Smyth Research Realiser A16

[dsperber]

Yes, I did. That's how I was able to obtain Auromatic by using the PCM Audio Management tweak, to set upmixer to "Auromatic" for HDMI input even though I had NOT enabled the "Auro-3D" switch on the second page of the preset settings. I DID get the Auro display on the screen, with the 7.1.4 speakers, although the source PCM 2.0 was only being upmixed to use L/R/C speakers rather than all speakers (but that may be perfectly normal). And for sure I did reload the preset once this tweak had been set.

In contrast, when I did NOT touch PCM Audio Managerment but rather left it at "Direct", and instead used the "Auro-3D" switch and enabled it, expecting the identical Auromatic upmixed result, well now nothing happened. It simply loaded the PCM room and presented the PCM 2.0 source on just the two L/R speakers... exactly as it would for PCM 2.0 source even if I had not set the Auro-3D switch enabled. Once again, the test was preceded by reloading the preset.

And that's what I'm asking others to see if they get the identical results or not, when they play a CD on their own Auro-enabled A16. Just try it for yourself, and report your results.

The 2.15 Release Notes that describe how this Auro functionality is to work sure imply to me that what I did above should have worked... as I read the documentation. We are given two ways to accomplish Auromatic upmixing. So did I misread something? Or would you too expect the two alternate methods above to really both produce Auromatic upmixing on PCM 2.0 input?

NOTE: obviously if I wanted to play source that had Auro-3D at its core, and wanted it decoded and rendered properly, I MUST enable the Auro-3D switch. Clearly forcing the invoking of Auromatic upmixing is not the correct thing to do to play true Auro-3D source. But this story here is not that. This is where I'm playing ordinary CD PCM 2.0 source, and I'd like it upmixed to multiple speakers using Auromatic. And for this situation I thought there actually were the TWO ways described in the 2.15 release notes, either of which should produce the same result. Unless I am wrong.

 

[GeorgeA]

I asked you because I’m still running firmware version 2.12, which is somewhat different in terms of using Auro-3D.

Maybe it would be better if you attach some screenshots with your settings and results. Tomorrow, I will play back a CD and activate Auromatic.

 

[dsperber]

I agree, a picture's worth 1000 words. I have screenshots from 2.05 (before Auro was supported), and then from 2.11 (which was initially released without the Auro license file yet available but theoretically able to support Auro when that happened), and then from 2.15 which is where I am right now.

(1) Back in early October 2021 I had sent my A16 to Smyth for "soldering" repair (for the red screen Error 002 symptom). While it was in their hands I requested the HDMI/APM hardware upgrade. They also pre-installed firmware 2.04 (soon to be released) which supported DTS:X, and installed my license for DTS:X which I also bought as part of this all-in-one upgrade. That's what I got back from Smyth a week later. The official 2.05 firmware to support DTS:X was released a few weeks after that, along with the announced availability of the DTS:X license file.

In May 2022 firmware 2.11 came out, which had the official theoretical support for Auro, except that the Auro license file still had not been approved. I believe it was sometime in July or August 2022 that the Auro certification was given, and I purchased the license. I applied it still using the 2.11 firmware.

I continued to run on 2.11 until early July 2023 when firmware 2.15 was released. Over the July 4th 2023 weekend I decided I wanted to learn about the CSV processor which had been released with the 2.12 firmware back in November 2022, and which I'd never upgraded to. So I was finally motivated to make the total jump to 2.15 from 2.11, bypassing 2.12. The release notes for 2.15 finally provided complete documentation for the Auro functionality (which presumably will eventually make its way into an updated user manual). So 2.15 was really the first "officially supported" Auro release. And simultaneously I also got the CSV processing which had come out in 2.12. And I spent the weekend figuring out how it all worked, and producing my "backup" CSV definitions.

(2) One important note on all of this. When "beta" Auro functionality was first released in 2.11, the enable/disable "master Auro switch" and associated Auro configuration options were located in Settings -> Misc settings, which really was a system-level location. And there was nothing relating to Auro in the preset definition (specifically on page 2):

This made it very inconvenient and cumbersome during my early Auro exploration to try and perform an A/B comparison of how things sounded with and without Auro, requiring many many clicks on navigation buttons of the remote. I wrote to James to make my case for them to move all of the Auro settings into the preset definition (where Dolby Atmos and DTS:X were already located). In my mind I couldn't see why Auro was any different.

And if Auro was now configured inside a preset, then it would be trivially simply to do an A/B comparison with and without Auro. Just configure one preset with and a second preset without, and use the preset number buttons on the remote to do a one-click bounce back and forth. Supremely convenient.

Apparently they agreed, and when the "officially documented" release of Auro came out in 2.15, sure enough it had now been removed from system-level Misc Settings and relocated inside preset-level definitions (into Page 2 of the preset definition):

IMPORTANT NOTE: I just saw that "Auro PRE" and "Auro STG" in my settings do not correspond to the default values shown in the 2.15 release notes. I certainly didn't change these, as I really have no knowledge of what they mean or how they sound (other than to experiment).

However I have a good theory for how these two values got to be this way: my A16 setup was produced by first using the new CSV processor to "backup" my setup, and then using the resulting CSV files to "restore" from a factory reset. I wanted to be sure it would all really work. Well, turns out Smyth released the CSV processor in 2.12, when Auro was still up in the "system-level" Misc Settings. And when the relocated it into the preset with 2.15, they did NOT make any corresponding changes to the CSV processor to recognize the new location for Auro! The CSV processor was not updated with 2.15. So any/all of its results that are related to Auro are 100% broken, worthless, and incorrect.

I am now very suspicious that the preset values I see for Auro PRE and Auro STG were mistakenly set by the CSV "restore", from non-initialized non-set variables that never got populated by the CSV "backup". Auro is really totally unsupported in 2.15 CSV processor.

==> I can manually correct these two values. I really should experiment with the Smyth-specified defaults as documented, before playing with changing them.

(Another very important note: there are a handful of bugs in the CSV processor that either didn't set some values in the A16 configuration, or that mistakenly ignored my values and instead installed some default values that are not mine. Again, this requires manual correction of the finished A16 system configuration, to put back my correct settings values where required. I have communicated these few problems to James. Hopefully they will be fixed along with the Auro-related complete wipeout in an updated CSV processor that will be published in the next firmware version.)


Next post will show the story of my experiments playing an audio CD (PCM 2.0 stereo), through both a PCM room as well as an Auro room. And the Auro experiment will be in two parts: (a) Auro-3D enabled and upmixer set to "direct", and (b) Auro-3D disabled and upmixer set to "Auromatic".

 

[dsperber]

My audio CD PCM 2.0 stereo experiments involved two presets, 11 and 12:

(a) Preset 11 - straight PCM (7.1) listening room invoked to play 2.0 PCM audio through L/R speakers. No Auro, no Auromatic upmix. Straight PCM..

And when the audio CD is played through Preset 11, it looks and sounds exactly as expected, using only L/R speakers.

(b) Preset 12 - Same as Preset 11, but with the Auro-3D master switch enabled. That is the only difference from Preset 11. Again no Auromatic upmix forced.

==> For some reason, there is no invocation of Auromatic upmixing which as I read the 2.15 Release Notes I believe is supposed to occur automatically when the source is PCM. I may be wrong here.

(c) Preset 12 modified to DISABLE AURO-3D on Page 2 of preset definition, and instead force HDMI upmixer -> Auromatic. The 2.15 Release notes clearly state:

Auromatic upmixing for PCM content input via HDMI or SPDIF is independently enabled using the
PCM upmixer menu (below). When selected, Auromatic upmixing of PCM content will occur even
if the Auro‐3D switch in the second PRESET menu page is off.

And now there is absolutely Auromatic upmixing applied, although it only produces sound on L/C/R speakers. I don't know if this is because of the content (delicate Spanish guitar solo, single instrument physically coming out of L and R in PCM 2.0 with relatively low volume) or because of those unexpected valued for Auro PRE and Auro STG. I will have to retry this after manually correcting those values.

So, can someone running 2.15 with an Auro-enabled A16 please duplicate my experiments playing an audio CD. Do you get the same results?

And is my mistake that I mistakely have the impression that PCM will automatically be upmixed if Auro-3D switch is enabled? Is the actual truth that you MUST use the forced Auromatic upmixer approach as the one and only way to upmix PCM?

 

[GeorgeA]

@dsperber, in the first two attached photos you can see the CD used for testing and the display of my CXUHD player showing a CD playback. The third screen capture highlights that AURO-3D was disabled and therefore Realiser A16 rendered a 2-channel PCM audio signal. After I enabled AURO-3D (screen capture #5), Auromatic took over and my Realiser A16 unit switched to Auro 9.1 (screen capture #6).

Back to your issue, I can’t figure out where your settings are messed up.

 

[GeorgeA]

@dsperber, I looked at your post #15,514 several times trying to better understand your settings. I would have one more question or rather a suggestion. Don’t you think that your Auro‐3D listening room #10 in preset #12 might be the culprit? If I were you, I would build a new Auro‐3D listening room (just for the sake of testing) choosing a suitable speaker layout as in the table at page #6 from Firmware-rev-2.15-May-19-2023-update-instructions pdf file.

 

[dsperber]

I don't follow what you're trying to suggest as far as my Auro room 10 in my preset 12 being incorrect. It is 9.1.4h, which is layout #24 from page 6 of the notes. That preset 12 shows as 9.1.6 (which is the Atmos room) by default when there is no HDMI input to figure out. But once the CD starts playing and the stream is detected as PCM 2.0, the room shown is the PCM 2.0.(which is my PCM room 8). You happen to have configured a 9.1.6 PCM room, which also gets selected when the PCM 2.0 stream is detected. But in both our cases only the L/R speakers are used in that PCM room. This isn't wrong. It is right.

The problem is that when you enable Auro 3D it actually DID turn on Auromatic upmixing!!! That is exactly what I was expecting... except it didn't happen.

But I think the cause is that you are using firmware 2.12 where the Auro settings are "system-level" in Misc Settings, and not in the preset. And I am using firmware 2.15 where the Auro settings are in the preset.

That is my point. I think something's not right here in 2.15. You are confirming what I concluded from the 2.15 documentation, that not only would "legacy" (i.e. non-immersive) Dolby and DTS would be upmixed with Auromatic when Auro-3D was enabled, but also PCM should also be upmixed with Auromatic. Perhaps the speakers used, and the "intensity" of the upmixing might be a function of the Auro parameters that can be configured, but for sure Auromatic SHOULD BE KICKED IN when you enable Auro-3D. That is precisely what I expected to see as well, but it didn't happen.

Again, I suspect 2.15. I'm not running 2.12 (and never did), so I can't prove this for myself. And I don't remember how things worked with 2.11 (which is what I was using before upgrading to 2.15 fairly recently back in July 2023.

Hence I ask again if somebody else who's on 2.15 and is Auro-enabled, can try this same CD audio test, with any preset (which is where the Auro-3D enable switch is now located with 2.15). Just play the CD with Auro-3D disabled, and you definitely should only see normal L/R speakers used in your PCM room of that preset (whatever speaker configuration is unimportant). And then enable Auro-3D, and see if Auromatic kicks in and the room is now changed to be your Auro room for that preset, with presumably more speakers than just L/R being used.

That's what you prove happens with 2.12. But I say it doesn't happen with 2.15.

 

[dsperber]

In passing, I mention that I've now re-tested after correcting the improper values for Auro PRE and Auro STG to be their supposedly delivered defaults, setting the former to "medium" and the latter to "13". Note again that the incorrect values are the result of the defective CSV processor with 2.15, which was not updated to understand the new preset location of where Auro values now reside. I'm sure it's just unpredictable data now found in the preset at those byte locations, that happens to be displayed as "small" and "0".

Anyway, even after manually correcting these two values Auromatic upmixing still DID NOT kick in automatically for the PCM 2.0 source when I enabled Auro-3D in the preset as it should have, and as was demonstrated to work correctly in 2.12.

==> This has to be a bug in 2.15, in my opinion.

 

[GeorgeA]

I don't follow what you're trying to suggest as far as my Auro room 10 in my preset 12 being incorrect. It is 9.1.4h, which is layout #24 from page 6 of the notes. That preset 12 shows as 9.1.6 (which is the Atmos room) by default when there is no HDMI input to figure out. But once the CD starts playing and the stream is detected as PCM 2.0, the room shown is the PCM 2.0.(which is my PCM room 8). You happen to have configured a 9.1.6 PCM room, which also gets selected when the PCM 2.0 stream is detected. But in both our cases only the L/R speakers are used in that PCM room. This isn't wrong. It is right.

The problem is that when you enable Auro 3D it actually DID turn on Auromatic upmixing!!! That is exactly what I was expecting... except it didn't happen.

But I think the cause is that you are using firmware 2.12 where the Auro settings are "system-level" in Misc Settings, and not in the preset. And I am using firmware 2.15 where the Auro settings are in the preset.

That is my point. I think something's not right here in 2.15. You are confirming what I concluded from the 2.15 documentation, that not only would "legacy" (i.e. non-immersive) Dolby and DTS would be upmixed with Auromatic when Auro-3D was enabled, but also PCM should also be upmixed with Auromatic. Perhaps the speakers used, and the "intensity" of the upmixing might be a function of the Auro parameters that can be configured, but for sure Auromatic SHOULD BE KICKED IN when you enable Auro-3D. That is precisely what I expected to see as well, but it didn't happen.

Again, I suspect 2.15. I'm not running 2.12 (and never did), so I can't prove this for myself. And I don't remember how things worked with 2.11 (which is what I was using before upgrading to 2.15 fairly recently back in July 2023.

Hence I ask again if somebody else who's on 2.15 and is Auro-enabled, can try this same CD audio test, with any preset (which is where the Auro-3D enable switch is now located with 2.15). Just play the CD with Auro-3D disabled, and you definitely should only see normal L/R speakers used in your PCM room of that preset (whatever speaker configuration is unimportant). And then enable Auro-3D, and see if Auromatic kicks in and the room is now changed to be your Auro room for that preset, with presumably more speakers than just L/R being used.

That's what you prove happens with 2.12. But I say it doesn't happen with 2.15.

Since the Auromatic upmixer in your Realiser A16 unit was turned on in your penultimate screen capture (post #15,514), which was pretty the same as my last screen capture in my post #15,515, i.e., PCM 2.0 (Auromatic), but actually you had only three active virtual speakers (LCR), made me think that your listening room might have a problem.

 

[dsperber]

Actually, your picture with Auromatic active on your 9.1 speaker layout was interesting for two reasons:

(a) it showed all 9.1 speakers actively receiving sound, and
(b) the "PCM 2.0 (Auromatic)" annotation you circled was colored yellow

The annotation is described in the 2.15 release notes, but you're running 2.12. I think they must have changed the presentation, and maybe the coloring too, with 2.15, as yellow font is only shown as used for the special case of DTS-MA with native Auro-3D. Complicated description. Your situation is PCM 2.0 kicking off Auromatic, and yet it is shown as yellow. I'm not going to worry about this.

However it did remind me that I'd not yet manually tweaked the Auro settings in the preset, to correct the mistake produced by the CSV processor that created my A16 setup. It actually didn't set any preset-level Auro settings at all (because the 2.15 CSV processor was not updated to reflect the 2.15 relocation of Auro settings from Misc Settings into presets). Actually the CSV processor did nothing, and what what shown as PRE = small and STG = 0 was actually just the display of unpredictable uninitialized bytes where these two values should have been correctly placed.

So, I then manually corrected these two values in my Preset 12. And sure enough, a value of STG = 0 is not even possible to set! The smallest allowed value for STG is 1! I could set 13, but then when I reduced it all the way back down 1 was the actual smallest value in the list of possible values.

Ok, what happened when I corrected the Auro PRE value to "medium", and Auro STG value to "13", was that sure enough all of the speakers in my 7.1.4h Auro room came to life from the very same Julian Bream Spanish guitar solo CD source (again, Auro-3D is disabled in page 2 of the preset, and Auromatic is set in HDMI upmixer of PCM Audio Management), which has a very much "bigger sound" than either the underlying PCM 2.0 or the "small" Auromatic upmixing to L/C/R that I had previously seen and heard:

And then just to confirm that all of these speakers had come to life because of what I'd just changed, I put back the PRE value to "small" and reduced the STG value to its minimum possible value of "1". And sure enough, now the Auromatic upmixing only produced "much smaller" sound on L/C/R just as before:

I've sent an email to Smyth about this.

 

[dsperber]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!

Turns out (not surprisingly I now suppose, if you actually knew anything about Auro), the rendering parameters of PRE and STG actually do make a genuinely dramatic difference in what speakers are activated, the intensity of that activation, etc.. And in fact (again, not surprisingly) depending on the makeup of particular audio content at any given instant the rendering in the Auro room is stunningly "alive" and naturally 3D-sounding! Note that the rendering varies continuously, depending on the nature of the source audio itself at each instant, so it's not just one size fits all and you'll see/hear a constant output to all speakers, etc..

For example, that original "small and intimate" setup of "small/1" produced the L/C/R rendering of the Julian Bream Spanish guitar solo (which is an astonishingly engineered recording from back in the early days of CD, originally released in 1983 I believe) is just that, small and intimate sounding.

I then changed the Auro settings to the default of "medium/13" and all 7.1.4h speakers lit up when there was a louder passage:

I then changed it back to "small", but with a bit more STG=6 this time. And sure enough, the sound was absolutely more intimate, but with a bit more "presence" and it seemed to "move closer to me":

And then at a slightly louder passage, a few more speakers lit up, again producing a truly "you are there at a live presentation of Julian Bream playing the guitar 10 feet from you" sensation:

If you'd like to sample this for yourself, I've uploaded a WAV file of Julian Bream playing "Granada", from Isaac Albéniz - Suite española, Op. 47. You can download it from here.

 

[GeorgeA]

@dsperber, I’m glad you’ve managed to find the solution to your issue. Thanks for the piece of guitar music.

 

[JonFo]

Need feedback: is firmware 2.15 solid enough to upgrade from 1.8x on an original A16 (no hw upgrades)?

I have the next two weeks' worth of downtime to get my A16 current and I want to make sure I only have to mess with it once.

 

[zdjh22]

Need feedback: is firmware 2.15 solid enough to upgrade from 1.8x on an original A16 (no hw upgrades)?

I have the next two weeks' worth of downtime to get my A16 current and I want to make sure I only have to mess with it once.

If you plan on measuring PRIRs or HPEQs, no, avoid 2.15 and go with the prior available older version.

I'm on hardware that requires 2.15. Other than the PRIR/HPEQ problems, I haven't run into any big issues. I suppose if you don't plan to do any of those measurements, you could go with 2.15. You always have the option of a downgrade later.

 

[Ciggavelli]

My HDMI inputs stopped working again. I moved my computer like 1 foot right and all of the sudden my sh!t isn't working anymore. Symth expects a lot from their users, with the bad UI, to the strange compatibility issues. I'm starting to think it's not worth it. I like my 5.1 albums on the A16, but they are far from perfect. To be honest, you can achieve the same effect with proper mixing and mastering. I dunno, sh!t is a lot of bother for (somewhat minor) specific benefits.