I am very interested in this Smyth Realiser, but since I have a TOL system already (ARM DP-777 DAC + EC 445 Tube Amp), I have 2 concern:
- Do I have to use the DAC (and Amp) inside the Smyth Realiser instead of my beloved TOL system, or can I bypass them ?
- Since I do not have a speaker system at home, is there a possibility to use "pre-recorded" configuration without having to do all the "calibration" ourself in a special reference speaker system ?
You don't have to use the DAC/amp in the Realiser and the analog headphone outputs. You can instead use the alternative optical/digital output of the SVS processing to feed your own DAC.
You don't produce a PRIR (i.e. measurement of sound in ANY environment as hear by your own ears) in a special reference speaker setup. And ideally, you don't use any pre-created PRIR (since there is no such thing as a "general purpose PRIR") nor do you use anybody else's PRIR for any particular environment since that was THEIR personally customized PRIR (e.g. their own prescription eyeglasses but for their ears, which you also wouldn't normally use if you had a choice).
A PRIR is essentially a "sonic photograph" of ANY speaker setup from your own ears, taking into account all of the other factors going into how your own ears hear sound in that listening environment... carpeting, wall baffles, ceiling coverings, speakers, electronics, seat placement relative to the speakers, echos/reverb of the room shape, etc. However your own ears and brain heard the sound in that setup, THAT is what the PRIR reflects... good or bad.
The purpose of creating the unique PRIR for each unique listening environment (whatever makes it up) and YOUR OWN EARS is so that when used in the "reverse playback direction" through the Realiser and your headphones/amp/DAC (i.e. for listening to anything through that PRIR in your home with your headphones on), it is ideally supposed to DUPLICATE TO YOU the sound of the original listening environment (however good or bad it was) so that TO YOU it sounds essentially identical to how that same sound source would have sounded to your own ears had you actually been hearing this new sound program in the original listening environment.
So, if you have access to a really superb outstanding listening environment (be it 2-channel stereo or multi-channel), if you can get a PRIR measurement taken in that environment, well you're very lucky and will no doubt enjoy it when used to listen to new sound program content through that PRIR back in your home via your headphone setup. And it also stands to reason that the better the headphone setup's ability to produce high-quality sound to your hearing system, the better will be the duplication of the original listening environment through the PRIR you made. But that's the goal... to most accurately duplicate the sound of the original listening environment, however good or bad it was.
If you just want to reproduce the sound of your home theater, but in your bedroom through headphones, the PRIR measurement will do that as well. That's its purpose, to facilitate duplicating the sound of the originally measured listening environment as it sounds to your own ears, for any new content, through headphones.
And that's also why you also need to take one additional measurement called HPEQ, to describe how your own headphone equipment setup sounds to your own ears. It's a very important additional "sonic photograph" of the unique sound of the headphones, no matter what the source, to your own ears. Again, use of the HPEQ (which describes the listening headphones to your own ears) by the Realiser in conjunction with a given PRIR (which describes the original listening environment being attempted to duplicate to your own ears), the bottom line objective is to duplicate as closely as possible whatever was the sound of the original listening environment as it would have sounded to your own ears had you been listing to this new content in that original room.
