[Eich1eeF]

First of all, I didn't pay $1000, I paid $1812. Since I live in Europe and my unit will ship about 5 years late, late enough to have a complete Brexit, that will add 31% to the cost for VAT and import. So that's $2373. So I think I certainly qualify for what you call a "paying customer".

You should have paid UK(?) VAT already, and should receive a refund for that part of the price you paid, and then pay you local VAT upon import.

Edit: Don't know how you arrived at 31%. Highest sales tax I can find in europe is 27%, and TARIC for 85184000 points to a 0.000% duty on top of that.

 

[AppleheadMay]

You should have paid UK(?) VAT already, and should receive a refund for that part of the price you paid, and then pay you local VAT upon import.

Edit: Don't know how you arrived at 31%. Highest sales tax I can find in europe is 27%, and TARIC for 85184000 points to a 0.000% duty on top of that.

I paid the UK(?) VAT indeed and received no refund for it at all.
Check Belgium: 21% VAT and 10% import, both calculated on the goods as well as the shipping (Yep, that's right, VAT and import on shipping!).
And a fixed customs handling fee.
I think I'll know it better since I live here and buy from outside the EU quite often, so I paid it quite a few times as well.

 

[Andrew Seeley]

Dear potential buyers of the Realiser and Current Owners looking for The Best possible Prir to use, I will edit this post in about 1 to 2 hour'.

I will take pictures of the Two Atmos theatres I should have Captured on Monday. From the realisers 3.5mm analog outs

On Monday you get gratituity pics of the Racks too. That run such impressive setups

One more, thing

Jist one more, going to get the pictures of the movie theaters right now I will capture for the thread. That'll impress mors than z reviews Junk _<__<Video which really rained on the Poor Realiser Parade.

And Eich1eef, I disagree.
Team Smyth should be able to DELIVER to their customers in a timely fashion. And at the 'best' price so they can support their lroduct properly, and sell AT LEAST twice as many, mini-Mums'

Cheer up. We are going to Fix this z reviews Thing.

The 39 is the correct size for 24 channel prirs

 

[Fox1977]

Dear potential buyers of the Realiser and Current Owners looking for The Best possible Prira to use, I will edit this post in about 1 to 2 hour'.

I will take pictures of the Two Atmos theatres I should have Captured on Monday. From the realisers 3.5mm analog outs

On Monday you get gratituity pics of the Racks too. That run such impressive setups

When i was using Out Of Your Head, PRIRs like Egyptian Theater, measured in actual movie theaters were not sounding good to me, it was echoey. I assume it probably was because i was in my living room where my 65" TV is 3m from me, listening to a measurement from a huge room, it didn't work because sizes were not matching at all between what i was seeing and what i was hearing.
I'm curious to try these PRIR that you'll share to see how it will sound.

 

[Andrew Seeley]

The egyptian theater is NOt a good venue. It is nothing like a Professional movie theater. It is the worst theater i have ever been to in my life, and I have been there. I have also been to my share of theaters.

Google some images of that theater. It is truly acoustically Terrible. Nothing at all like a movie theater with REAL SPEAKERz FOR ATMOS standards

I will have the photos soon, and pull this sentence out of the post. You will be Hooked

Thank you for bringing standards like the Los Angeles Egyptian theater in LA prir up...

Nothing at all like a movie theater. If you have never been to a real Dolby Atmos theater. You're in for a real treat<ed room]. That has a sweet spot, unlike the Huge and all concrete walled L.A Egyptian theater. That theater is All concrete, built in like th 50's and seats 1397 people, without terracing.

Really awful acoustic environment.

Listening to New York's Central Park would be far, far better than the LA Egyptian theater
Last I knew, qnd certainly when those prirs were done, :
The equipment in that theater is also like 2.21 trillion years old.

 

[Fox1977]

Then hopefully i'll get a better experience with your PRIR

 

[Eich1eeF]

Team Smyth should be able to DELIVER to their customers in a timely fashion. And at the 'best' price so they can support their lroduct properly, and sell AT LEAST twice as many, mini-Mums'

No argument there. The delays are unacceptable, but, given the fact that it is a unique product, they are what they are. Buy it at the price and shipping times they offer, or leave it.

Cheer up. We are going to Fix this z reviews Thing.

Go on then, where's your A16 for beginners walkthrough video? Looking forward to seeing it (soon?)

 

[Andrew Seeley]

I've been thinking that you're still right. I should watch the z reviews video in entirety. When waiting for the movie to end, Bounced to about 18 min and it works, it is really ok. I am not the only person who had trouble with the opening, but the video is for an unfamiliar audience.

 

[arnaud]

As a matter of fact, I'm tired of it.
Anyone managed to get a refund and tell me how they did it?
Or if anyone wants my preorder at the price I paid without taxes that's fine too.

I can totally understand the frustration but my piece of advice would be to hold on as there’s no substitute.

On my side, I had OOYH on the mac computer which I was using like once a year at most since I could not make use of it for movies, actually wasn’t watching movies on the mac anyhow.

When the realiser arrived, I did not have an A/V setup, so was trying to use it with an ipad which is what what I used for watching movies. That quickly got frustrating with issues passing audio through the appropriate dock and essentially being limited to 5.1.

I eventually invested in a 4k TV + entry level 4k uhd player and also have a near field 2ch setup that I could use to make 16 ch. prirs by rotating around. Well, this has totally transformed the experience for me and I’d know be very very frustrated if the A16 was going away. Atmos soundtracks from 4kUHD discs make the movie so much more immersive. Even just 5.1 from streaming movies is just really hard to give up once I got used to it. I basically just can‘t enjoy watching the TV without wearing the headphones on .

btw, I used mere hd600s as headphones because they’re light, comfortable, open sounding and are driven fine in mid gain by the built in HP out. They’re just perfect for me, I still get thunderous but clean bass output, and no shrill highs (after going through a manLOUD eq though), I am just super satisfied.

To summarize: yes their is so much frustration accumulated from waiting for the product or features, but you will likely regret it if you back out now after having gone through most of the wait. As for paying retail price, despite the great experience now, I don’t think I could justify it unless it was squeaky clean and full featured (dts, auro3d, earc, ...). I feel lucky to have jumped on kickstater (I’ve been wanting the A8 before but could not really afford it so the kickstarter offer was a no brainer), it’s been a long ride but I’d now say the wait was worth it at last.

As for Z reviews, probably a moot point since the target audience is different indeed. I don’t have 1 hour to waste so I won’t even bother watching

 

[Litlgi74]

Go on then, where's your A16 for beginners walkthrough video? Looking forward to seeing it (soon?)

I may make one... not sure why the Smyth boys have not.

 

[AppleheadMay]

I can totally understand the frustration but my piece of advice would be to hold on as there’s no substitute.

On my side, I had OOYH on the mac computer which I was using like once a year at most since I could not make use of it for movies, actually wasn’t watching movies on the mac anyhow.

When the realiser arrived, I did not have an A/V setup, so was trying to use it with an ipad which is what what I used for watching movies. That quickly got frustrating with issues passing audio through the appropriate dock and essentially being limited to 5.1.

I eventually invested in a 4k TV + entry level 4k uhd player and also have a near field 2ch setup that I could use to make 16 ch. prirs by rotating around. Well, this has totally transformed the experience for me and I’d know be very very frustrated if the A16 was going away. Atmos soundtracks from 4kUHD discs make the movie so much more immersive. Even just 5.1 from streaming movies is just really hard to give up once I got used to it. I basically just can‘t enjoy watching the TV without wearing the headphones on .

btw, I used mere hd600s as headphones because they’re light, comfortable, open sounding and are driven fine in mid gain by the built in HP out. They’re just perfect for me, I still get thunderous but clean bass output, and no shrill highs (after going through a manLOUD eq though), I am just super satisfied.

To summarize: yes their is so much frustration accumulated from waiting for the product or features, but you will likely regret it if you back out now after having gone through most of the wait. As for paying retail price, despite the great experience now, I don’t think I could justify it unless it was squeaky clean and full featured (dts, auro3d, earc, ...). I feel lucky to have jumped on kickstater (I’ve been wanting the A8 before but could not really afford it so the kickstarter offer was a no brainer), it’s been a long ride but I’d now say the wait was worth it at last.

As for Z reviews, probably a moot point since the target audience is different indeed. I don’t have 1 hour to waste so I won’t even bother watching

I can't deny you're right but after patiently waiting for 4 years my patience started to wear thin.
And then seeing they simply have stock sitting there waiting to sell at higher prices was the last drop for me.
Which is why I'd rather have no unit than having to deal with and wait for this company for another year.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

It is, but (1) there's nothing at all like the Realiser on the market and (2) a comparable high-end home cinema processor like the Monoprice HTP-1 (also uses MDS HDMI and DSP boards), Emotiva RMC-1 or Arcam cost at least as much. If/when the A16 gets Dirac and works as a full featured home cinema processor it'll be an absolute steal at the current price, the closest contender to the model with AES in/out is the JBL SDP-55 at US$6000. The A16 is clearly aimed at the enthusiast and pro market, and unless the Smyths build a setup wizard with step by step onscreen instructions to take measurements, it'll certainly stay that way.

You really can't compare the price of the A16 with mass market devices from Denon, Marantz, Pioneer or Yamaha, who sell tens of thousands of devices, which much of the development cost spread over their entire range. I also wish the A16 was cheaper, but I think that that's not a sustainable proposition for the Smyths while the can only sell hundreds, not thousands of Realisers.

Of course the thing they need to do is sell a software version of it. Only the headtracker, the set top, and the binaural mics absolutely have to be done as hardware. A software version for $1000 would sell a helluva lot more units because it would be more affordable to more users and they would make more money in the end b/c of lower parts costs, warranty replacements and reshipment costs and the like.

Moreover, users could use a decent sized monitor (like your flatscreen) for I/O instead of a two inch screen. It would make it far easier to navigate menus if everything could be done with a mouse instead of a remote with buttons and multi-layered menus.

Needless to say, orders could be rapidly fulfilled without having to wait for parts (or the money to buy them) or do the Customs Kabuki dance, and they could more quickly do service/customer support, and, deliver updates and new features more efficiently as well.

Why? Because it would all be software!

The biggest hang up would be getting the codec owners of Atmos and DTS-X to bite (but it's probably do-able), and I'm certain those codecs could run on a windows box.

After all Baac, another very complex and in many ways comparable package, is predominantly software and runs on an Apple box.

I'm sure it would drive some people who paid $4k or more for the A16 absolutely around the bend. But I, for one, would not mind a bit, provided they comped the software to legacy purchasers.

 

[Om ma Ni]

The egyptian theater is NOt a good venue. It is nothing like a Professional movie theater. It is the worst theater i have ever been to in my life, and I have been there. I have also been to my share of theaters.

Google some images of that theater. It is truly acoustically Terrible. Nothing at all like a movie theater with REAL SPEAKERz FOR ATMOS standards

I will have the photos soon, and pull this sentence out of the post. You will be Hooked

Thank you for bringing standards like the Los Angeles Egyptian theater in LA prir up...

Nothing at all like a movie theater. If you have never been to a real Dolby Atmos theater. You're in for a real treat<ed room]. That has a sweet spot, unlike the Huge and all concrete walled L.A Egyptian theater. That theater is All concrete, built in like th 50's and seats 1397 people, without terracing.

Really awful acoustic environment.

Listening to New York's Central Park would be far, far better than the LA Egyptian theater
Last I knew, qnd certainly when those prirs were done, :
The equipment in that theater is also like 2.21 trillion years old.

I think that you will be one of the first one to really show the potential of our A16 with your professional room capture...The room looks already amazing..
Will also be delighted for us to have a detailed tutorial or report on your journey to create these PRIR or BRIR...So we will learn from it for the future when we will have more chance for capturing these type of rooms if the opportunities arise.

 

[You Gene]

I may make one... not sure why the Smyth boys have not.

The French dealer wrote a typewritten manual for his customers (proprietary unfortunately) ; also updated recently. But the problem is that it is only 20 pages long and highly condensed. I gather that a beginners' walkthrough video/manual (A16 for "dummies", myself included...) like Eich1eeF suggested would be a real bonus. Even a written manual.
It could even be a joint effort...

Edit : I had some fun trying to begin a Realiser mini manual for "dummies" in French some time ago and it looked like this. Don't laugh...
And of course you can access all video tutos from Smyth in pdf format : I admit it took a bit longer...
https://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum...smyth-realiser-a16-voir-post-1-t30075654.html

 

[Ayodej]

Background follower and owner here. Don't really post much but saw z reviews recent "review" and felt a need to make a comment on his video. I tried to straighten out one or two things he clearly got wrong. Hopefully if it helps to undeter even one less person who was perhaps considering a realiser but then see's his misguiding video, I'd be happy. Poor excuse for a 'review' of a product you couldn't even learn its most basic features of.