Smyth Research Realiser A16

[jgazal]

Quickly opened it to check contents this morning. The packing slip said two headtrackers.... the contents was one head tracker and rack mount ears (I also did not pledge for these). I even emailed James the day after his email (a week and a half before they actually shipped) to remind him I pledged for two headtrackers. I really dont think its that hard to pick the order, to match the packing slip. (...)

James sent me a message last week saying that he was going to post it this week.
I haven’t received a shipping notice yet...

 

[sander99]

Ah, it was the other way round, but it is probably wise also not to try the A16 mics with the A8 without consulting Smyth.
A16 manual:

5.3.3.6 Mic Type
...
Caution: The A8 microphones CANNOT be used directly with the A16 and will be damaged if this is attempted. Please
contact the company if you wish to connect A8 microphones to the A16.

 

[sahmen]

Okay, hardcore graveyard humor Alert !!!:

Am I the only one enjoying the medieval tombstone aesthetics of the headstand? The difference? The A-16 could wake the dead, in case the owner is gone by the time it ships...

Personally, it's why I picked the headstand over the other (2U) format

 

[mercury79]

Okay, hardcore graveyard humor Alert !!!:

Am I the only one enjoying the medieval tombstone aesthetics of the headstand? The difference? The A-16 could wake the dead, in case the owner is gone by the time it ships...

Personally, it's why I picked the headstand over the other (2U) format

Headstand rules!! You gave me another reason to love it! Yeaaaah!

 

[Dixter]

those are early headphone stands...

 

[dsperber]

A picture (or nine) is worth 1000 words.

A8 (#0001) meets A16 (#0001). Amazing!!!

 

[106099]

Okay, hardcore graveyard humor Alert !!!:

Am I the only one enjoying the medieval tombstone aesthetics of the headstand?

You and I are the only ones here with the headstand. Hoping we will not get a pre-production unit.

 

[106099]

A picture (or nine) is worth 1000 words.

A8 (#0001) meets A16 (#0001). Amazing!!!

Numero uno!
EBAY it for $20,000

 

[sahmen]

those are early headphone stands...

e

Do you have a photo that shows the looks of the final production unit? I have only seen photos of different prototypes, sometimes, with some looking a little different than others... But I think all of them stick to the medieval tombstone aesthetic, though, in spite of the various cosmetic variations...

 

[Dixter]

A picture (or nine) is worth 1000 words.

A8 (#0001) meets A16 (#0001). Amazing!!!


Like brother and sister... congrats...

 

[Dixter]

e

Do you have a photo that shows the looks of the final production unit? I have only seen photos of different prototypes, sometimes, with some looking a little different than others... But I think all of them stick to the medieval tombstone aesthetic, though, in spite of the various cosmetic variations...

Pretty sure this is the one that is shipping out... https://smyth-research.com/product/a16-headstand/

 

[sahmen]

You and I are the only ones here with the headstand. Hoping we will not get a pre-production unit.

I hope not. Will you post a photo of yours when it arrives? It is going to take a while before mine does. BTW, it appears that @mercury79 too will rock a headstand!

 

[esimms86]

A picture (or nine) is worth 1000 words.

A8 (#0001) meets A16 (#0001). Amazing!!!

I’m truly happy for you. I have one question and one statement. Question: Did Smyth include your CanJam PRIR? Statement: I wouldn’t post my full name and address on any Internet forum(and, no, I don’t do Facebook, Twitter or Instagram).

 

[sahmen]

Pretty sure this is the one that is shipping out... https://smyth-research.com/product/a16-headstand/

Well, in that case, it looks exactly like the one on the left of this photo below, which I already posted above. If there's any difference, I can't see it, but it really doesn't matter, how it looks like at this point... I just want to get my hands on the thing...

 

[dsperber]

At the moment I'm unsure of whether the A16 can actually accept upstream-decoded Dolby Atmos 16-channel LPCM... if the Oppo 203 could even put it out via LPCM, which I don't think it can. So I expect that I'm still going to have to insert the A16 between the Oppo HDMI1-out and the AVR, and use BITSTREAM. So HDMI-in/out of the A16 had better work with my Yamaha AVR. And we'll see how HDMI-bypass works.

I don't know what I was thinking. I'm an idiot. The fog of war.

Just because The A16 only accepts 8-channel LPCM via HDMI doesn't mean I have to place A16 between Oppo and AVR in order to handle Dolby Atmos. The A16 accepts 16-channel bitstream via HDMI, and it also accepts 8-channel bitstream via HDMI. And the Oppo can deliver HDMI audio output as either LPCM or bitstream. As it happens I currently have my Oppo set to deliver LPCM because (a) I have an A8 which requires LPCM, and (b) 8-channel LPCM is no problem with the 8-channel A8. Replacing the A8 with an A16 simply means that I can now feed bitstream for ANY codec and for ANY NUMBER OF CHANNELS from the Oppo rather than LPCM, since the A16 can now do the decoding rather than requiring the Oppo to decode as was the case with the A8.

So that means I clearly can still operate the Oppo in "split A/V" mode as I do now (i.e. with no HDMI pass-through), with HDMI1-out going video-only to my AVR and HDMI2-out going audio-only (but now bitstream instead of LPCM as it used to be) to the A16.

In other words I do NOT have to daisy-chain things as I earlier mistakenly said I would have to, with A16 placed between Oppo and AVR where it would pass-through HDMI to its output and on to the AVR. I can simply leave things cabled exactly as I do today, with Oppo's HDMI2-out audio-only now set to bitstream and going to the A16 and no further. No need to pass-through HDMI out of the A16. The only change is to set the Oppo to now deliver bitstream out of HDMI2 instead of LPCM. That means I can in fact deliver all audio codec sources and either 8-channel or 16-channel via the Oppo's HDMI2-out, since it will now be the A16 doing all the decoding no matter what the source.

I do NOT have to place the A16 between Oppo and AVR in order to handle Dolby Atmos. I just need to change the Oppo to put audio out over HDMI2 as bitstream feeding the A16.