[CaptainFunk]

The KS backer #1 received his A16 this morning (form factor : 2U) and he shared pictures of the unboxing on the French forum homecinema-fr.com

There are quite some punctuation and spacing errors in the copy on the back panel, I guess typography was not one of their priorities - still, I am liking the look of the unit. I was a bit disappointed that the 2U version is not available in silver, but it looks clean enough so all good.

 

[innocentblood]

Ha! I’m getting there with figuring out the interface, but still don’t have the most important part figured out which is actually capturing a room. There are things that took awhile like when the A16 ships, all of the available spots to create new rooms is locked. It won’t let you change anything. You have to figure out to navigate to a key shaped icon and then pressing the adj+ button to unlock the ability to edit the room.

when you get some time, would you give your comments on the BBC and Surrey University pre-installed rooms please? i'm interested to know how these 2 rooms sound like when you are playing a regular 5.1 soundtrack over headphones.

i believe there will be folks out there who would be most interested in the A16's capabilities right out of the box. these same folks may not have a home theater so they have no measurements to capture so that is why the preinstalled rooms would be of most interest to them.

 

[Got the Shakes]

when you get some time, would you give your comments on the BBC and Surrey University pre-installed rooms please? i'm interested to know how these 2 rooms sound like when you are playing a regular 5.1 soundtrack over headphones.

I’ll create a 5.1 room tonight with the BBC room speakers. The one I made last night was with the Surrey ones. I’ve used one of the default 7.1 setups of BBC speakers and I liked it but haven’t done an A/B test with both as a 5.1 setup. I’ll let you know my thoughts once I can test it.

 

[Fox1977]

I’ll create a 5.1 room tonight with the BBC room speakers. The one I made last night was with the Surrey ones. I’ve used one of the default 7.1 setups of BBC speakers and I liked it but haven’t done an A/B test with both as a 5.1 setup. I’ll let you know my thoughts once I can test it.

Is it useful to create a 5.1 room from the BBC preset ?
If you feed a 5.1 signal to a 7.1.4 or even a 9.1.6 room, only the 5.1 speakers with be active. People will correct me if I’m wrong but creating copies of one room to match the different speakers configuration (2.0, 5.1, 7.1.4, etc) doesn’t seem relevant to me.
If one wants to listen to a 5.1 soundtrack on your actual Atmos setup, they are not disconnecting all the extra speakers to keep only the 5.1 configuration.

 

[Got the Shakes]

Is it useful to create a 5.1 room from the BBC preset ?
If you feed a 5.1 signal to a 7.1.4 or even a 9.1.6 room, only the 5.1 speakers with be active. People will correct me if I’m wrong but creating copies of one room to match the different speakers configuration (2.0, 5.1, 7.1.4, etc) doesn’t seem relevant to me.
If one wants to listen to a 5.1 soundtrack on your actual Atmos setup, they are not disconnecting all the extra speakers to keep only the 5.1 configuration.

I think it is for this reason. I noticed when listening to 5.1 content in the 7.1 virtual room that it was sending what should have been the rear channels to the side surrounds instead of the two rears. When looking at the display the rears would never light up in the 7.1 setup when feeding 5.1 content.

 

[Dixter]

will be interesting to see if the 7.1 BBC setup sounds differently than a 5.1 BBC setup... I would think they would sound the same with 5.1 material as each would play back the same speakers... I guess we will find out...

can you take a single speaker measurement... then just add till you get to 7 speakers in the software ??

 

[Fox1977]

I think it is for this reason. I noticed when listening to 5.1 content in the 7.1 virtual room that it was sending what should have been the rear channels to the side surrounds instead of the two rears. When looking at the display the rears would never light up in the 7.1 setup when feeding 5.1 content.

I understand better now ! Thanks for the explanation!

 

[Dixter]

I think it is for this reason. I noticed when listening to 5.1 content in the 7.1 virtual room that it was sending what should have been the rear channels to the side surrounds instead of the two rears. When looking at the display the rears would never light up in the 7.1 setup when feeding 5.1 content.

Thats the way my Atmos system works at home... its very seldom that the rear speakers ever turn on as I don't have that much atmos material... for my 5.1 its L,R, Center, Lsurround, Rsurround and of course the front high L/R don't turn on either in 5.1

 

[Got the Shakes]

will be interesting to see if the 7.1 BBC setup sounds differently than a 5.1 BBC setup... I would think they would sound the same with 5.1 material as each would play back the same speakers... I guess we will find out...

can you take a single speaker measurement... then just add till you get to 7 speakers in the software ??

I think it will sound different only because for whatever reason when using the 7.1 BBC room it seems to be sending the sound meant for the rear speakers instead to the right and left side surrounds.

I don’t think so to your second question. From what I can tell the speaker you’re adding to a room needs to be one that was measured in a similar position to where you want to add it. So if you want to add a left front, you can only select a left front that was measured in a PRIR to add to that new room. I could be wrong about that as I only figured out the room stuff last night, but I think I’m right.

I understand better now ! Thanks for the explanation!

In theory it should work as you had described earlier. I would have though that it would know to route the sound to the rears of the 7.1 room when playing 5.1 stuff. It’s totally possible I missed a setting somewhere.

 

[jgazal]

Also I pledged for dual headtrackers but I think I only got one and rack tabs that I don’t need instead. Did I get someone else’s?

That's odd. I hope they ship the second head tracker to you soon.

 

[audiohobbit]

The routing is correct I think. With a 5.1 signal the surround signals are sent to the side surrounds of a 7.1 setup.
But if you can reroute them to the back surrounds this would also be not correct since the angles are different:
In a 5.1 setup the surrounds should be at 110 deg (100-120), in a 7.1 setup the side surrounds should be at 90 deg and the back surrounds at 150 deg.
So the surrounds of 5.1 should be in the middle between side and back surrounds of 7.1

What about the Dolby Surround Upmixer, anyone found that?

 

[Got the Shakes]

The routing is correct I think. With a 5.1 signal the surround signals are sent to the side surrounds of a 7.1 setup.
But if you can reroute them to the back surrounds this would also be not correct since the angles are different:
In a 5.1 setup the surrounds should be at 110 deg (100-120), in a 7.1 setup the side surrounds should be at 90 deg and the back surrounds at 150 deg.
So the surrounds of 5.1 should be in the middle between side and back surrounds of 7.1

What about the Dolby Surround Upmixer, anyone found that?

In the 7.1 setup in A16 is it doing as you described. When creating a 5.1 room I actually think that it does put them at close to the 110° you mentioned because the are spaced much wider that the rears of the 7.1 setup.

Not sure about where the Dolby Upmixer is. There’s so many room settings and general settings that it could be buried a few menus deep and I’ve never seen it.

 

[Richter Di]

Maybe you could write a manual...

It would be great if you could do some mobile phone videos of what you do so we can see how its done. Good preparation for all those waiting to receive our A16.

 

[Got the Shakes]

It would be great if you could do some mobile phone videos of what you do so we can see how its done. Good preparation for all those waiting to receive our A16.

I actually could probably pretty easily put together a short video of at least creating a new room and adding speakers to it.

 

[MichaelJames99]

I sent multiple emails a year ago to James about making tutorial videos. would probalby only take him about an hour to do and would greatly enhance how we all use the units.