I just spent a couple hours with Lorr today at AIX and so got a chance to learn a lot more about the system (both the Realiser and AIX's setup). First let me start by saying that the recreation of AIX's setup is _shocking_. It's one of the most surprising (in a good way) experiences I've had in audio. I could barely tell the difference between the speakers (testing one by one going around the room) and the "virtual speakers" coming through the headphones in terms of imaging/localization (this in particular is really wild, would NEVER have expected such accuracy on this one), tone, etc. (and this was an entry level Stax headphone amp/headphones). I found there were a couple very slight barely noticeable differences when listening very critically: (a) there was a little more upper mid and HF detail coming through the headphones (not surprising), and (b) I found the speakers to be ever so slightly warmer sounding in the upper mids. On point B, Lorr explained that since we're not taking measurements from the ear drum but rather the end of the ear canal, there will be very slight differences and for each person it's different given varying shapes of the ear canal. He indicated most don't notice it, some do and don't care and others do and care. For the last bucket, there is a manual process than can be done to tweak the EQ of the headphone measurements/config to offset this difference related to our ear canal shape and impact on frequency response (so in my case for example, I'd go increment by increment up the frequency spectrum comparing a speaker to my headphone setup until I isolated the area of slight difference, and then adjust there; this adjustment needs to be done for each headphone/amp setup you have). I was really blown away by this experience.
AIX has a fantastic multi-channel setup given the room treatment/tuning. Since I'll be doing most of my listening with 2 channel sound input into the Realiser, I'm going to track down a couple "dream systems" that are 2 channel and take measurements (once I learn how!). The 7.1/5.1 profiles from AIX can be used for 2 channel because the 2 front mains are not moved in either case and so measurements taken for them are valid for 2 ch listening. The difference between their 7.1 and 5.1 setups at AIX is that for the 7.1 they move their full size surrounds to the side channels, and add two mid-sized channels for the two rears. By way of background, measurements are taken with your head facing directly forward, and then a set while your head is facing 30 degrees to the left (looking at the left channel) and one set while looking 30 degrees to the right (looking at the right channel). In my case we did two 12 second sweeps in each of 8 channels and 6 channels respectively to maximize the signal to noise ratio of the measurements and got very clean results.
Excited to give the system a go at home when I return. Will report back. The two sources I'll use are (1) Mac Mini HDMI output, and (2) Oppo 93 with HDMI output. I'll then feed an external DAC via Toslink. What I'm excited about is that I sometimes get fatigue listening to headphones due to the lack of soundstage/imaging we get when listening to speakers in a well tuned room that better create this effect. Being able to have the best of both worlds is an exciting prospect. While I never planned on it, I know I won't be able to resist watching some movies in 7.1 with this setup, it will be a heck of a lot better than my home theater!
Last thing worth mentioning which was interesting, and it may have been covered earlier in the thread, but when chatting with Lorr about taking measurements using a truly high end reference 2 ch setup (take your pick, Magico/Spectral, Wilson Alexandria, Goldmund, etc.), he was describing how to create 5.1 measurements from these setups thereby creating virtual setups that have likely never existed as actual multi-channel setups (i.e., measure front left/right, turn around measure as rear left/right, face a speaker directly and do a center measurement; the Realiser will automatically determine the delays/levels to create a surround setup). In any event, lots of fun to be had with this unit.
This unit is WAY underappreciated IMO. There's definitely a learning curve if you want to do this yourself (ranging from getting the small mic's in your ear in an optimal way for taking measurements) to navigating the operation of the unit, however it's quite an innovation and kudo's to Lorr for what he's accomplished here.
