yes, of course it is! I couldn't agree more. AFTM faced a production issue, so they explained this and offered the people who funded the project their money back. I believe one of you stated this when you were complaining /criticizing/condemning the company? If you were so unhappy, why didn't you get your money back and move on?
Aftermaster stayed in touch with the people who backed them, told the truth, and refunded those who were unhappy. A scam doesn't do that. And yes, I understand it's almost February and some of you still don't have what you paid for... but the Aftermaster Pro was just voted one of the Top 5 AV Products at CES 2017... http://www.wifihifi.ca/LatestNewsHeadlines/CES2017Day1:Top5AVProductPicks.html
Hey, pretty sure it's real.
I don't know enough, if anything, about the Industry, I'm happy to admit that and I'm not going to get into a debate about the product because you all can do that when it comes out.... I'll beat you to trashing that line.."when will that be?" Don't know, hopefully soon. "What do you know then about audio? As I said, nothing.
But, when I saw the integrity of the Aftermaster team being attacked, as well as the product, which I believe in, because of the team, I started an account on this site to respond. Give it some time.
(I cant believe I'm on a site with someone who used the term "colassel turds"... but that just shows how important it was to me to respond)

 

[obobskivich]

Exactly as I predicted in my original post (and I'll quote myself on this): "I'm sure if the Aftermaster folks are still around they'll come in and tell me why their product being featured in various magazines proves me wrong," [And for anyone wondering: I responded to this thread in a fairly general manner, discussing crowd-funding more than the actual product, and yet have been met with exactly the response I predicted - this is what bad "community engagement" looks like in the digital era]

Go astroturf somewhere else.

 

[Paul E King]

I've got an Aftermaster shipped unit at my house as of last Friday. I think the easiest way to put people's questions to rest on what it does would be provide an audio track, pump it through the aftermaster, post original and mastered would it not? Repeat for a video source running 5.1 (although I'll confess I'm not set up to capture that)
 
Actually was out scouring for public domain audio I could use for a review when I ran across this.
 
*edit, I probably should say I was shipped a unit rather than I got a "shipped unit" as I am not aware of their shipping status yet, just that I've got one for review

 

[PL4Y3R 0N3]

I've got an Aftermaster shipped unit at my house as of last Friday. I think the easiest way to put people's questions to rest on what it does would be provide an audio track, pump it through the aftermaster, post original and mastered would it not? Repeat for a video source running 5.1 (although I'll confess I'm not set up to capture that)

Actually was out scouring for public domain audio I could use for a review when I ran across this.

*edit, I probably should say I was shipped a unit rather than I got a "shipped unit" as I am not aware of their shipping status yet, just that I've got one for review

I'm actually kind of interested in seeing this review. I won't be purchasing one for sure, but I want to know what this thing actually does after reading this thread. I'm not one to pass judgment on a product before using it, but the description of this product seems off to me.

 

[Paul E King]

It'll be a day or so more before I get the review put together - trying to get an audio mastering/sweetening company I sometimes work with to play with it, and also find some good public domain recordings I can publish side by side so it's not just some random guy on the internet saying "I think it's good."
 
Random guy on the internet however does have one observation - average number of times I change the volume watching a 1.5 hour movie to keep it from blasting the kids out of bed is about 38 (decided to keep count when I first saw the demo at CES/Showstoppers in 2016 and was expecting a unit in May.) With the Aftermaster Pro unit I was shipped last week it was 2. That said, too small a sample size on the post-aftermaster side for my number to mean much yet.

 

[obobskivich]

I've got an Aftermaster shipped unit at my house as of last Friday. I think the easiest way to put people's questions to rest on what it does would be provide an audio track, pump it through the aftermaster, post original and mastered would it not? Repeat for a video source running 5.1 (although I'll confess I'm not set up to capture that)

Actually was out scouring for public domain audio I could use for a review when I ran across this.

*edit, I probably should say I was shipped a unit rather than I got a "shipped unit" as I am not aware of their shipping status yet, just that I've got one for review

I think your methodology would work, but that's fairly similar to their demos. As far as public domain audio, the MQA demo tracks are available, and there's public domain stuff on YouTube as well. It'd probably be easiest to follow such a demo if you went back and forth between the processed and unprocessed signal - so like 3 seconds on, 3 seconds off, or something like that, instead of a very long clip of unprocessed and a very long clip of processed. Based on your description, their description, the demos, etc I'm still leaning on "this device is a compressor and exciter" which isn't a bad thing, but a lot of soundcards can do this on their own (where it could be "neat" is if it can do it for non-PC sources, especially digital ones).

Something I would want to know about the "changing volume while watching a movie" - what's your setup there? Are you using a receiver or SSP? Does it feature a "Night mode" or "DR Comp" feature? If so, have you tried enabling that? How does it fare against the Aftermaster?


Really not liking the "skeevy vibe" I'm getting from the company though - they seem more interested in fighting criticism and attacking unsatisfied customers (I'm sorry but you instantly fail 100/100 at customer service when your response to an unsatisfied customer includes the phrase "you don't have a clue" and then you proceed to rattle off whatever awards your product has won) than shipping an actual product (and forgive me if this is misplaced skepticism, but you're a new member with no posts that joined just to post in this thread to praise the product after multiple people have complained about never receiving a product (or their money back), and after the company has already done a few astrotrufing drive-bys, so call me a bit skeptical about the whole thing).

 

[Paul E King]

My current setup is a TCL 55up120 (2016?) connected via TOSLink/optical to a JVC TH-C6 (2003? 5.1 SBS, no I'm not making that model number up) with no particular night mode or much in the way that I can see to not be a booming mess.Great when I was single, just married, and during the daytime but at night it is definitely a beast.
 
I'm currently testing via a Chromecast V2 plugged into the Aftermaster streaming videos from Plex (local,) Hulu and Netflix. Most of them seem mastered pretty well, although I did find on Hulu the series "Chance" which seems to be "mumble mumble mumble GAHHHHHHHmumble" that is now "good accent, good accent, losing it, gahhhh, different accent".
 
Had planned to have something recorded yesterday but my 3yo got kicked out of school for being a threenager and I ended up doing little more than finding some live recordings and public domain music I believe can be used. My current plan is to put the music on an HTC 10, turn off boomsound or whatever processing name they've got this week, play out of the phone, into the aftermaster, out to a computer and record there twice (once aftermastered, once not). While I think my computer's not got a studio recording input and translation, I don't think the loss of quality is going to be all that great as long as I keep the volume reasonable. It'll just have a slightly more tape-deck transfer appeal. 
 
I'll see if my software will let me correctly pull out 3 second increments and if there's a couple of tones I could use to denote those. If not I might throw a demo with a mono piece turned stereo with L as original and R as aftermaster. This is assuming my ancient software still works with Windows 10, or that I can find a nice public domain wave editor. Should I not be able to mix correctly, perhaps I'll just press the "aftermaster" button and switch it manually every few seconds.That actually seems like the easiest.
 
Unfortunately that's only going to give some of the product story - AM's doing 5.1? conversion off the HDMI which has a lot more to it than L/R and is where I think the focus really needs to be as I don't see a lot of people carrying this around to listen to their music on. I think the only thing I am set up to do is find some public domain TV show or movie with meh sound and set up a high def audio recording as I switch it on and off.
 
So far my current testing has indicated that Hugh Laurie is significantly improved during late night viewings. The unit doesn't particularly like one of the USB chargers I have but looks like it likes it. They demoed Guardians of the Galaxy at Showstoppers in 16 and LVCC this year so I watched it and am thinking less boomy, more audible everything although that's not really a metric I want to attempt to write about.

 

[PL4Y3R 0N3]

  My current setup is a TCL 55up120 (2016?) connected via TOSLink/optical to a JVC TH-C6 (2003? 5.1 SBS, no I'm not making that model number up) with no particular night mode or much in the way that I can see to not be a booming mess.Great when I was single, just married, and during the daytime but at night it is definitely a beast.
 
I'm currently testing via a Chromecast V2 plugged into the Aftermaster streaming videos from Plex (local,) Hulu and Netflix. Most of them seem mastered pretty well, although I did find on Hulu the series "Chance" which seems to be "mumble mumble mumble GAHHHHHHHmumble" that is now "good accent, good accent, losing it, gahhhh, different accent".
 
Had planned to have something recorded yesterday but my 3yo got kicked out of school for being a threenager and I ended up doing little more than finding some live recordings and public domain music I believe can be used. My current plan is to put the music on an HTC 10, turn off boomsound or whatever processing name they've got this week, play out of the phone, into the aftermaster, out to a computer and record there twice (once aftermastered, once not). While I think my computer's not got a studio recording input and translation, I don't think the loss of quality is going to be all that great as long as I keep the volume reasonable. It'll just have a slightly more tape-deck transfer appeal. 
 
I'll see if my software will let me correctly pull out 3 second increments and if there's a couple of tones I could use to denote those. If not I might throw a demo with a mono piece turned stereo with L as original and R as aftermaster. This is assuming my ancient software still works with Windows 10, or that I can find a nice public domain wave editor. Should I not be able to mix correctly, perhaps I'll just press the "aftermaster" button and switch it manually every few seconds.That actually seems like the easiest.
 
Unfortunately that's only going to give some of the product story - AM's doing 5.1? conversion off the HDMI which has a lot more to it than L/R and is where I think the focus really needs to be as I don't see a lot of people carrying this around to listen to their music on. I think the only thing I am set up to do is find some public domain TV show or movie with meh sound and set up a high def audio recording as I switch it on and off.
 
So far my current testing has indicated that Hugh Laurie is significantly improved during late night viewings. The unit doesn't particularly like one of the USB chargers I have but looks like it likes it. They demoed Guardians of the Galaxy at Showstoppers in 16 and LVCC this year so I watched it and am thinking less boomy, more audible everything although that's not really a metric I want to attempt to write about.

What you could do instead of an audible tone is denote which is which for pure audio with a different colored background, red and blue possibly. Then if you want it to be a blind test you could show which color was before and after the Aftermaster unit at the end, thus eliminating bias and placebo. 
The biggest thing for me is finding out what it actually does and if what it changes is worth the asking price. I see no reason to buy one personally, but I am super interested in this experiment. not a clue why.

 

[obobskivich]

You could use Audacity as a free (and fairly powerful) DAW for doing the capture and cutting of the audio. If you wanted to test fidelity, you could do Rightmark loopback on the PC and then with the Aftermaster in-between - that would probably be the most telling of its fidelity, and you could do the frequency response or THD tests with the "process on" and get an idea of what its doing at least in the frequency domain when its "working."

 

[Economist]

The ignorance and arrogance of some "experts" here is appallingly juvenile. This product has been shipping for over a week now, is beautifully designed, and does what is claimed. I am delighted to have it; well worth the wait. Mine is hooked from TiVo and Roku to a Vizio TV with optically driven sound bar, and as per instructions, with Dolby etc. turned off on the relevant devices.

 

[obobskivich]

The ignorance and arrogance of some "experts" here is appallingly juvenile. This product has been shipping for over a week now, is beautifully designed, and does what is claimed. I am delighted to have it; well worth the wait. Mine is hooked from TiVo and Roku to a Vizio TV with optically driven sound bar, and as per instructions, with Dolby etc. turned off on the relevant devices.

Yet another drive-by post by a socketpuppet who signed up just to post ad hominem attacks in vague support for this product (that as far as I'm aware has never shipped, but I'm sure you'll the next sockpuppet will gladly tell me how many fancy awards its won and why that means I'm wrong). I'm absolutely amazed how aggressively (and badly) this company has pursued "community engagement" - and I'll note yet again: I have no vested interest one way or another in this and have simply been repeating stereotypes about badly mismanaged crowd-funded/start-up projects and ignorant/backwards approaches to "community engagement" from a marketing perspective (specifically this style of predictable aggressive astroturfing and lazy shilling), and it absolutely amazes me how, in 2017, a company that purports to be so "high tech" is so willing and eager to throw themselves 110% into this approach. There have been numerous junctures where you could've "made right" in this situation and easily swung public opinion entirely to your side, but instead you've planted your feet firmly and picked an approach that has literally never worked for anyone in the history of marketing or social media. Good job. :rolleyes:

 

[PL4Y3R 0N3]

The ignorance and arrogance of some "experts" here is appallingly juvenile. This product has been shipping for over a week now, is beautifully designed, and does what is claimed. I am delighted to have it; well worth the wait. Mine is hooked from TiVo and Roku to a Vizio TV with optically driven sound bar, and as per instructions, with Dolby etc. turned off on the relevant devices.

I think you're mistaken. This isn't a forum for experts, but a forum for enthusiasts. And enthusiasts debate things. It's what we do. Now, I see you enjoy the product, and that's great! But this thread is about what it claims to do and if its price tag is justified. As audio enthusiasts, we take sound quality very seriously, and when something claims to make it miraculously better, we are very skeptical. Hence the very critical views here. If we are proven wrong, then we will admit to it.

 

[obobskivich]

I think you're mistaken. This isn't a forum for experts, but a forum for enthusiasts. And enthusiasts debate things. It's what we do. Now, I see you enjoy the product, and that's great! But this thread is about what it claims to do and if its price tag is justified. As audio enthusiasts, we take sound quality very seriously, and when something claims to make it miraculously better, we are very skeptical. Hence the very critical views here. If we are proven wrong, then we will admit to it.

I would add: the original premise of this thread wasn't just to question its functionality, but to call the company out on selling preorders for a product they never delivered, and never providing refunds for their paying customers. The company has responded with a consistent barrage of sockpuppets that seek to attack and berate anyone showing the slightest sign of skepticism (often with a long listing of how many design awards they've won for the concept and directed ad hominem attacks at individual posters).

I agree with everything else you said, and that's largely what makes Head-Fi (and other enthusiast communities) such a great resource for folks. And is exactly why this style of "community engagement" is a really bad idea. h34r:

 

[PL4Y3R 0N3]

I would add: the original premise of this thread wasn't just to question its functionality, but to call the company out on selling preorders for a product they never delivered, and never providing refunds for their paying customers. The company has responded with a consistent barrage of sockpuppets that seek to attack and berate anyone showing the slightest sign of skepticism (often with a long listing of how many design awards they've won for the concept and directed ad hominem attacks at individual posters).

I agree with everything else you said, and that's largely what makes Head-Fi (and other enthusiast communities) such a great resource for folks. And is exactly why this style of "community engagement" is a really bad idea. h34r:

That is something I did not know. This thread has been dead for a while. That's why for a second I didn't remember what it was about. I have no respect for someone who makes promises they don't plan on delivering on. Just an awful thing to do in general. I feel sorry for all those who lost their money. Hopefully it wasn't needed later down the road.

 

[obobskivich]

That is something I did not know. This thread has been dead for a while. That's why for a second I didn't remember what it was about. I have no respect for someone who makes promises they don't plan on delivering on. Just an awful thing to do in general. I feel sorry for all those who lost their money. Hopefully it wasn't needed later down the road.

Yeah it died some time ago, and sockpuppets re-appear every few weeks (or is it months? I don't really follow it that closely - it just pops on my feed) to regurgitate the similar "people on this site are so bad and we're the victim" line. There's been no actual posters (as in, folks who have a reputation here) chiming in with either "yeah I got one and its great" or "yeah it really is awful" but a few have mentioned paying and never receiving an item (they were attacked directly by the company too), and I'm not aware of any other posts on head-fi about this product. Just the one post wonders throwing insults.