It may be a little while yet. I've learned today that the Octo Research DAC 8 Pro I ordered January 5th and was shipped last Thursday from Prague is delayed by Fedex in Cologne for "operational reasons." It's the A16 debacle all over again!
Man everything with shipping, especially shipping outside the U.S., has been such a disaster since the pandemic started.
Today I really did a lot more messing around with testing out various BRIRs to see what āfitā my ears the best. Seems like itās actually the preloaded Surrey room and itās not even close. It does the best combination of channel separation and having a sound signature I like. The BRIR uploaded by @GeorgeA does a really good job of channel separation, but I noticed that the speakers are lacking a bit of bass for my tastes. I did add a sub to it, but the individual speakers need a bit more for my ears. I know you can boost the SW, but is there anyway to EQ a BRIR to add a bit more low end?
AFAIK these are just like bass adjustments for the final total headphone signal, but would work to give all virtual speakers some more bass. Maybe you should then lower the subwoofer level to compensate because the subwoofer itself would also get louder from heigtening APM bass and/or SVS bass.
Only what is a bit unpractical is that these (APM and SVS bass) are global settings that will influence all presets (and both user A and B), not handy when you often change to other presets...
AFAIK these are just like bass adjustments for the final total headphone signal, but would work to give all virtual speakers some more bass. Maybe you should then lower the subwoofer level to compensate because the subwoofer itself would also get louder from heigtening APM bass and/or SVS bass.
Only what is a bit unpractical is that these (APM and SVS bass) are global settings that will influence all presets (and both user A and B), not handy when you often change to other presets...
Thank you for that. That is a bit impractical (and a very weird way for the Smyths to implement it) as it is just the one room in one preset that Iād potentially want to boost the bass a bit on.
Encountered a weird bug today. A couple of times I wasnāt getting any sound to my headphones from the A16. Turns out that if my A16 boots up and anything other than preset 1 is the last preset used that I might not get sound. Switching to preset 1 and then back to whatever preset I want to use fixes it.
As @audiohobbit has collected various issues that A16 owners confronted and sent email messages to Smyth Research, maybe you could also post about that weird bug at the dedicated thread.
Just wanted to provide an update. I asked James since I was a preorder from 4 years ago, when might I expect delivery. I'm sure many others want to know too. And maybe everyone knows this already, but...Here is his response:
It's nice to hear from you.
We are going through a restocking, and because there are hardware changes ( due to AKM factory burning down) the timeline to start restocking has been extended,
Once we have restocked we will start shipping KickStarter and Pre-orders right away. We have every intention in fulfilling the remaining back
log of orders and we'll make sure everyone including yourself will get their A16 unit.
Thanks again for your patience and support.
Kind regards
James
Just wanted to provide an update. I asked James since I was a preorder from 4 years ago, when might I expect delivery. I'm sure many others want to know too. And maybe everyone knows this already, but...Here is his response:
It's nice to hear from you.
We are going through a restocking, and because there are hardware changes ( due to AKM factory burning down) the timeline to start restocking has been extended,
Once we have restocked we will start shipping KickStarter and Pre-orders right away. We have every intention in fulfilling the remaining back
log of orders and we'll make sure everyone including yourself will get their A16 unit.
Thanks again for your patience and support.
Kind regards
JamesD
The AKM fire happened on October 20, 2020. They started the clean up six months later (in April 2021). When the situation normalizes is anyone's guess.
Until they actually mention how they've finalized their new board design, they won't be shipping anything. So far, it's more of the "soon" stuff that they had previously been doing for over two years. So that really wasn't an update as much as reiterating the same spiel they've been doing for months now.
In a previous post, I wrote that at home the illusion of sounds outside the head didnāt always appear quickly despite I always use the head tracker, either for watching movies or listening to music. In May 2017, when I attended Smyth Research measurement and calibration in Munich, as soon as I put the headphones on the magic worked instantly.
I think that I might find a reason by reading a patent application that explains the SVS method in detail.
Excerpt from the above-mentioned link: āProvided the real loudspeaker positions remain the same as those used for the personalization process, then the virtual sounds will emanate from the same physical locations, However, knowledge of the physical loudspeaker positions is useful when it may be necessary to make adjustments to the virtual loudspeaker positions as a result of virtual-real loudspeaker positional misalignment. For example if the user wishes to set up loudspeakers in a listening environment other than the one used to make the measurements, then ideally they would physically arrange the loudspeakers to match the virtual loudspeaker positions as accurately as possible so as to cause the virtual sounds to coincide with the real loudspeakers. Where this is not possible then the listener will perceive the virtual sounds to emanate from locations other than the loudspeakers, a phenomenon that can reduce the realism of the virtualizer for some individuals.ā
Before carrying out my measurements, I relocated the speakers to face the length of the room. In other words, L and R speakers were moved 90 degrees counter clockwise. After the measurements were completed, I moved back L and R speakers to their initial positions, facing the width of the room. I wonder if this change of the position of the speakers can cause the realism of virtual sounds to be reduced, especially in terms of locating the virtual speakers.
If someone doesnāt have speakers at all to make personalized measurements and hires a studio, when he returns home and listens to music or watches a movie using the A16, his room is definitely not the same as the studio. According to the above patent application, āthe listener will perceive the virtual sounds to emanate from locations other than the loudspeakers.ā
I think itās something I donāt quite understand. What about the statement that using Realiser A16 you might take home a virtual version of a very sophisticated speaker arrangement that you canāt afford physically?
...For example if the user wishes to set up loudspeakers in a listening environment other than the one used to make the measurements, then ideally they would physically arrange the loudspeakers to match the virtual loudspeaker positions as accurately as possible so as to cause the virtual sounds to coincide with the real loudspeakers. Where this is not possible then the listener will perceive the virtual sounds to emanate from locations other than the loudspeakers, a phenomenon that can reduce the realism of the virtualizer for some individuals.
Before carrying out my measurements, I relocated the speakers to face the length of the room. In other words, L and R speakers were moved 90 degrees counter clockwise. After the measurements were completed, I moved back L and R speakers to their initial positions, facing the width of the room. I wonder if this change of the position of the speakers can cause the realism of virtual sounds to be reduced, especially in terms of locating the virtual speakers.
I think the quote above is mainly about the speaker positions relative to the listener. So if you measured for example the front L and R speakers at 30 degrees left and right of center, and at a distance of 3 meters, and then you are using the PRIR while you are looking at front L and R speakers 20 degrees left and right of center at a distance of 2 meters then the sound will seem to come from somewhere outside and behind your speakers. Or your brain will move it a bit towards or completely at the position of the speakers you see. Or your brain will get confused so much by the mismatch that the realism is reduced. (Can all be very different per individual, note the word can in above quote). Maybe some people will be less sensitive for incorrect distance than incorrect direction.
If you move your speakers from facing the length to facing the width of the room but keep the angles and distances relative to the listening position the same then this problem is not likely to occur.
In general human sound localisation can be heavily influenced by visual clues, or simple knowing where the sound is coming from or is supposed to be coming from. This is very different for different individuals. For some not seeing speakers at all won't be a problem. My guess would be that for most people that would even be better than seeing speakers at wrong locations. For some people even hanging pictures of speakers on the walls helps!
And there are other differences between individuals. Some really need headtracking, others don't.
Another matter is if the room where you measured the speakers is of a completely different size, or has very lively reverberant acoustics compared to the room where you are going to use your PRIR. That is why you typically would not want to measure a PRIR in a large real cinema. A PRIR made in a very dry sounding studio would often be preferred.
I think the quote above is mainly about the speaker positions relative to the listener. So if you measured for example the front L and R speakers at 30 degrees left and right of center, and at a distance of 3 meters, and then you are using the PRIR while you are looking at front L and R speakers 20 degrees left and right of center at a distance of 2 meters then the sound will seem to come from somewhere outside and behind your speakers. Or your brain will move it a bit towards or completely at the position of the speakers you see. Or your brain will get confused so much by the mismatch that the realism is reduced. (Can all be very different per individual, note the word can in above quote). Maybe some people will be less sensitive for incorrect distance than incorrect direction.
If you move your speakers from facing the length to facing the width of the room but keep the angles and distances relative to the listening position the same then this problem is not likely to occur.
In general human sound localisation can be heavily influenced by visual clues, or simple knowing where the sound is coming from or is supposed to be coming from. This is very different for different individuals. For some not seeing speakers at all won't be a problem. My guess would be that for most people that would even be better than seeing speakers at wrong locations. For some people even hanging pictures of speakers on the walls helps!
And there are other differences between individuals. Some really need headtracking, others don't.
Another matter is if the room where you measured the speakers is of a completely different size, or has very lively reverberant acoustics compared to the room where you are going to use your PRIR. That is why you typically would not want to measure a PRIR in a large real cinema. A PRIR made in a very dry sounding studio would often be preferred.
Then again, some of us listen in a darkened room and don't give a crap about the physical location of the speakers, only the sound. Listening almost my entire lifetime to speakers like LS3/5a, Martin Logan CLS's, Aerial Acoustic 10ts, and Kef LS 50s conditioned me to not expect to hear sound emanating from the speaker anyway, so I have never had a need to place speakers in a certain position to "trick my brain" into believing the sound coming from the headphones was actually coming from outside my head in the room itself. I just hear it that way.
I think if anyone is having this issue, they should try listening to multichannel music over the A16 in a completely darkened room for a few days. Provided you have a real PRIR, and not a BRIR, that should retrain your brain.
I'm excited to announce that the 3dsoundshop.com website is nearing it's completion... I should be able to enable all of the demo features and it's store on Monday 08/16.
Thank you to all who have helped me out behind the scenes...
It's going to be exciting... Can't wait to hear your feedback.
In general human sound localisation can be heavily influenced by visual clues, or simple knowing where the sound is coming from or is supposed to be coming from. This is very different for different individuals. For some not seeing speakers at all won't be a problem. My guess would be that for most people that would even be better than seeing speakers at wrong locations. For some people even hanging pictures of speakers on the walls helps!
And there are other differences between individuals. Some really need headtracking, others don't.
Yeah, there have been plenty of posts over the years too about how some say the illusion is just completely broken when you remove the actual speakers from the room. I've noticed something similar (to a much lesser degree) myself, where after making a decent PRIR I can't tell the difference between headphones and the real speakers aside from the lack of sub feedback on my body, but then when I am in another room the localization doesn't seem quite as accurate as it does while in the room where the PRIR was recorded. For me, it always sounds like the front right is slightly "off" compared to the rest while out of the room, but it seems accurate while I can see it.
edit: Can't insert quotes in an edit for some reason, but I've been primarily watching movies in a dark room for years now already, and never had much of an issue with Dolby Headphone, at least not with the two fronts and center, so it's not just that.
''''''
If you move your speakers from facing the length to facing the width of the room but keep the angles and distances relative to the listening position the same then this problem is not likely to occur.
.......
After completing my measurements, I moved L and R speakers from facing the length to facing the width of the room and kept the angles (30 degrees left and right of centre) and distances relative to the listening position (about 2 meters) the same. My issue is not related to locating the virtual speakers. Iām not quite happy with the illusion of sounds outside the head that sets in a little later after I put the headphones on.
If anyone is on the fence about buying an A16 and does not want to pay full MSRP, I am interested in selling my pre-order slot. I had pre-ordered an A16 at the time knowing I'd probably never be able to afford the retail model, but at that time we still had a son living at home. Now it's an empty house and as much as I want to experience the wonder of this system, I really don't have the practical need for headphone surround audio any longer. I just got confirmation from James Smyth that he will officially facilitate transferring my place in the pre-order line to someone else if I work out a deal with someone else. So if you're interested let me know if you want to make an offer, thanks.
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