[TruBrew]

How much is it? He has not gotten back to me on a price.

 

[sillysally]

$450.00 plus shipping.

 

[tamahome77]

 
Quote:

How much is it? He has not gotten back to me on a price.

$450 with serial numbers beginning AC09 according to their website.

 

[TruBrew]

Thanks, I guess I should have thought about checking the website.

 

[CanMad]

Edit: nvm, Free of charge under warranty as long as it's not caused by abuse.

 
CanMad, were your mics replacement free of charge under warranty if there is one?  

 


 

Yes they were, one of the mics was DOA when the realiser was shipped to me. The service was excellent, new mics were shipped as soon as the issue was diagnosed correctly. They even shipped the mics to my mothers address in a different state so I would receive them sooner while on vacation, and have them to use on the realiser as soon as I got back home.

 

[CanMad]

$450.00 plus shipping.

Did you ask about installing yourself? Shipping the realiser to me in Oz cost $189 so I guess I am looking at double that plus the $450. A bit frustrating as I only purchased in April and I asked at the time about an hdmi version. I definitely would've waited 3 or 4 months to order had I known it was coming this soon. I do of course understand they didn't want to hurt sales over the last few months, but still.......

I guess I should be happy there is an upgrade option at least, a brand new model only 3 months later would've been really annoying given the cost of it.

 

[VandyMan]

I'm planning to get a Realiser early next year. My HDMI switch just died, so I'm thinking of getting a pre-pro to use with both the Realiser for headphone listening and with my external DAC for speaker listening. Will any HDMI pre-pro do, since I will not use the analog outs?
 

 

[dsperber]

Quote:

I have shipped my Realiser back to Lorr to have the HDMI upgrade done.
 
I should have it back by this weekend, so I will report back on my views using the digital HDMI in port and thereby bypassing the Realiser's A/D conversion,  letting my AGD DAC19 (pcm 1704uk) DSP1v5 do the D/A conversion.

What is going to be your "HDMI source" into the Realiser?
 
Do you have an AVR that can deliver multi-channel PCM over HDMI out, or are you just going to use your Oppo player directly into the Realiser?
 
I looked at the new manual PDF but don't recall how you configure the inputs, either analog or HDMI... and whether or not that becomes part of the preset?  In other words I wonder about a hybrid configuration, perhaps with two different presets... one specifying analog inputs (for your AVR if it does not put out multi-channel PCM over HDMI), and the other specifying HDMI input (specifically for multi-channel PCM for your BluRay player).  Kind of like configuring your AVR presets, to manually specify inputs and configuration, etc.
 
It would be extremely enlightening to the user community if you could configure for an A-B comparison, of HDMI input from the BluRay player vs. analog input either also from the BluRay player or via the AVR.
 
Most important, of course, is "can you tell the difference" between the two different input methods?  And, is it a "little difference" or a "big difference", all other pieces of the puzzle being the same?

 

[sillysally]

Quote:

What is going to be your "HDMI source" into the Realiser?
 
Do you have an AVR that can deliver multi-channel PCM over HDMI out, or are you just going to use your Oppo player directly into the Realiser?
 
I looked at the new manual PDF but don't recall how you configure the inputs, either analog or HDMI... and whether or not that becomes part of the preset?  In other words I wonder about a hybrid configuration, perhaps with two different presets... one specifying analog inputs (for your AVR if it does not put out multi-channel PCM over HDMI), and the other specifying HDMI input (specifically for multi-channel PCM for your BluRay player).  Kind of like configuring your AVR presets, to manually specify inputs and configuration, etc.
 
It would be extremely enlightening to the user community if you could configure for an A-B comparison, of HDMI input from the BluRay player vs. analog input either also from the BluRay player or via the AVR.
 
Most important, of course, is "can you tell the difference" between the two different input methods?  And, is it a "little difference" or a "big difference", all other pieces of the puzzle being the same?

I will be using my Oppo BD-95 as the source player/decoder.
Given that all analog and digital ports are always active on the Oppo, and yes the Oppo will output LPCM via HDMI for most any format decoded by the Oppo. That also includes any streaming via Internet or my external WD HD.
I don't need a AVR or the HDMI video out port on the Realiser because my Oppo has two HDMI ports, one that can be used for video only (run directly to my display) and the other HDMI port for audio only (directly to the HDMI in port of the Realiser).
All that needs to be done is change my Oppo settings from bit-stream to LPCM (192) for the HDMI audio out port of the Oppo.
 
You bring up a good point on how the Realiser will need to be setup for HDMI audio in, and then out via my Supernova 6 TOSlink (.5 M) to my AGD DAC19 DSP1v5 for the only D/A conversion, and then out to my WA5LE headphone amp via Eclipse 6 (.5 M) interconnects.
 
If all the Realiser's ports are all active (in/out) then it will be easy to switch between analog and digital outs from the Realiser.
 
I really don't fore see any problems because of the flexibility of the Oppo and what it can do.
 
So as you said, by bypassing the Realiser's Dac make a difference ???
That is the $500+ question.
Lorr will have my Realiser by 3PM today, so hopefully he will get right on my Realiser and ship it back to me asap.

 
On a side note. I did ask Lorr if I could do the upgrade, but because of what they must do to the PC board of my Realiser I could not do the upgrade.

 

[dsperber]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillysally /img/forum/go_quote.gif

So as you said, by bypassing the Realiser's Dac make a difference ???
That is the $500+ question.

That's bypassing the Realiser's A-to-D (input) converter thanks to HDMI which is the new $500 question.  This applies strictly to that portion of the user community which has an AC09* Realiser (not including me, unfortunately, as I have #0001) and also has an acceptable multi-channel PCM-over-HDMI source/configuration.
 
So assuming you can easily configure say P1 vs. P2 presets on the Realiser to configure using (1) HDMI input, vs. (2) analog input, it should be trivial for you to do an A-B comparison and decide if you can tell the difference.  Obviously you may need to "calibrate" the volume levels on the inputs, if it turns out one sounds "louder" than the other.  That has to be canceled out for a fair A-B comparison as inevitably "louder sounds better".
 
There's also the other existing question (applicable to all of us users, really) involving the Realiser's D-to-A (output) converter.  You're using an external DAC between Realiser and your headphone amp, and I'm curious if you can detect a difference in quality on that side?  Do you have an A-B option there as well?  Does your headphone amp have two inputs, which you could switch between to examine (a) the external DAC path, vs. (b) the Realiser DAC path?
 
I'm still on the fence about buying a Benchmark DAC, but since I also have a DBX 14/10 EQ (for tone control) between my Realiser analog headphone output and my Stax SRM-T1S amp, and since the DBX EQ does not have balanced input or output, I would have to use RCA connections throughout.  If I didn't want to use the EQ I could use balanced connections from DAC to SRM-T1S, which would presumably maximize the benefit of the DAC... at the loss of tone control.  So one question is whether or not I could tell the difference between balanced vs. RCA connection from DAC to SRM-T1S.
 
I really can't imagine giving up the tone control from the DBX EQ, but if the balanced vs. RCA connections difference is really virtually identical then I wouldn't have to, and I'd still have both the advantage of the external output DAC plus the advantage of the DBX EQ.
 
So, would you absolutely swear by the external DAC between the Realiser and headphone amp?  Is there a definite and significant difference vs. using the Realiser's DAC and going analog-output to the headphone amp?

 

[VandyMan]

[deleted]
 
 
 

 

[VandyMan]

[deleted]
 
 

 

[blubliss]

Quote:

Lorr will have my Realiser by 3PM today, so hopefully he will get right on my Realiser and ship it back to me asap.

 
On a side note. I did ask Lorr if I could do the upgrade, but because of what they must do to the PC board of my Realiser I could not do the upgrade.

Question, if you can't do the upgrade, which is what Lorr told me too on my unit, then why did you send it in?  Are you getting some kind of credit for a new one?
 

 

[sillysally]

Quote:

That's bypassing the Realiser's A-to-D (input) converter thanks to HDMI which is the new $500 question.  This applies strictly to that portion of the user community which has an AC09* Realiser (not including me, unfortunately, as I have #0001) and also has an acceptable multi-channel PCM-over-HDMI source/configuration.
 
So assuming you can easily configure say P1 vs. P2 presets on the Realiser to configure using (1) HDMI input, vs. (2) analog input, it should be trivial for you to do an A-B comparison and decide if you can tell the difference.  Obviously you may need to "calibrate" the volume levels on the inputs, if it turns out one sounds "louder" than the other.  That has to be canceled out for a fair A-B comparison as inevitably "louder sounds better".
 
There's also the other existing question (applicable to all of us users, really) involving the Realiser's D-to-A (output) converter.  You're using an external DAC between Realiser and your headphone amp, and I'm curious if you can detect a difference in quality on that side?  Do you have an A-B option there as well?  Does your headphone amp have two inputs, which you could switch between to examine (a) the external DAC path, vs. (b) the Realiser DAC path?
 
I'm still on the fence about buying a Benchmark DAC, but since I also have a DBX 14/10 EQ (for tone control) between my Realiser analog headphone output and my Stax SRM-T1S amp, and since the DBX EQ does not have balanced input or output, I would have to use RCA connections throughout.  If I didn't want to use the EQ I could use balanced connections from DAC to SRM-T1S, which would presumably maximize the benefit of the DAC... at the loss of tone control.  So one question is whether or not I could tell the difference between balanced vs. RCA connection from DAC to SRM-T1S.
 
I really can't imagine giving up the tone control from the DBX EQ, but if the balanced vs. RCA connections difference is really virtually identical then I wouldn't have to, and I'd still have both the advantage of the external output DAC plus the advantage of the DBX EQ.
 
So, would you absolutely swear by the external DAC between the Realiser and headphone amp?  Is there a definite and significant difference vs. using the Realiser's DAC and going analog-output to the headphone amp?

It seems from what I have read that to switch between analog and HDMI, it is a simple function from the remote and choosing between A for analog or D for HDMI input. So there is no need to reset any presets.
 
I didn't get my Dac because I thought there would be better SQ, only so I can boost the volume level of the Realiser without distortion (because of my HE-6 headphones). And yes my Dac does a good job for that reason. As far as better SQ I have never really compared, but I would say the pcm 1794 Dac in the Realiser does a good job.
Yes my amp has four sets of inputs for analog.
As for XLR or RCA my Oppo has both, but without a completely balanced system imo there is no difference.
As I said I have not done a comparison between the Realiser and my AGD19 dac, if I had to guess I would say the DAC19 is better. I should add that because up until now I could only output analog audio (5.1/7.1) from my Oppo, so as not to loose the main soundtrack (lossless) of HQ Blu Ray movies. However I can now use the digital HDMI out of the Oppo with the lossless soundtrack for my Realiser, plus have only one D/A conversion being done by my DAC19 DSP1v5 and its pair of PCM1704UK DAC chips. 
So with the new HDMI input of the Realiser, I can take the Oppo's D/A conversion and the Realiser's A/D conversion out of the loop.

 

[sillysally]

Quote:

Question, if you can't do the upgrade, which is what Lorr told me too on my unit, then why did you send it in?  Are you getting some kind of credit for a new one?
 

I can do the upgrade on my Realiser, I got it just when Smyth came out with the newer version that also has the 1/4 headphone Jack. So there is NP with the HDMI upgrade for my Realiser.