Smyth Research Realiser A16

[esimms86]

I am going for an audition to test the A16 top model, I have some misunderstanding, and I hope to get some answers.

1. Can it be used for stereo music files, and get the same room sensation
2. Is it correct Apple is much easier to drive the unit regarding 16 output?
3. Could I use the unit as if I was in a cinema experience out of the box or should the format be some kind of atmos?
4. Can I use it for gaming on a PC without the game supporting a specific codec or anything?

In short I want a much greater headphone experience while still having the same "setup, files and games"

The answer to question one is yes.

The answer to question three is nuanced. You first have to have a PRIR that works for you. That could potentially be the BBC or Surrey virtual rooms that come with the A16 or it may be a 3D Sound Shop “universal PRIR” or a PRIR that was captured for you in person.

You can pay a reasonable fee to upgrade your A16 with Dolby Atmos capability and that would be ideal for enjoying movies. The number of movies encoded for Auro 3D is a significant minority of available films so I wouldn’t be too concerned about that if movies are your main focus. However, keep in mind that a lot of movies exist in surround in 5.1 format only so you can definitely enjoy those without Dolby Atmos. The Wizard of Oz, for example, is an example of a film classic that exists in surround in 5.1 only. Further, you can fold down Dolby Atmos (and Auro 3D for that matter; Auro 3D actually comes in a 5.1 package) for playback in a 5.1 configuration.

Since I don’t have Apple TV and I am not a gamer. I will leave those questions for others to respond to.

Edit: I also don’t own an Apple computer., if that is what you’re referring to.

Good luck with your A16 research and enjoy your audition. You’ll definitely never be able to “unhear it”!

 

[SpatialJunky]

You can pay a reasonable fee to upgrade your A16 with Dolby Atmos capability and that would be ideal for enjoying movies.

Did you mean to say:

"You can pay a reasonable fee to upgrade your A16 with Dolby Atmos Auro 3D capability and that would be ideal for enjoying movies."

 

[OCC7N]

Easier would be the Pro Dante version of the A16, with the appropriate OSX Dante hardware and software - this would be a digital not analog connection.

I forgot to tell it was the Dante version I was talking about. I think I can get free measured room at the place for my ear. Is the microphones included? - I forgot to ask the seller.


Thank you very much for the explaination.

You first have to have a PRIR that works for you

If you mean the measurement with microphones in the ear. I have heard it is must or it could sound phased/invertet because of the width size of head.

-----

I have no problem with learning curve for a preset/setup....However when it has been set, it should work out of the box without hassle with a lot of settings, changes.

I will get my measurement for my own head/ears and get the copy to my unit.

 

[esimms86]

I forgot to tell it was the Dante version I was talking about. I think I can get free measured room at the place for my ear. Is the microphones included? - I forgot to ask the seller.


Thank you very much for the explaination.



If you mean the measurement with microphones in the ear. I have heard it is must or it could sound phased/invertet because of the width size of head.

-----

I have no problem with learning curve for a preset/setup....However when it has been set, it should work out of the box without hassle with a lot of settings, changes.

I will get my measurement for my own head/ears and get the copy to my unit.

Most of us don’t start out with our own PRIR so you are already ahead of the game.

 

[OCC7N]

Most of us don’t start out with our own PRIR so you are already ahead of the game.

PRIR means calibration with microphone in ears and studio monitors around the room right?

That will not be my own room.

 

[esimms86]

PRIR means calibration with microphone in ears and studio monitors around the room right?

That will not be my own room.

Perhaps not, but my understanding was that it would be measured with your ears in a room that you physically were in. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Oh, and the only major caveat is that the room you were in when the measurements were taken shouldn’t be drastically different from the size of the room you will be in when listening back. The brain has trouble reconciling a PRIR measured in, say, a 20 meter by 20 meter room and listening back in a 10 meter by 10 meter room.

Edit: And they don’t need to be studio monitors.

 

[zdjh22]

PRIR means calibration with microphone in ears and studio monitors around the room right?

That will not be my own room.

A main source of confusion about the A16 in my opinion is what it accomplishes precisely. What it accomplishes is that through the use of a measured PRIR-HPEQ pair is the duplication of the sound of a physical listening room for the person for which that PRIR/HPEQ was measured (that is, the person whose head/ears/body were used for the measurement). That means the sound field - volumes, phasing, movement with head movement assuming you use the head tracker - will be duplicated at your ears. Some effects related to various resonances in your ear canals can’t be duplicated because of limitations of the in-ear microphones. Some low frequency effects may not be duplicated by your choice of headphones.

That means a duplication of the sound conditions in the room in which the PRIR was measured - the dimensions, wall and floor treatments, and the speakers and their positions.

If you want a duplication of your own personal physical listening room, say to match precisely your physical stereo listening experience, you have to measure your PRIR in that room.

If you use a PRIR measured by a different person (not on your head/body/ears), you may or may not have a convincing experience. For many here, the 3DSS PRIRs do work extremely well. But they won’t duplicate your physical listening room. They may very well give you a better experience than your physical listening room.

If you measure your PRIR in a studio with studio monitors, your A16 will faithfully reproduce that physical listening experience. However, for most of us that overall sound perception may be tied to the simultaneous visual experience. That’s why, for example, when sampling PRIRs at 3D Sound Shop one recommendation is to close your eyes. One startling aspect to using an A16 is that sound appears to come from unexpected locations when you are not oriented precisely the same way you were, and in the same room, when you measured the PRIR. Often you can train your perception - train your brain - to ignore those visual queues, but that ability surely varies from person to person. Similarly you may or may not have a full 3D visual perception effect when using a 3D television or VR goggles.

Yes, a new A16 will include microphones. Plus a head tracker.

 

[OCC7N]

Perhaps not, but my understanding was that it would be measured with your ears in a room that you physically were in. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Oh, and the only major caveat is that the room you were in when the measurements were taken shouldn’t be drastically different from the size of the room you will be in when listening back. The brain has trouble reconciling a PRIR measured in, say, a 20 meter by 20 meter room and listening back in a 10 meter by 10 meter room.

Edit: And they don’t need to be studio monitors.

I will be in that room and get my ears measured for their multiple speaker setup.

If you want a duplication of your own personal physical listening room, say to match the stereo listening experience, you have to measure your PRIR in that room.

I understand that, however, I am wondering will the quality of the measurement/PRIR scale accordingly with the quality of the speakers sound - definition, resolution.

I could do a PRIR myself with only 2 monitors/Stereo at home?

 

[zdjh22]

I will be in that room and get my ears measured for their multiple speaker setup.


I understand that, however, I am wondering will the quality of the measurement/PRIR scale accordingly with the quality of the speakers sound - definition, resolution.

I could do a PRIR myself with only 2 monitors/Stereo at home?

An A16 will replicate the sound of the speakers used during the PRIR measurement for the head/body/ears used in that measurement. So yes, I guess you could say that the quality of the sound you would hear from the A16 will scale accordingly with the quality of the sound of the speakers used in the measurement. One of my speakers had a rattle at certain frequencies, and my measured PRIRs reproduced that exactly (now repaired!).

Yes, you can do PRIRs yourself with only 2 speakers at home. In fact, a lot of PRIR measurements are done with only one speaker. In this case a number of individual PRIRs are measured with the speaker at different positions - or your body/head in different positions/distances relative to the speaker - and a combined PRIR is then used that plays back sounds from virtual speakers at all of those relative positions. For example, I have a 7.1.2 listening room, but have made multiples PRIRs from those 8 speakers from different listening positions (facing forward, facing backwards, sitting on the floor, etc.). From those combined PRIRs I have virtual listening rooms up to 10.1.6, plus variations like a quad listening room with my 2 large (L/R) speakers in the 4 corners (from measurements facing forwards and backwards).

The 3DSS Omega Pro PRIR was measured one speaker position at a time (but perhaps with different types of speakers, e.g., large + small overhead + subwoofer?).

 

[esimms86]

A small point but it would helpful to have left and right or, alternatively, left, right and center speakers in your home listening/viewing room. They don’t even actually need to be connected anything. The reason for this recommendation is that it helps reinforce convincing your brain that the virtual speakers that you are listening to are actually there in front of you. Just my two cents.

 

[sander99]

2. Is it correct Apple is much easier to drive the unit regarding 16 output?

Also I don't fully understand what you are asking here, but let me say a few things:

-Like others mentioned, you can bitstream surround formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, DTS, DTS X, etc.) to the A16. Via HDMI, and with some limitations via optical or coaxial SPDIF. Sources that can bitstream to the A16 are: Blu Ray players, (hardware) Media players, but also Windows PC's. In fact some (or all?) Apple computers can NOT bitstream Atmos (but some can decode Atmos internally) so that looks like a "no" to your question above.

-A Windows pc can also send 16 (discrete or decoded, as opposed to bitstreamed, I hope you know the difference?) channels of PCM via USB to the A16. (I don't know about Apple). But this may not be very useful to most people because Windows is not standard able to decode Atmos for example, and as far as I know there are not many other sources that can deliver 16 channels pcm audio.
(Coincidently, in case someone is interrested: I did discover media player software, Blues Media Player, that can play 16 channel wav and wavpack files. I tried with short test files that I created myself because I wouldn't know where to get such files, which just shows how useful this is to most people .)

 

[zdjh22]

Also I don't fully understand what you are asking here, but let me say a few things:

-Like others mentioned, you can bitstream surround formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, DTS, DTS X, etc.) to the A16. Via HDMI, and with some limitations via optical or coaxial SPDIF. Sources that can bitstream to the A16 are: Blu Ray players, (hardware) Media players, but also Windows PC's. In fact some (or all?) Apple computers can NOT bitstream Atmos (but some can decode Atmos internally) so that looks like a "no" to your question above.

-A Windows pc can also send 16 (discrete or decoded, as opposed to bitstreamed, I hope you know the difference?) channels of PCM via USB to the A16. (I don't know about Apple). But this may not be very useful to most people because Windows is not standard able to decode Atmos for example, and as far as I know there are not many other sources that can deliver 16 channels pcm audio.
(Coincidently, in case someone is interrested: I did discover media player software, Blues Media Player, that can play 16 channel wav and wavpack files. I tried with short test files that I created myself because I wouldn't know where to get such files, which just shows how useful this is to most people .)

The latest MacOS, “Sequoia” (15.x) finally supports HDMI passthrough, so you can (supposedly) connect via HDMI to a compatible device like an AVR or the A16. I haven’t done so, but see https://support.apple.com/en-uz/guide/mac-help/mchle3a1461c/mac for details.

I do know that the built-in Atmos decoder on MacOS has a limit of 7.1.4, so only 12 speakers, but also that CoreAudio does support 16 channels. The patched SwitchAudioSource available at https://github.com/franckhlmartin/switchaudio-osx.git (you need XCode, which is free, to build this) will from the command line let you setup 16 channels and assign your channel names according to your preferences. With Apple Music, via Loopback, indeed 16 channels are available, but as I said only 7.1.4 from a decoded Atmos stream via a software player (Apple Music or Infuse) are active, and the other channels are silent. I know of a professional musician who uses ProLogic on a Mac and who told me he can pan sounds across those 16 channels. So using ProLogic or another DAW with a Dolby Renderer (not the MacOS built in decoder, but the renderer) with a Dante interface would let you send 16 channels worth of rendered Atmos to the A16. But, no commercial audio - streaming or a packaged file out of the Dolby Atmos encoder - would work, only a full Atmos file set. Otherwise MacOS is still limited to only playing lossy Dolby Atmos (EAC3-JOC).

 

[OCC7N]

Also I don't fully understand what you are asking here, but let me say a few things:

-Like others mentioned, you can bitstream surround formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, DTS, DTS X, etc.) to the A16. Via HDMI, and with some limitations via optical or coaxial SPDIF. Sources that can bitstream to the A16 are: Blu Ray players, (hardware) Media players, but also Windows PC's. In fact some (or all?) Apple computers can NOT bitstream Atmos (but some can decode Atmos internally) so that looks like a "no" to your question above.

-A Windows pc can also send 16 (discrete or decoded, as opposed to bitstreamed, I hope you know the difference?) channels of PCM via USB to the A16. (I don't know about Apple). But this may not be very useful to most people because Windows is not standard able to decode Atmos for example, and as far as I know there are not many other sources that can deliver 16 channels pcm audio.
(Coincidently, in case someone is interrested: I did discover media player software, Blues Media Player, that can play 16 channel wav and wavpack files. I tried with short test files that I created myself because I wouldn't know where to get such files, which just shows how useful this is to most people .)

I heard that choosing between two models the best compatibility for det cheaper one was Apple, as PC could have issues, therefor recommended the expensive one

 

[sander99]

I heard that choosing between two models the best compatibility for det cheaper one was Apple, as PC could have issues, therefor recommended the expensive one

Sorry, I completely don't understand what you mean. Two A16 models? Two computer models? Compatability with regards to what? (Bitstreaming, usb, dante, ...???)

 

[OCC7N]

Sorry, I completely don't understand what you mean. Two A16 models? Two computer models? Compatability with regards to what? (Bitstreaming, usb, dante, ...???)

Honestly I was in the same confusion