[Dixter]

Thanks again, Dixter! I got 15.1.6 as the option 4 , as per your instructions, couldn’t find a 15.1.8 option though .

Thats interesting... thats only 22 ch... if you go to the Audio meters page you can manually count the green columns... there should be 24 green columns.... if so and I would think that all 24 ch would be shown then you can go to the Listening Rooms page and select the Atmos rooms and count the amount of speakers shown... compare the green column names to the speaker names and you should be able to figure out the two speakers missing... if both have 24 ch then you should see on two speakers where it says no PRIR and if that is the case you can add the two speakers back into the room to get it to the 15.1.8 if so desired....

 

[Dixter]

Stephen said that the upmixer hasn't changed and does still not use the Front Wides. Can you check this?

Mad Max? You mean the original from 1979? Is there a UHD Disc?
Otherwise if you mean Fury Road -> this already has an Atmos Soundtrack, so no upmixing there.

The Mad Max Fury Road - if you play this movie back with the A16 in 16ch mode the Atmos soundtrack plays back normal... if you play this movie back with the A16 in 24 ch mode the Atmos soundtrack plays back normal.... if you play this move back with the A16 in 24 ch mode and " upmix " then the A16 populates some of the extra speakers in the 24 ch count...


When you test and solo the speakers then of course you can easily hear a difference. The questions is how is the difference in a real movie between 9.1.6 and 15.1.8. Can you hear the difference between phantom sources and real speakers without soloing etc. With the Realiser with the A-B comparison it's very easy to make that comparison.
-> Considering that you're always in the sweet spot with the Realiser I don't think that you would hear too much of a difference.
-> To be really meaningful for this comparison one should have a real "personal" PRIR of the 9.1.6 and 15.1.8 rooms though ...

if the A16 is in 24 ch mode and you play a movie that has a Atmos soundtrack then the Atmos configuration of the movie is what will be output..... so you could have a 9.1.6 room but the movie only putting out 5.1 and thats what would be played back... 5.1 speakers... if you upmix the content then the A16 attempts to use the other speakers...

When I look at the 9.1.x setup at the ear-level speakers: 7 speakers (fronts, side and back surrounds) are usually in the "Bed" and playing constantly. The front wides are only used for objects and not used that often during a movie, most of the time they are silent.
I would imagine that this would also be true for the other additional speakers like Lsc, Lrs1 and so on.

 

[Grue]

When you look at you pdf, you have numbers like 38, 39 and so on.
What will you do with them anyway?
You only have 16 channels.
This numbering is just for internal reference, these numbers don't even appear visible to the user in the A16 device.

As I said I need them for reference, and once again proved to be useful as those channel names seem to be different depending on where to look... Those numbers point to the user manual map which I can check to figure out why I cannot find the specified name...

I measured hastily with 2 small satellite speakers and a camera stand 15.1.8 room at my working room, just for testing everything out.

When I get used to this updated A16 I'll make proper measurements with better loudspeakers and more proper room.

Its a bit pain to measure these 2 loudspeakers at the time as editing the PRIR sound room to different loudspeakers after every measurement takes some patience...

 

[Dixter]

I just now found out how to " down mix " 16 ch to 2 ch for stereo music.... the A16 is just fantastic for what it can do... and before you ask... yes I did try to down mix 24 ch to 2 ch.... it only lets you down mix 16 ch max to 2 ch...it sounds great...

 

[esimms86]

Received my upgraded A16 this afternoon. The box was damaged but, thankfully, it booted up successfully; 774 GBP in UPS insurance money wouldn’t get me much, after all. I won’t have a chance to really dig in and check it out until Thursday, however. Yes, I know how incredibly fortunate I am to have a fully upgraded A16 in my possession.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

I managed to create a 15.1.8 room, This is fun. Sharing my 15.1.6 that was preloaded.

 

[audiohobbit]

What you show here is a true 15.1.6 listening room/mode. The last 2 entries do not have a Ref spkr so can not be populated anyway with a PRIR.
You have to select a listening mode (with adj+/-) in the listening mode entry that says 15.1.8, or whatever you want. Then go to the first speaker, press enter, select a PRIR and select All matching speakers. After that you browse through all the channels of your listening room. Everwhere were a Ref speaker in the first column is labelled there has to be a Vspkr from a PRIR assigned to it, otherwise the PRIR you chose didn't have this particular speaker and you have to select this channel from another PRIR or stat all over again.

I just now found out how to " down mix " 16 ch to 2 ch for stereo music.... the A16 is just fantastic for what it can do... and before you ask... yes I did try to down mix 24 ch to 2 ch.... it only lets you down mix 16 ch max to 2 ch...it sounds great...

I think it would be appreciated by some if you also tell them/us HOW you did this exactly...
I suppose you have an Atmos signal and set up a 2.0 or 2.1 Atmos room, then the Atmos signal gets "downmixed" to those 2 speakers.
Everything else will lose information I'd say (e.g. a 16 ch analog or PCM signal. This will not "downmix" but just play the 2 channels that are there in the listening room)

 

[audiohobbit]

The Mad Max Fury Road - if you play this movie back with the A16 in 16ch mode the Atmos soundtrack plays back normal... if you play this movie back with the A16 in 24 ch mode the Atmos soundtrack plays back normal.... if you play this move back with the A16 in 24 ch mode and " upmix " then the A16 populates some of the extra speakers in the 24 ch count...

That sounds odd. With a true Atmos signal the upmixer shouldn't do anything at all. It is an Atmos inherent functionality to direct the sound objects to all speakers available. So if there are 24 speakers in the setup all of them should be used some time (many not often, like I already said that the front wides in a 9.x.x setup aren't used that often) and the upmixer shouldn't change anything in that behaviour.

so you could have a 9.1.6 room but the movie only putting out 5.1 and thats what would be played back... 5.1 speakers... if you upmix the content then the A16 attempts to use the other speakers...

Of course, that's the functionality of the upmixer for NON-Atmos signals, like Dolby 5.1/7.1 or PCM 5.1/7.1 etc.
But as I already said the upmixer doesn't use the front wides and Stephen said that this has not changed with the new APM110 board.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

I'm not getting a 15.1.8 option on listening options of the pcm rooms, max is 9.1.6 and then cust#1 to 26 or so. Is that the max? I mean using dolby surround upmix, or is that only possible in an Atmos Room?

Also I have to turn up the volume to 74-80 ( on test) to get a decent volume with my HD800S, the gain is set at low, is that normal?

 

[Got the Shakes]

I'm not getting a 15.1.8 option on listening options of the pcm rooms, max is 9.1.6 and then cust#1 to 26 or so. Is that the max? I mean using dolby surround upmix, or is that only possible in an Atmos Room?

Also I have to turn up the volume to 74-80 ( on test) to get a decent volume with my HD800S, the gain is set at low, is that normal?

On my HD800 I think I was listening to them at volumes between 45-55 but that was with gain set to high if I’m remembering correctly.

 

[Dixter]

I'm not getting a 15.1.8 option on listening options of the pcm rooms, max is 9.1.6 and then cust#1 to 26 or so. Is that the max? I mean using dolby surround upmix, or is that only possible in an Atmos Room?

Also I have to turn up the volume to 74-80 ( on test) to get a decent volume with my HD800S, the gain is set at low, is that normal?

For PCM 9.1.6 is the max... the 15.1.8 is for Atmos and you need to have 24 ch turned on...
For the HD800S you just need to bump the gain switch up a notch or two... I would suggest you unplug the headphones before operating the gain switch as it has a pop during the activations...

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Dixter, GotTheShakes, Thank you such for your responses. So what room do legacy codecs get up-mixed in?

 

[Dixter]

Dixter, GotTheShakes, Thank you such for your responses. So what room do legacy codecs get up-mixed in?

you will need to experiment with your A16 and what you have it connected to and how the source is configured.... for me the best upmixing was with an OPPO Blueray Player set to bitstreaming via HDMI and the A16 in 24 ch mode... I found that during up mixing it was easier to watch the audio meters more so than the speaker room display, but remember volume does not work in audio meters page.. also remember up mixing is only available in HDMI or SPDIF and the selection is Dolby Surround

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

you will need to experiment with your A16 and what you have it connected to and how the source is configured.... for me the best upmixing was with an OPPO Blueray Player set to bitstreaming via HDMI and the A16 in 24 ch mode... I found that during up mixing it was easier to watch the audio meters more so than the speaker room display, but remember volume does not work in audio meters page.. also remember up mixing is only available in HDMI or SPDIF and the selection is Dolby Surround

I have the Oppo UDP-203, so we have to enable legacy formats in the preset settings, what about DTS-HD Master, I didn't know the Atmos room could cross-upmix and that all content can be bitstreamed, I assumed lack of DTS cert meant legacy formats also had to be fed pcm.

 

[audiohobbit]

At the moment DTS has to be converted to PCM by your player and fed as PCM (max 8 ch) to the A16.
This can then be upmixed by the Dolby Surround Upmixer. The upmixer uses the Atmos listening room that is set up in the specific preset you use.
IMO the Legacy setting means that the upmixer does not use any top or height channels.

Or it doesn't affect the upmixer at all?

7.2.8 Legacy Dolby decode
When set ON, this disables the Dolby Atmos decoder from outputting signals to any height loudspeakers, real or virtual. This is intended for users who have a legacy speaker layout, such as stereo, 5.1ch or 7.1ch, and who do not have any height speakers.When set OFF, this instructs the Dolby Atmos decoder to operate normally.

I never really tried this because it doesn't make much sense. At least as long as I have any height speakers in my PRIRs/presets.
I let my player decode PCM to 7.1 (it already does an upmix from 5.1 to 7.1) and let it deliver as 8ch PCM to the A16. If the upmixer (specifically the PCM upmix setting) is off, it just uses the 7.1 speakers of, for example, the 9.1.6 PCM room I set up. No need for the Legacy setting here.
If the upmixer is on, and at the moment only the Dolby Surround upmixer works, then it uses the Atmos room in that preset and upmixes the 8ch PCM to whatever layout is setup in your preset as Atmos room, with the exception that it doesn't use the front wides. At least this is true for the 16ch version. But Stephen told me the upmixer hasn't changed.