Smyth Research Realiser A16

[jk6661]

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.

Ok, just so I'm clear: if I use the overhead speakers from the factory BBC PRIR in my personal 7.1 PRIR (which is in a Dolby Atmos room), and enable Dolby upmixing for that room, I'll get quasi-overhead channels from the BBC PRIR that will sound sort of like overhead channels from a personal Atmos PRIR but not quite as realistic?

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Ok, just so I'm clear: if I use the overhead speakers from the factory BBC PRIR in my 7.1 PRIR (which is in a Dolby Atmos room), and enable Dolby upmixing for that room, I'll get quasi-overhead channels from the BBC PRIR that will sound sort of like overhead channels from a personal Atmos PRIR but not quite as realistic?

You have to import your 7.1 Speakers, Overhead from BBC, combine them with the app built into realiser. Import this into a 7.1.4 Atmos room. ( Prirs are imported into rooms) This will allow you to hear upmix as well as proper Atmos. How well the top speakers will match will depend on what tweaking you did in the combining prir step in the app. The 2.0 realese notes contain details of using the app.

 

[jk6661]

accidental double post

 

[Litlgi74]

You have to import your 7.1 Speakers, Overhead from BBC, combine them with the app built into realiser. Import this into a 7.1.4 Atmos room. ( Prirs are imported into rooms) This will allow you to hear upmix as well as proper Atmos. How well the top speakers will match will depend on what tweaking you did in the combining prir step in the app. The 2.0 realese notes contain details of using the app.

Since you are going to be combining PRIRs... It may be best if you normalize them as well... Just scroll down to the button of the listening room... You will see the option to normalize the PRIRs



This will balance out the volume levels between the individual PRIRs.

 

[Litlgi74]

Well... I've spent more on this SACD then any other disc I own... But it was worth it!



For me, other than Atmos movies... this is what the Realiser was designed and created for. The sound is incredible! I cried... But my wife cried more! lol

I've been playing around with and testing my new studio PRIRs. It's not difficult to hear how much more impactful the surround mix is vs the 2 channel. So far, the Paradigm and KEF PRIRs (haven't had time for the others) really make this album an emotional experience. I am using my Raal SR1a with the Realiser set to export 60hz (wish I could set it to 30hz) and lower, via tactile out to my subwoofer. Just WOW... and it's only 5.1!

You've got to try this!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JmVDsJOL3jJCy9FtwHhT8sQCrNsll5tR/view?usp=drivesdk

Let me know what you think.

 

[Eich1eeF]

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.

The dolby atmos standard requires that. For 5.1 or less, there are multiple options to implement it (i.e. direclty render Atmos objects to the 5.1 speaker locations or render to 7.1 speakers and then downmix to 5.1), but there's still the requirement that all the sound objects are represented. No idea how this works with a decoder that doesn't understand atmos, but just the base layer.

However note this in the A16 manual:

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!

If you just want to test that all 16 "channels" are correctly mapped/downmixed to the bed speakers, try this: http://unimportant-site.com/a16/channel_names_3.mp4

 

[Litlgi74]

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...

Well I'm 99% certain that the switch does allow for HDR... I can't double check just yet. All of my equipment is removed from the rack for this weekend's PRIR creation. I can confirm next week.

FYI... in this setup... I am sending one HDMI output (for audio use only) of the switch directly to the Realiser ... I am not sending any (HDMI) signal out of the Realiser.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Since you are going to be combining PRIRs... It may be best if you normalize them as well... Just scroll down to the button of the of the listening room... You will see the option to normalize the PRIRs



This will balance out the volume levels between the individual PRIRs.

Good catch. Yes this will most certainly help.

 

[audiohobbit]

Well I'm 99% certain that the switch does allow for HDR... I can't double check just yet. All of my equipment is removed from the rack for this weekend's PRIR creation. I can confirm next week.

FYI... in this setup... I am sending one HDMI output (for audio use only) of the switch directly to the Realiser ... I am not sending any (HDMI) signal out of the Realiser.

Ok, thanks.
I think I have to order it and test it myself. It's only for sale on prime day (yesterday and today) for 40€, normaly 56 €.
On the other hand I don't really have time for testing atm...

And I still don't know what I'd really need since my setup could be extremely complicated with 2 players, a fire stick, Sat Receiver, AV Receiver, Realiser, 2 projectors and a monitor (or TV)...

 

[phoenixdogfan]

(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.

I think you are making it sound a lot harder than it is. If, for example, you can find a room with 16 speakers arranged in a physical atmos configuration, you can capture it in a single PRIR, and if you give the virtual speakers the correct names (specifically L,R,C,Sub,LS, RS, Lb, Rb, LW, RW, Ltf. Rtf, Ltm, Rtm, Ltb, Rtb) you will find those labels can be used to fill out an Atmos, DTS-X, a PCM, and an Auro 3d room for the A16. In other words choose your speaker labels carefully so they carry across all the formats, make sure the angles come as close as possible to be usable in all the formats, and then build the format rooms with the PRIRs you made. And finding a 5.1 PCM room from any of those PRIRs should be a piece of cake.

 

[sander99]

I think you are making it sound a lot harder than it is. If, for example, you can find a room with 16 speakers arranged in a physical atmos configuration, you can capture it in a single PRIR

I think there is a misunderstanding here(?). I was not talking about measuring different PRIRs for different formats, or about measuring PRIRs at all. I was just trying to explain to jk6661 how he can use his existing AIX A8 7.1 and 5.1 PRIRs as long as he doesn't have personal measurements of other loudspeaker positions.

 

[Om ma Ni]

Does anyone tried to capture PRIR of 1 speaker at the time only with the latest firmware btw instead of pairs? Knowing that, with this new firmware, we can create rooms by adding one specific virtual speaker at the time...so maybe possible to do it in the opposite way?..

 

[phoenixdogfan]

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.

I am kind of befuddled by this. It seems you are saying that a 7.1 Prir taken and later merged with a number of height channel Prirs and loaded into an Atmos room will not render genuine Atmos b/c it was not encoded as an Atmos in the taking of the Prir? Is that somehow right? To the best of my knowledge all the Prir process does is play a sine wave which is heard by your binaural in ear microphones to record how your room, head, ear pinnae, body change the sound from the digital original (HRTF). To the best of my knowledge that signal contains no secret sauce that signals it's in way distincitively an Atmos sine wave. It's just a sine wave, and the Atmos information is a matter of processing an Atmos program which passes a signal to the SVS virtualizer which then takes the Atmos signal and decodes it to at SVS binauralized- prir modified analog stereo signal. In short, a Prir is a prir, and nothing Atmos is encoded in it. Amirite?

Never mind. Seems you are saying that it's possible to take PCM legacy (5.1, 7.1) material, funnel it into an atmos room and upmix it to include height channels, but that this will not be true Atmos. Hard to argue with that.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I think there is a misunderstanding here(?). I was not talking about measuring different PRIRs for different formats, or about measuring PRIRs at all. I was just trying to explain to jk6661 how he can use his existing AIX A8 7.1 and 5.1 PRIRs as long as he doesn't have personal measurements of other loudspeaker positions.

Apparently I have misunderstood. Apologies. And yes, it is indeed possible to mix and match.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

I am kind of befuddled by this. It seems you are saying that a 7.1 Prir taken and later merged with a number of height channel Prirs and loaded into an Atmos room will not render genuine Atmos b/c it was not encoded as an Atmos in the taking of the Prir? Is that somehow right? To the best of my knowledge all the Prir process does is play a sine wave which is heard by your binaural in ear microphones to record how your room, head, ear pinnae, body change the sound from the digital original (HRTF). To the best of my knowledge that signal contains no secret sauce that signals it's in way distincitively an Atmos sine wave. It's just a sine wave, and the Atmos information is a matter of processing an Atmos program which passes a signal to the SVS virtualizer which then takes the Atmos signal and decodes it to at SVS binauralized- prir modified analog stereo signal. In short, a Prir is a prir, and nothing Atmos is encoded in it. Amirite?

Of course The PRIR can playback anything Atmos, DTS-X, AURO-3D ( when available).
My response was specific to a question whether a non Atmos 5.1 or 7.1 source could be rendered, up mixed to 'Atmos'.
Which is not possible as its only Dolby Surround.