[Camano]

Hmmm... I was previously using a MacBook with 24/96 FLAC files on it, and the A16 worked fine over HDMI. Anyway, have you found that the sound degrades over the analog connection since it has to go D/A/D?

Guess I should’ve said that the optical and coaxial digital inputs won’t accept more than 48kHz.

The analog inputs are perfectly acceptable to me.

 

[jk6661]

Guess I should’ve said that the optical and coaxial digital inputs won’t accept more than 48kHz.

The analog inputs are perfectly acceptable to me.

Thanks.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I appreciate the input. I already put in $1700 and waited 4 years. To put another $2500 after waiting 4 years is just not going to happen. You mention 2024.. is that when Smyth expects to fill these orders or is there another product coming out.

2024 for the Smyth Realizer for the remaining kickstarters (there are still some of those) and the prepays. That's at the earliest, could even be 2025 if then.

 

[picoamp]

I just noticed products new to me listed on the Smyth web site. Is there any reason for a non-professional to choose one of the “pro” versions, for instance the A16 Realiser 2U PRO-AES3?

 

[GeorgeA]

As Realiser A16 Pro series are intended for post-production audio monitoring, I don’t think it’s worth paying extra for something you won’t actually use.

 

[sander99]

This interesting video about Mesh2HRTF was posted in the Impulcifer thread, what I understand from it Mesh2HRTF is free software that can do something similar as Genelec Aural ID to determine your individual hrtf and can support headtracking:

 

[GeorgeA]

If Mesh2HRTF is free software, might Smyth Research use it for PRIR measurement routines with the Realiser A16?

 

[shmau]

I just noticed products new to me listed on the Smyth web site. Is there any reason for a non-professional to choose one of the “pro” versions, for instance the A16 Realiser 2U PRO-AES3?

Extremely few processors have digital outputs, until you get into the $15k+ range. So in that sense they are good value if you are able to do room correction and speaker delays externally. If you can do that then the A16 can certainly be used as a surround processor with actual speakers too. However, the main intention here has most likely been to simply work better with active speakers.

Works very well with the Okto Research DAC8 Pro.

Note that the AES version is still limited to 48khz. Allegedly up to 96khz could be supported but I have been ignored every time I've tried to ask. The Dante version does up to 192khz.

 

[sander99]

If Mesh2HRTF is free software, might Smyth Research use it for PRIR measurement routines with the Realiser A16?

If they wanted they could use it somehow.
Anyway, I was thinking about using Aural ID, or now Mesh2HRTF instead, and "copy" impulces from these to the A16 in a "simulated" PRIR measurement. For which I would have to be able to send signals into the A16 microphone inputs (DANGER! If you don't know what you are doing you could maybe damage them!).
But I am a bit like the Smyths, so many great plans but will I ever get around to it?

I must say however that at this moment it is not clear to me if these applications deliver a complete loudspeaker-sound-in-a-room including reverberation. Aural ID initially was about pure HRTF, now with their plugin I think they can provide complete speaker sound but I am not sure.
And Mesh2HRTF: I just heard about it an hour ago when I saw that video, I want to look into it further.

 

[castleofargh]

If Mesh2HRTF is free software, might Smyth Research use it for PRIR measurement routines with the Realiser A16?

The position of Smyth is that the mics in your ears are still the most convincing approach. For now.

 

[GeorgeA]

@audiohobbit posted several times here that, according to Stephen Smyth, blocked ear canals by in ear microphones could lead to a too bright sounding result as the ear canal resonance was not measured. The remedy might be manSPK or manLOUD HPEQ.

It would be interesting if using Mesh2HRTF, one could also measure the ear canal resonance to get a more realistic personal response.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Extremely few processors have digital outputs, until you get into the $15k+ range. So in that sense they are good value if you are able to do room correction and speaker delays externally. If you can do that then the A16 can certainly be used as a surround processor with actual speakers too. However, the main intention here has most likely been to simply work better with active speakers.

Works very well with the Okto Research DAC8 Pro.

Note that the AES version is still limited to 48khz. Allegedly up to 96khz could be supported but I have been ignored every time I've tried to ask. The Dante version does up to 192khz.

Would work even better if they had Dirac Live implemented.

 

[Eich1eeF]

Extremely few processors have digital outputs, until you get into the $15k+ range. So in that sense they are good value if you are able to do room correction and speaker delays externally. If you can do that then the A16 can certainly be used as a surround processor with actual speakers too. However, the main intention here has most likely been to simply work better with active speakers.

Works very well with the Okto Research DAC8 Pro.

Note that the AES version is still limited to 48khz. Allegedly up to 96khz could be supported but I have been ignored every time I've tried to ask. The Dante version does up to 192khz.

Do you actually own an A16 AES, and are you using it with a DAC 8?

 

[audiohobbit]

This interesting video about Mesh2HRTF was posted in the Impulcifer thread, what I understand from it Mesh2HRTF is free software that can do something similar as Genelec Aural ID to determine your individual hrtf and can support headtracking:

IMO the video is highly deceiving. It doesn't say anything ABOUT Mesh2HRTF, just what you possibly could do with the results. You don't get the slightest idea of this video how complicated the numerical simulation of an HRTF actually is!

I had a quick look at the project pages: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/isf/das-institut/software/mesh2hrtf and https://mesh2hrtf.sourceforge.io/
My professional background as a mechanical engineer working over 18 years in numerical (FEM - finite element method) simulation tells me that this is far from easy and will have a very very steep learning curve!
In numerical simulation you'll need a few years of experience just to get the basics right.
Yes, FEM simulation is now even included in most CAD programs and you can create a mesh with the press of a button and get some results, but you don't have any clue what you're really doing and where the many many pitfalls are...

And I suppose with the BEM (boundary element method) used for acoustical simulations it will be the no different.
I'm experienced in the FEM simulation but not at all in BEM. We occasionally do some acoustical simulations with FEM but normally not airborne noise for high frequencies (because in FEM you have to mesh the actual air volume with a mesh seed many times finer than the shortest wavelength of interest, so it's basically used for low frequencies, in my case e.g. car interiors).

If Mesh2HRTF is free software, might Smyth Research use it for PRIR measurement routines with the Realiser A16?

Simply said: No.
Not at all. Why should they?
If one poses this question it easily shows that one has not understood the difference between a (simulated) HRTF and the (very easy in comparison) PRIR-capturing method.
No offense!

if these applications deliver a complete loudspeaker-sound-in-a-room including reverberation

No. Just the HRTF in SOFA format as far as I understand.
You'll need a loudspeaker-room simulation to "feed" the HRTF, otherwise you'd hear a perfect sound source, but in an anechoic chamber, and that I think even for surround movies would be far too "dry" sounding.

The position of Smyth is that the mics in your ears are still the most convincing approach.

Yes, and by far the easiest way.

It would be interesting if using Mesh2HRTF, one could also measure the ear canal resonance to get a more realistic personal response.

I don't think so. The ear canal goes very deep and has some curves. You would need a complete 3D model of the ear canal down to the ear drum, which imo is not possible with an external 3D scanning device.

Which leads directly to the first main problem of simulation of an HRTF: You have to very accurately capture the 3D shape of your ears and head.
See here: https://sourceforge.net/p/mesh2hrtf/wiki/Basic_tutorial_3d_scanning/

And my understanding is that they don't describe a reliable tested way to do this but mainly ideas etc.

Then you need to get these data into Blender freeware 3D software. So I think you have to learn one or two things about Blender first.
They have some plugins for Blender obviously. Then you have to create the surface mesh for the BEM elements in Blender.
Meshing normally is THE crucial part in numerical simulation. As I said you easily get a mesh with the press of the button but, at least in mechanical (and fluid dynamics) simulations the quality of the mesh (mesh size, geometry of the elements etc.) is what makes good results, and with complex geometries normally you have to make (lots of) manual corrections to the mesh. And this needs some experience.
As I said I have no experience in BEM and their mesh requirements, but I suppose there will also be many.

They have a tutorial, but as far as I can see it doesn't deal with highly detailled geometry data:
https://sourceforge.net/p/mesh2hrtf/wiki/Tutorials/

You'll need a mesh of the ears that may look like this: https://mesh2hrtf.sourceforge.io/images/Pinna.jpg i suppose.

Which leads to the next question: Performance
Numerical simulations (at least with FEM) at that detailled mesh level need strong multiprocessor machines with lots of memory and even then a simulation could take days.
Again: I have no idea about the performance of the BEM and their implentation of the solver.

If you want to get a complete HRTF you'll need a lot of point sources on a sphere around the head with the full freq response up to 20 kHz which I think will take lots of computation time.

Same is true if you want to measure a real HRTF (as shown in the video).
And this is where Smyth comes in and they say we don't need a full HRTF, but just for those spots where the loudspeakers are (and the room response comes as an add-on, normally not wanted when measuring a pure HRTF, but for a PRIR measurement it is what you want to capture) so the PRIR capturing is by far easier than capturing a real HRTF.

Finally with Mesh2HRTF it seems you need Matlab (which is no freeware and not so easy to use either) for postprocessing (but I'm not sure if really needed to just get the SOFA file).

Then you will have a SOFA file with your HRTF. Still no loudspeakers and room. And no headtracking either. (yes there's some talk about headtracking in the video, yes with a complete HRTF all the data needed will be there but how should the head movement be tracked? the video talks a lot about possibilities but no real solutions as far as I understand).


So I would say better to pay the couple of hundred euros (which is absolutely cheap for a numerical simulation...) to Genelec and let them do the work...



just for reference ( searching for the 3 authors Ziegelwanger H.; Kreuzer W.; Majdak P. )
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5321476/
(from 2016, saying s.th. about "Calculations were run on a Linux cluster consisting of eight PCs with Intel i7-3820 processors running at 3.6 GHz. Each PC was equipped with 64 GB of RAM. In total, more than hundred HRTF sets were calculated in this study and the calculations lasted several days.")

 

[sander99]

@audiohobbit : I don't know if you heard but Genelec has changed the "business model" with regards to aural id. Now you can subscribe for it.

Individual yearly subscription
€ 490 (year 1)
€ 249 (year 2)
€ 149 (year 3 onwards)
Monthly subscription € 49

And then you get a plugin, and will need a DAW to use it. First you have to provide them with the video of your head from which they derive your HRTF of course. But it seems you now won't get your HRTF delivered in a sofa file, but they keep it under their control and give the plugin access to it as long as you are subscribed.
I have been reading a little bit in the manual and they offer some functionality for creating a headphone compensation eq based on comparing to real (Genelec?) speakers. A sort of MANspeaker HPEQ you could say.

By the way, I saw the following offer that would be interesting for anyone who was already considering to buy a pair of Genelec's "one" monitors:

Our offer

It’s very simple. If you purchase and register a brand new pair of The Ones monitors (8331A, 8341A, 8351B or 8361A) between Jan 1st and December 31st 2022, you’ll qualify for your own complementary 12 month subscription to Aural ID, worth €490.