[sander99]

optical only works for user A

Really? I always assumed the Set-Top emits an infra red signal and both Head-Tops can use that as a reference to stabilize to.

 

[audiohobbit]

p. 102 in the manual.
(ok it says only single user, user A I assumed)

 

[VandyMan]

If anyone has gotten a recent address requests from Smyth, please do post along with your Kickstarter order number. Hoping we are in the 60s now...

 

[dsperber]

Just wanted to be sure I haven't missed something in the manual. I've looked for the instructions, but have only found that what I would like is not present.

What I'm looking for (and which would be very nice if it could be present) is a RANDOM SELECTION OF PRESET, without having to sequentially scroll through up to 16 presets for a user using ADJ +/- with each of them taking a few seconds to load before even allowing moving on to the next one. With the A8 remote there were four hard-wired presets (P1 - P4) instantly accessible through the corresponding four specific buttons. There are no such buttons on the A16 remote.

I had been [intuitively] been pushing PA followed by the preset number I wanted to randomly access (e.g. 5, in the case of my manually constructed 9.1.6 room), when coming from either my 5.1 (preset 1) or 7.1 (preset 2) room. So basically I have these three presets (P1, P2 and P5) that I move between. I would like the ability to select either one of them directly, without taking all of my attention and 10-15 seconds and a lot of key-tapping on the remote to get there.

Is it true? No "direct access" of a preset? You truly have to cycle sequentially, 5 seconds per, until you get where you want to end up?

Surely this could be solved, by PA+n at least for direct access to presets P1 - P9. This would certainly be an improvement, even if P10-P16 would need to be sequentially obtained after P9. Or, optionally allow for PA+0n or PA+1n to support direct access of all 16 presets.

Did I miss something in the manual?

 

[dsperber]

Before changing the setup it would be good to recheck how things are at the moment when you play the Toy Story 2 BD, what the Realiser tells you what audio it gets.

Here is what current setup produces on the A16, in pictures. My 9.1.6 room is (a) the sum of the 9.1.6 BBC PRIR overlaid with my 7.1 AIX PRIR for Atmos, and (b) my 7.1 AIX PRIR for PCM. My 5.1 room is simply my 5.1 AIX PRIR for Atmos and PCM. Oppo 203 set to output BITSTREAM over HDMI. Oppo 203 HDMI1-out goes to Yamaha RX-V867 (not Atmos capable) and then on to Panny 65VT50 (not 4K capable). Oppo 203 HDMI2-out goes to A16 HDMI2-in. A16 volume set to 79.

(1) Toy Story 2 4K UHD Atmos BluRay, A16 preset 5 (9.1.6): Oppo info shows input: Dolby TrueHD 7.1, output: BITSTREAM

(2) Eagles HFO DTS 5.1 DVD, A16 Preset 5 (9.1.6): Oppo info shows input: DTS 5.1, output: LPCM 5.1

(3) Eagles HFO DTS 5.1 DVD, A16 Preset 1 (5.1): Oppo info shows input: DTS 5.1, output: LPCM 5.1

(4) Audio CD, A16 Preset 5 (9.1.6): Oppo info shows input: 2 channels, output: LPCM 2.0

 

[dsperber]

From my above screenshots regarding the Toy Story Atmos BluRay feeding the A16, it's now clear proof that HDMI2-out (audio-only) of the Oppo 203 will always carry the BITSTREAM Dolby Atmos audio as it was designed to do even when the primary AVR/TV connected to HDMI1-out is not capable of supporting either 4K video or Dolby Atmos audio.

In other words there really is no urgency for me to swap out my old Yamaha RX-V867 AVR for my Atmos-capable RX-A860 AVR.There's really no need for this until I replace my Panny 65VT50 with a 4K LG.

 

[Got the Shakes]

Looks like firmware version 1.60 is up.

 

[Eich1eeF]

[...]Theoretically the A16 can't yet decode DTS, so what would happen if I left the 203 output set to BITSTREAM rather than LPCM? Well, interestingly, somehow the A16 seems to tell the Oppo that it cannot accept DTS-BITSTREAM. This apparently causes the Oppo to automatically revert to LPCM output, because that's what appears on the speaker map and audio meters of the A16, with the room converted to PCM.

That's part of EDID. Presumably, you're using HDMI, and the devices use a backchannel to advertise their capabilities. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Display_Identification_Data

Note that Atmos is an extension for AC3 or TrueHD, and is just plain ignored by any device that "understands" the base codec, but not Atmos. It's the same with DTS:X and of course Auro.

If you used SP/DIF instead, I'd still expect the A16 to mute its ouput when it detects DTS data.

Turns out that when I used my 5.1 preset it was the Ls/Rs speakers (at +/- 120) which showed signal. These are the two side speakers in my AIX 5.1 room. [...] Or, was this magic (i.e. proper side speaker assignment so as not to lose side channel audio under any circumstances) provided through the A16 which understood what it had to do? And if it was the A16, then what actually was the Oppo sending?

The Oppo just sends a 6 channel (5.1) signal, and the Realiser has to choose the proper mapping for its output. It's also possible that the Realiser advertises a 7.1 or 5.1 room in its EDID depending on the room layout you selected, but I kind of doubt it.


Edit: your screenshots would be so much prettier if you used the 0/# button on the remote instead of a camera or cellphone to make them...

 

[dsperber]

Edit: your screenshots would be so much prettier if you used the 0/# button on the remote instead of a camera or cellphone to make them...

Excellent point! I'd noticed that key when looking at the remote layout in the manual as a great feature, but it hadn't registered yet into the foreground of my mind.

Of course you must have an SD card installed, and then take it out and over to the computer to transfer the BMP, edit/compress to JPG if desired (for size), etc. But clearly the picture quality would be superb.

Anyway, I just tried it. Didn't do anything. Is there a "mount" command to indicate that an SD card is present for this purpose? Didn't need anything special when I was loading my A8 files into the A16, so I didn't think there was. I was waiting for a click, or screen flash, or popup message acknowledging that the screenshot capture had been taken (and maybe even providing the file name written to the SD card), but nothing happened.

Nevertheless when I pushed the # key nothing happened. Is there a combination of keys which must be pressed? You mention "0/# button". Is that a two-button press, to two separate presses on the 0 and then the # keys, or was that just casual? The manual shows simply a red arrow pointing to the # key.

What did I miss?

 

[Juy777]

some new website (at least for me) which appears to be a shop selling the A16, some pictures are still offline etc, seems to be in early stage:

https://heavenly-sound.com/

 

[sander99]

some new website (at least for me) which appears to be a shop selling the A16, some pictures are still offline etc, seems to be in early stage:

https://heavenly-sound.com/

For most of us here it is old news. See A16 Kickstarter Update #46, May 16, 2018 about Smyth and Heavenly Sound joining forces.

 

[Eich1eeF]

Of course you must have an SD card installed, and then take it out and over to the computer to transfer the BMP, edit/compress to JPG if desired (for size), etc. But clearly the picture quality would be superb.

Don't convert to JPEG, that's unsuitable for this kind of picture (unless you have a photo in the background of your room setup), use PNG instead.

Anyway, I just tried it. Didn't do anything. [...]I was waiting for a click, or screen flash, or popup message acknowledging that the screenshot capture had been taken (and maybe even providing the file name written to the SD card), but nothing happened.

I would not expect any visible indicator that anything happened. Since there's no "disk activity" indicator of any kind, and this is a kind of debugging tool, that probably won't ever change either.

Nevertheless when I pushed the # key nothing happened. Is there a combination of keys which must be pressed? You mention "0/# button". Is that a two-button press, to two separate presses on the 0 and then the # keys, or was that just casual? The manual shows simply a red arrow pointing to the # key.

I had just glanced at the image in the manual and mis-read the () as 0. I had assumed that just pressing the button would trigger a screenshot. Just like the "PRIRS" and "HPEQS" directories, it may just be a missing directory with the "correct" name. I don't have my A16 yet, so I can't test this.

 

[jazzfan]

The current XenForo platform used by Head-Fi does not include wiki functionality. Without the collaborative functionality of a wiki, we are left with creating articles each maintained in perpetuity by individual authors. I see this approach as untenable in the long term. If collaboration is a requirement, the alternative would be to create sub-threads that risk being polluted by extraneous off-topic discussions not pertinent to the subject. Neither option is ideal, but I'm keen on the idea of sharing relevant A16 information with the Head-Fi community and will support either approach.

To initiate the process, I've created links to Realiser A16 related threads on the Realiser A16 product page. All of these pages are tagged with "smyth-research-realiser-a16" to facilitate locating associated threads. I'd be happy to create addition threads, if deemed necessary, to organize A16 related information. For those interested in the A16, the following are a few examples of potential "reference" threads that may be useful:

• Smyth Research Realiser A16 - Glossary
• Smyth Research Realiser A16 - Reported Problems on Head-Fi (including current status)
• Smyth Research Realiser A16 - How-Tos
• Smyth Research Realiser A16 - FAQs (from Head-Fi members)

Smyth Research is working on providing some of this information. But I think it might be helpful to others if we augment information available on SR's web site with actual lessons learned from Head-Fi users.

Now is your opportunity to chime in with your suggestions. Should we proceed with creating new threads, or should this idea die on the vine? If there is enough interest in advancing this effort, let's identify next steps to consolidate and organize Realiser A16 information that is meaningful for Head-Fi members.

 

[bcwang]

Just wanted to be sure I haven't missed something in the manual. I've looked for the instructions, but have only found that what I would like is not present.

What I'm looking for (and which would be very nice if it could be present) is a RANDOM SELECTION OF PRESET, without having to sequentially scroll through up to 16 presets for a user using ADJ +/- with each of them taking a few seconds to load before even allowing moving on to the next one. With the A8 remote there were four hard-wired presets (P1 - P4) instantly accessible through the corresponding four specific buttons. There are no such buttons on the A16 remote.

I had been [intuitively] been pushing PA followed by the preset number I wanted to randomly access (e.g. 5, in the case of my manually constructed 9.1.6 room), when coming from either my 5.1 (preset 1) or 7.1 (preset 2) room. So basically I have these three presets (P1, P2 and P5) that I move between. I would like the ability to select either one of them directly, without taking all of my attention and 10-15 seconds and a lot of key-tapping on the remote to get there.

Is it true? No "direct access" of a preset? You truly have to cycle sequentially, 5 seconds per, until you get where you want to end up?

Surely this could be solved, by PA+n at least for direct access to presets P1 - P9. This would certainly be an improvement, even if P10-P16 would need to be sequentially obtained after P9. Or, optionally allow for PA+0n or PA+1n to support direct access of all 16 presets.

Did I miss something in the manual?

What I do is use the menu->preset-A page to switch to the preset I want and "apply" at that point. Normally I use this mode to change presets rather than the PA menu.

 

[bcwang]

Have any of you seen this bug?

Normally when using A16, the power light is green, when the unit is powered off, the light is orange.

However, sometimes when I power off A16 for the night. Next time I look at it the power light is off. The remote cannot turn it on. The buttons cannot turn it on. I have to unplug the unit and then plug it back in to get it to boot up and be operational. I've never had it turn off when it's on, it seems to only happen when it was in the off/standy state where the orange light goes away and it's completely unresponsive.

By the way, anyone know a way to turn off the A16 without using the remote?