Smyth Research Realiser A16

[JonFo]

Paid full price about a month ago. Got it about a week after that.

Congrats on the new unit.

And before some start jumping up and down about KS orders (I too was an early KS backer, lucky to get mine last year), this is a clear sign that cash flow is critical for the business at this time of supply challenges.
Imagine this is your business, you can either A) take your limited parts stock and assemble a KS unit that yields $0 cash, or B) take that stock and generate $4K worth of cash which will allow you to order $4K worth of parts (if you can even get them). Then take a quarter of that new stock and build one KS unit and ship it, still leaving you with enough parts for another three full-price units. Rinse and repeat until all KS orders filled.

I see demand for new units going way up with all the commotion over Atmos Music (spatial audio) and more studios looking for a reasonable mixing playback system that does not involve a total re-do of the studio playback setup. Also, plenty of one-person operations will be looking for this when Apple releases the new version of Logic with Atmos support.
This is why I'm not surprised to see AES input units shipping recently. To a serious studio or musician, a $4K box to accurately render Atmos mixes in any space is a bargain.

 

[jk6661]

Ok, here's another question. The manual says this:

7.2.12. Dolby Surround. When enabled, this instructs the Dolby Atmos decoder to upmix, using Dolby Surround, any decoded legacy Dolby bitstreams to the selected listening mode for this preset for any detected Dolby bitstream. When disabled, this instructs the Dolby Atmos decoder NOT to upmix any legacy Dolby bitstreams.

I have 5.1 and 7.1 PRIRs. If I play an Atmos movie, what will happen? If I enable Dolby Surround upmixing, will the A16 somehow render all 16 Atmos speakers using my "legacy" 5.1 or 7.1 PRIRs? If so, how well does that work compared to getting actual Atmos measurements taken? Why would I not want to upmix, at least until I can get Atmos measurements?

 

[sander99]

I have 5.1 and 7.1 PRIRs. If I play an Atmos movie, what will happen?

(I try to give a short summary but probably you should read the manual!)
Did you already create listening rooms and presets?
Before you can do anything with your PRIRs you have to create a listening room in which you select virtual speakers from your PRIRs. And then select a preset in which you selected such a listening room.
In a listening room you first set the listening [edit:room mode, sorry], like 2.0, 5.1, 7.1, 7.1.4, 9.1.6 etc.
And then select speakers from your and/or other/factory PRIRs for all available channels.
If the dolby upmixer is on then the listening mode that I mentioned before determines what format you are upmixing towards.

You will have to make different listening rooms for Atmos (for all dolby formats) and for PCM (for all PCM input signals. the analog inputs are also considered PCM signals in this context). (In the future when DTS is added you will also need DTS listening rooms).
In each preset you can define an Atmos listening room, a DTS listening room and a PCM listening room. The A16 will automatically select the listening room in the active preset based on the input signal (dolby, dts or pcm).

In 16 channel mode (or with a 16 channel version of the A16) you will have to make a seperate preset for 5.1.<something> in which you use speakers from your 5.1 PRIR (at least the surounds, at slightly different positions compared to 7.1). In 24 channel mode, which I have no experience with, you probably have listening modes in which both the surround positions (90 degrees and 120 degrees?) are available, maybe you don't need a seperate preset for 5.1 based stuff, I don't know yet.

Whether you will like a combination of speakers from your own PRIRs and other PRIRs depends on how the speakers from the other PRIRs sound to you.

 

[sander99]

Why would I not want to upmix ... ?

Personal preference. Personally I prefer to listen to stereo over a stereo speaker system, 5.1 over a 5.1 speaker system etc.

 

[jk6661]

Sander99,

Thanks for your reply. I guess I wasn't clear. I have my own 5.1 and 7.1 PRIRs (measurements from AIX), which I used to create 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby listening rooms and corresponding presets. So I have Dolby 5.1 and 7.1 content covered. My question is this: if I play a Dolby Atmos movie using my 7.1 room, where will all the extra Atmos channels beyond 7.1 "go"? Will they just not be rendered at all? Or will they somehow be rendered if I enable Atmos upmixing (i.e. will the A16 guess where the other channels should be placed, using data from my 7.1 PRIR? If the latter is correct, it seems like anyone would want to use the upmix option for an Atmos movie unless/until they can get real Atmos measurements taken.

 

[sander99]

Will they just not be rendered at all? Or will they somehow be rendered if I enable Atmos upmixing (i.e. will the A16 guess where the other channels should be placed, using data from my 7.1 PRIR?

2 ways to interpret your question:

1. Will it downmix to 7.1, mixing the atmos channels into the 7.1 available channels? Actually I don't know, never tried this.
However note this in the A16 manual:

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 suspect that in this mode you won't miss anything. Because as far as I understand it: for example TrueHD based atmos is compatible with normal TrueHD equipment, all the sounds will be there but only when atmos decoded some sounds will be "moved" to the additional speakers. I am not 100% sure though.
With suitable test signals we could check that, for example those atmos encoded async measurement signals that @Eich1eeF created!

2. Will it somehow use the data from the 7.1 PRIR to create new speaker positions? The answer to this question is definitely no.

 

[jk6661]

Ok, that makes sense. I guess there's no free lunch when it comes to Atmos -- either you get Atmos measurements taken or you have to downmix to whatever you've got.

 

[audiohobbit]

What type of splitter are you using?

I've been using this with great success.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mM22UfT

Have you tried this with HDR content?

There's a similar device (just different housing) here on amazon and one reviewer says that HDR is not working.

There's also the same device (same housing as in your link) with just slightly different text on top (HDMI instead of HD-MI for example) for sale (amazon prime days) but with only 3 reviews (all positive). I suppose the hardware is always the same as all HDMI ports, switches, LEDs, remote control and all look exactly the same, just the housings an labelling differs between them.
So if HDR doesn't work, would be not so cool.

However, since it's all HDMI, it could work in chain A, but not work in chain B.
HDMI is a b*tch, as usual...

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Ok, that makes sense. I guess there's no free lunch when it comes to Atmos -- either you get Atmos measurements taken or you have to downmix to whatever you've got.

You could make a composite PRiR of your speakers and 4 top speakers from the BBC room to use in a 7.1.4 atmos room. In firmware 2.0 there is an app that allows you to tweak the settings of the speakers in the composite PRIR, so lock the 7.1 and tweak the 4 you imported.

 

[jk6661]

You could make a composite PRiR of your speakers and 4 top speakers from the BBC room to use in a 7.1.4 atmos room. In firmware 2.0 there is an app that allows you to tweak the settings of the speakers in the composite PRIR, so lock the 7.1 and tweak the 4 you imported.

Interesting. What if I don't have any actual speakers at all (which I don't)? Or by "your speakers," do you mean my 7.1 PRIR?

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Interesting. What if I don't have any actual speakers at all (which I don't)? Or by "your speakers," do you mean my 7.1 PRIR?

Yes I meant your personal measured PRiR speakers. Not the physical ones.

 

[jk6661]

On a related note, the text in one of the A16 YouTube videos says: "Encoded bitstreams are input via the HDMI interface. These are decoded to multi-channel PCM... The layout of the decoded audio (5.1, 7.1.4, etc.) is requested by the loaded listening room held in the preset. For object oriented audio this layout will normally be honored. However for legacy audio the decoder output will not exceed the bitstream format unless upmixing has been enabled." (Emphasis mine.) I took this to mean that if upmixing is enabled, the decoder output will (somehow) exceed the bitstream format (e.g., Atmos will somehow be created from 7.1). This seems too good to be true, but I'm not sure how else to interpret it.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

On a related note, the text in one of the A16 YouTube videos says: "Encoded bitstreams are input via the HDMI interface. These are decoded to multi-channel PCM... The layout of the decoded audio (5.1, 7.1.4, etc.) is requested by the loaded listening room held in the preset. For object oriented audio this layout will normally be honored. However for legacy audio the decoder output will not exceed the bitstream format unless upmixing has been enabled." (Emphasis mine.) I took this to mean that if upmixing is enabled, the decoder output will (somehow) exceed the bitstream format (e.g., Atmos will somehow be created from 7.1). This seems too good to be true, but I'm not sure how else to interpret it.

For none Atmos encoded content with 5.1 or 7.1 ch , if you are using an Atmos room and have Dolby surround turned on. It will extract channels as per Dolby Surround upmix and populate all speakers in the Atmos room. It cannot create Atmos, but can send stuff to the height/top channels.

 

[jk6661]

For none Atmos encoded content with 5.1 or 7.1 ch , if you are using an Atmos room and have Dolby surround turned on. It will extract channels as per Dolby Surround upmix and populate all speakers in the Atmos room. It cannot create Atmos, but can send stuff to the height/top channels.

What's the difference between creating Atmos and sending information to the height/top channels? Also, how does it do this with a 7.1 PRIR that has no height/top channels? And by having Dolby surround turned on, do you mean upmixing turned on?

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

What's the difference between creating Atmos and sending information to the height/top channels? Also, how does it do this with a 7.1 PRIR that has no height/top channels? And by having Dolby surround turned on, do you mean upmixing turned on?

7.1 PRIR has to be combined with overhead speakers from another prir ( the additional speakers will have to be tweaked to match the base 7.1, now possible with firmware 2.0 ) and loaded in an Atmos room with any compatible speaker layout that has overhead channels . Upmixing is not equivalent of object based surround that Atmos has.
Atmos is at encoding stage it can’t be created in decoding.
The advantage of creating this hybrid Atmos room is that you can enjoy Atmos encoded tracks and not have to downmix to 7.1 in Tru-Hd or 5.1 in Ddplus.