[Camano]

How many of you are leaving your A16's on all the time?

I'm now having the "silent preset" problem on FW 2.05 that takes a few tries to get the optical connection to work (I'm not using the HDMI connection for the Tivo Bolt since it drops out every time I pause).

Anyway, it would be more convenient to just leave the A16 on forever once the preset is working, but I'm nervous about doing that for some reason.

 

[jk6661]

How many of you are leaving your A16's on all the time?

I'm now having the "silent preset" problem on FW 2.05 that takes a few tries to get the optical connection to work (I'm not using the HDMI connection for the Tivo Bolt since it drops out every time I pause).

Anyway, it would be more convenient to just leave the A16 on forever once the preset is working, but I'm nervous about doing that for some reason.

I leave mine on all the time just to avoid the long startup process.

 

[sander99]

Another topic I haven't seen discussed here: Once you get to a certain level of headphone quality, can listening through the A16 and a given HPEQ reduce perceived differences between headphones?

Of course! The aim of the A16 is to simulate specific loudspeakers and the HPEQ aims at removing the signature of the headphones as part of the total process. The sound signature (frequency response) is the main factor determining the audible differences between headphones in normal use without the A16. As long as you don't run into problems like audible distortion by overloading the headphones (for example if the HPEQ tries to compensate for weak frequencies - dips in the frequency response - of the headphones, and the headphones can not handle the increased levels at those frequencies) then the differences should be small (plus except maybe in the low end, where the HPEQ uses only a single wide frequency band).

 

[pervysage]

Another topic I haven't seen discussed here: Once you get to a certain level of headphone quality, can listening through the A16 and a given HPEQ reduce perceived differences between headphones? I ask because I recently tried a pair of AB 1266 Phi TCs, and honestly they didn't sound as different from my LCD3s through my A16 and HPEQ as I expected. I didn't try them straight out of the amp without the A16 because I don't listen to headphones that way. Thoughts?

I've tried a pretty wide variety of headphones, just doing a simple HPEQ on all of them and I've always found that the ones in stock form (without using an A16 and coming out of just any regular old source) that people would describe as being somewhat bass-light (like an HD800 or the very cheap KSC75 clip-on earphones) end up sounding the absolute best for some reason, lol.

Compare that to something like a Utopia that I would say is a more well-balanced headphone overall already in stock form... doing an HPEQ on that for some reason didn't sound as good to me as an HD800... not sure why.

Then getting into more bass-heavy phones like the TH900 (semi-open) & Campfire Cascade (closed) and the resulting HPEQ just sounded way too "spicy" in the treble regions.

The A16 does magic on the HD800 & KSC75 and has them pumping out oodles of bass that I never thought possible without it. It's really cool.

 

[Sanctuary]

Of course! The aim of the A16 is to simulate specific loudspeakers and the HPEQ aims at removing the signature of the headphones as part of the total process. The sound signature (frequency response) is the main factor determining the audible differences between headphones in normal use without the A16. As long as you don't run into problems like audible distortion by overloading the headphones (for example if the HPEQ tries to compensate for weak frequencies - dips in the frequency response - of the headphones, and the headphones can not handle the increased levels at those frequencies) then the differences should be small (plus except maybe in the low end, where the HPEQ uses only a single wide frequency band).

This is what I was always led to believe, but some headphones, like the HD800 retain their annoying treble spike even with an HPEQ. I'm finding more and more that despite the HD800s being very slightly more open sounding (almost insignificantly so), my DT1990s with different pads are infinitely more enjoyable. Not only do they have better bass for movies (non-bloated), despite being considered a bright headphone as well, they're nowhere near as bad as the HD800s are. And the biggest difference is when it comes to dialogue. The H800s just sound so damn anemic while the DT1990s have that "movie like" quality to them, or rather they sound more like a good center speaker for dialogue, while the HD800s just sounds weak and often has that really artificial quality to them.

I think this might also be why I mentioned not really noticing that much of a difference using my HPEQs previously with the A8 compared to not at all. The headphones seem to always be the biggest factor and the HPEQ doesn't really compensate nearly enough to matter. Except in some cases, like with the A16 you have to use an HPEQ because it won't let you use it without one, and the factory default just sounds completely wrong.

 

[jk6661]

Thanks for the replies. Obviously the HPEQ is supposed to make your headphones sound like the speakers and room where the measurements were taken. I guess what I was getting at is this: Maybe chasing the next $$$$ headphone upgrade, while always a questionable proposition unless you have unlimited money, is even more questionable if you're using the A16 because you probably won't hear enough of a difference to justify the price. It would also explain why I wasn't blown away by the 1266 compared to my LCD3. (I like this explanation better than the alternative, which is that I have terrible hearing. )

 

[Litlgi74]

How many of you are leaving your A16's on all the time?

I'm now having the "silent preset" problem on FW 2.05 that takes a few tries to get the optical connection to work (I'm not using the HDMI connection for the Tivo Bolt since it drops out every time I pause).

Anyway, it would be more convenient to just leave the A16 on forever once the preset is working, but I'm nervous about doing that for some reason.

Watch out for LCD burn in.

 

[jk6661]

Watch out for LCD burn in.

Thanks. I actually didn't know that was a thing. I thought it was only for OLED.

 

[dsperber]

Watch out for LCD burn in.

I'm not sure it will turn out that this is of concern on the display screen. But it is one of the complaints I had about possibly wanting to use the new "HDMI pass-through" feature as I experimented with various and assorted connection methods.

There is an onscreen "HDMI pass-through active" (or something like that) message presented indefinitely in the middle of the screen when you go into standby. And it doesn't go away ever, even when you have the LCD timeout feature enabled (for normal disappearance of the screen when powered on, after say 5 minutes, if you prefer the screen to be totally dark when you're watching a movie). And there is no provided method (say a second push of the POWER button) to now go FULLY into true power-off standby if you really don't need it at all for a long while, no longer enabling HDMI pass-through, i.e. a 3-way power state approach with pressing POWER again starting a new 3-step power down sequence again.

Also, in HDMI pass-through mode the HT/ST LED lights are lit. Surely this must have either been an oversight in the programming of the new feature, or is simply impossible by unfortunate design oversight in the electronics. But if the A16 is supposed to be in a lowest-possible power configuration with only the bare minimum electrical state that can support HDMI pass-through for audio/video, why light up the HT/ST LEDs if the A16 and its head-tracker functionality are not in use?

--> two negatives for HDMI pass-through as currently implemented, potential "LCD burn-in" at least possible.

Turns out I now have no use for HDMI pass-through at all. Theoretically this would have passed my streaming sources through the A16 and directly on to the AVR, where picture could then have been sent out to the TV and speaker-sound handled by the AVR. But since audio tone control (in my 2.0 speaker world) would then have been by the AVR where it is inferior to that provided by my DBX EQ, I'm not going to choose this technique anyway. Using the alternative "stereo mixdown for headphones" method, going optical from A16 to my DAC and then RCA from the DAC into the DBX EQ for tone control, and then RCA from EQ on to the AVR for 2.0 analog audio to match the video (passed through directly via HDMI from A16 to AVR), this is my new preferred way to utilize speaker-sound when I want to.

So the AVR would have had to be powered on no matter what. The only potential minor savings would have been to have the A16 go into its HDMI pass-through reduced power state when you're watching something and listening to speakers. But when you're done the A16 is left still in this non-zero reduced power state forever. Seems better to just forego HDMI pass-through and its inherent downsides, and just have it on when you must (along with the AVR being on) and fully off (along with the AVR being off) when you don't need it at all.

Note that HDMI pass-through enabled on the AVR allows it to be powered off and yet still pass-through video (arriving from the A16) to the TV, when you only need the A16 powered on to listen through headphones. So you only need the AVR on when you want speaker-sound.

So that's my current setup: HDMI pass-through enabled on the AVR, but disabled on the A16.

 

[Fox1977]

Does anybody have news about the Realiser Exchange ? While they are short of parts to produce A16 units, one could imagine that Smyth Research would have extra time to work on the website, but like the rest, the opening date is "maybe someday" (or not ?!)... Why also are they holding on to the PRIR captured during the various exhibitions years ago ? that's something i cannot figure the answer, unless they lost them. Originally, they said that the PRIR would be preloaded in the units prior shipping...

 

[audiohobbit]

would have extra time to work on the website

time = money
money = time.

Do I have to say more...?


Concerning headphones:
As has already been said the Realiser flattens the frequency response of all the headphones when doing an HPEQ so I think they will not sound that different from one another than without the HPEQ. I think that the HPEQ is not "perfect" and not "radical" because of certain reasons (like to prevent "overdoing" the EQ) so some FR characteristics will still come through and other characteristics of the HP will still be there.
And I'm still not sure if the bass area is now corrected in the HPEQ with the A16, or not. With the A8 afair the bass was not corrected so the bass characteristics of the different headphones where still there.
If I find some time I'll measure the output with different HPEQs then I'll see if the bass is corrected or not.
(btw with the A8 you could set three levels of HPEQ "strength", but I never compared the different levels, just went with the default)

This chasing for headphones with normal headphone listening has a reason which I think are the very different HRTFs of people. While with speakers a flat FR is the goal and will sound good to most ears, with headphones this is quite different. If one finds some HP that fits his HRTF well he will say they sound very good while the next person may say they sound totally horrible to him. This will be somewhat mitigated by the HPEQ measurement of the Realiser.

I just use quite cheap in ears (Hifiman RE400) with manual HPEQ and am quite happy with them, at least for movies. If you don't feel that you have some (heavy) headphones on your head, that gives the impression like listening to real loudspeakers, it gives you some sort of "freedom".

I quite often run into the "no sound" problem, which is annoying, and really the ONLY thing that helps is switching the A16 off and on again.

Anyway, it would be more convenient to just leave the A16 on forever once the preset is working

In my experience with the no sound bug there is no state of "one the preset is working".
Every time a new HDMI stream starts it can be that there will be no sound.
So for example you're in the menu of a disc: sound plays. Then you start the movie: No sound.

Since I did some tests with the Dolby Atmos Demo Disc I have at the weekend I ran into this problem many many times!
There's a menu where you can choose what to play (trailers or test sounds). You choose one, it plays with sound. Go back to the menu, choose the next: no sound.
Switcht the unit off and on again (because really nothing else helps), play s.th.: Sound again. Then play s.th. else: again no sound.
This is really annoying esp. if you do some tests.

 

[Sanctuary]

And I'm still not sure if the bass area is now corrected in the HPEQ with the A16, or not. With the A8 afair the bass was not corrected so the bass characteristics of the different headphones where still there.
If I find some time I'll measure the output with different HPEQs then I'll see if the bass is corrected or not.
(btw with the A8 you could set three levels of HPEQ "strength", but I never compared the different levels, just went with the default)



I quite often run into the "no sound" problem, which is annoying, and really the ONLY thing that helps is switching the A16 off and on again.

Headphones absolutely keep their own bass sound. I mentioned it in my previous post.

Also, now I see that the "no sound" bug is seemingly a common thing. Just a few days ago I encountered it for the first time, but doing a simple OFF/ON did not correct it for me then. I did that twice and still wasn't getting sound from User A, but User B was working just fine (sort of), but the really odd thing is that User B was somehow outputting the User A preset when it shouldn't have. I had both A and B unique for two different people, and mine was on A and my friend's was on B, with a different preset (his PRIR and HPEQ). I double-checked the settings and sure enough, User A's preset was playing through User B's output. The only way I could actually fix it the last time was doing a full factory restore. First I just resorted the settings, thinking that *I must have screwed something up, but when that didn't work, I did a full restore, and then it worked again.

Tonight it happened again, after changing nothing since the last two movies I watched and I thought "I hope I'm not going to have to do a restore every time this happens", and turned off the A16 for a few minutes to do something else, and when I got back to it (turning it back on), it worked again.

Are Smyth and co aware of this problem and planning to fix it in a future update? Because this shouldn't be considered normal operation.

Also, I don't know if the units just are not shielded, but I keep getting line interference that sounds like radio frequencies. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's very distracting and can still be heard even when audio is playing. I do have my unit connected to a UPS, so maybe that's the problem (it has sine wave output and an electromagnetic interference filter), but I'm not about to plug the A16 into a normal power strip.

 

[makan]

In case anyone is curious, I brought in an Apple AirPods Max to see how the spatial audio would do on the Apple TV 4K vs the A16 using the HD800. Well, the APM sounded pretty good considering it was easy to set up/use and wireless, but as you probably guessed not up to the A16 level. Having said that, it is probably 75% there and if you never heard the A16, it is pretty good for atmos movies.

 

[GeorgeA]

If I understood correctly, part of the success of Smyth Virtual Surround technology is due to the head tracking system. @makan wrote that Apple AirPods Max sounded pretty good, but not up to the A16 level, roughly assessed as 75% if one never heard the A16. The APMs are provided with gyroscope, accelerometer, optical sensor and position sensor. Apparently, they are somewhat more sophisticated than Realiser A16, but the spatial illusion is less convincing.

A bit offtopic, I’ve read a user’s review for APMs at a Romanian site: “….after 1 hour of use I opened the lid on which the ears are like pillows and I saw that it is full of water drops, condes and are not even water resistant……”

 

[SergioPOE]

Has anybody been in contact with James lately? I sent him an email on Feb 17 and he hasn't replied to me yet. Given their general lack of communication, it's hard to know if this is just business as usual or if it's something else.