[zdjh22]

So does that mean your Mac Sierra (?) browser is rendering 1080p SD, rather than 4K HDR over your Mac when you want it to decode a 5.1 Netflix soundtrack? Sounds like it does. That's one of the reasons I balked at going to a Mac One Mini. All I could ever read in the reviews was how nifty it was at running Final Cut Pro as if that's the only or even the primary application everyone would be using it for. My concern was always that for all its processing power it would not be able to do some mundane Home Theater task (like decode 5.1 Netflix 4K HDR) that my Mele Quieter 3Q could do in its sleep. Indeed on ASR, they have a thread on how the Mac M1 Pro stutters when outputting to a USB Dac. And reliable Windows developed HT software--things like PEQ software like EQ APO, software crossovers like Dephonica,freeware. and even some of the more ambitious room and speaker correction programs like Acourate and Audiolense won't run natively on it either.

So it just seemed to me that unless a MAC could actually add some new capability to the HTPC game--like Decoding Atmos and rendering a multichannel LPCM stream via USB to a multchannel DAC, it really couldn't do anything a tried and true windows machine could not do more cheaply and reliably, and might actually have a few deal breakers in there (like no desktop Netflix app, difficult streaming via USB, poor support for legacy surround formats) that might just make it (IMHO, of course) the decidedly worse option.

As a UNIX guy I really don’t have much skin in the OSX vs Windows game as far as an HTPC goes (I use a jailbroken Oppo, Chinese Oppo Clones, an Apple 4KTV, a couple of home made ZFS NAS systems, Plex, an AVR, and one of the last passive 3D 4K TVs - no HTPC, although technically the Oppo‘s are running Linux). I am, OTOH, very interested in Virtuoso software on both platforms as a poor man’s (far cheaper) Realiser A16. It certainly checks many of the boxes, and perhaps can be even more immersive because of better head tracking support (I’ll know more after I play with the tracker that just arrived). Having gotten Virtuoso working on both my OSX and Windows boxes, I will observe that it’s easier to get going on the Mac, but it works fine on both platforms.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my A16. But it is not an option for many.

For what it’s worth, my Mac is an M1 Mini, with a pair of 4K displays. I don’t have a Netflix 4K subscription but I gather from support pages that I could indeed bring up 4K Netflix in the browser if I paid extra. The built-in Atmos renderer in the Mac OS sound system works great and beats having to deal with DRP and the like on Windows.

 

[Sanctuary]

After all of the issues I've had with my original A16, and the grief that the Smyths kept giving me, they finally came through in the end. They also surprised the hell out of me too with how they went about it. After having a unit that had problems from day one that eventually died in just over a year that I had to wait three months to get back only to find out it had even more problems than when I first returned it, instead of them asking me to return it for a second time, they just shipped me another unit first. At no charge. Which I'd say is actually a pretty big risk on their part. Now I have a unit where all of the virtual speakers actually work, my USB interface finally works, and I also don't have to jump through a circus full of hoops just to get eARC to work when I want to it to. Everything just works now.

On top of that, I had been considering getting the Auro-3D upgrade for a while, but wasn't going to bother until my original unit had been returned to me fixed, but it looks like I don't need to consider it any longer, since I guess it comes as a default (with the increased price) with all of the new units, because the one they shipped to me had it activated already. I'm pretty glad that I got it "free" too (kind of, if you don't count the hundreds spent on return shipping), because so far I'm not really impressed with the Auromatic function. While it does "fill the room" a little more, it sounds a bit too fake to me and really exaggerates the bass, and sounds too similar to something like Pro Logic, or what the other, older matrixing listening modes did. Maybe I just haven't found the right content yet, but even with 5.1 I much prefer the native sound so far. Actual Auro-3D content is really rare here too.

 

[zdjh22]

A short update about my adventures with VIrtuoso as a software alternative to an A16.

OSX: I received a head tracker (“Wave NX”), which is a small Bluetooth device that attaches to your headphone band. There’s a Japanese app for Mac (only) called NXOSC that feeds OSC messages to Virtuoso. This is a 3-axis setup, and it works well. Although I will note that yaw and roll are far more important than pitch (evidently the human ear isn’t very sensitive to above/below directionality). I’ve tried Music (so Atmos over DD+), TV (again multichannel/Atmos over DD+), Netflix via the browser configured for 5.1, and an MKV rip of the UHD (“Director’s Cut”) of The Doors via VLC, so Atmos via TrueHD and DV. All worked well, with the source feeding Virtuoso via Loopback. The head tracker definitely helps with my perception of a wider soundstage. The Doors has lots of multichannel music, ambient sounds, and dialog up front and for the most part my out-of-head experience was good. A very good and cheap way to listen to Atmos on Apple Music with headphones. I’ll note that my cheap M1 Mini handles UHD plus TrueHD Atmos plus Virtuoso virtualization with no hiccups.

Windows: The Wave NX head tracker is a BlueTooth 4 (low energy) device so it requires a dongle on most Windows hardware. I have a dongle, but I would need to write the equivalent of NXOSC and that will mean a short wait for a BlueTooth sniffer (“Ubertooth”) to be delivered and some coding. In the meantime, NXOSC simply spits out UDP packets to localhost:8000 so a UDP reflector (or suitable firewall configuration) should work fine to push the data from a Mac to the Windows machine. Admittedly a kludge. I have a Supperware USB head tracker on order, and will also put together an Arduino tracker next week.

So far I’ve fed Virtuoso on Windows via Dante Via from FOOBAR2000 and the Dolby Reference Player. Both sequences work well, but Dante Via takes some study and FOOBAR2000 needs to be setup to resample to 48000 (until I can figure out how to make Dante Via work at other sample rates). I haven’t found a good video player that supports ASIO yet. DRP does both DD+ and TrueHD music and supposedly can play video as well, just not from my MKV rip. Cavern/Cavernize is an alternative for DD+ audio rendering, although it isn’t realtime (you have to render to an intermediate file and play the file back via FOOBAR or the like). The big advantage of a Mac over Windows is the built-in Atmos renderer (supporting both DD+ and TrueHD data rates). Overall Virtuoso on Windows is equivalent to Virtuoso on Mac to my ears.

As an A:B comparison (or rather A:B:C) I used the same media and headphones last night on my A16. Using the included BBC room, Virtuoso and the A16 sound the same and the perceptual experience (immersion) is equivalent. Using 3D Sound Shop’s Omega PRIR, however, is a totally different story. Much richer sounding, much bigger soundstage, better immersion, better perception of front dialog in The Doors (i.e., dialog in front of me). It’s always possible that the effective HRTF in that PRIR matches the shape of my ears and head better, or that the included Virtuoso sound rooms are not as good, or that the extra processing power of the DSPs in A16 is showing through.

For folks waiting for their A16, or wanting to pay less than 1/20th of the cost, the Virtuoso route works well, at least for my ears. Lots of fiddly bits and being computer savvy helps a ton. OTOH, the user interface for the software tools is a big improvement over the A16 (which obviously requires a different sort of savvy that needs to be developed). If I had an easy way of generating HRTFs and sound rooms for Virtuoso, it would be a definite winner.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

A short update about my adventures with VIrtuoso as a software alternative to an A16.

OSX: I received a head tracker (“Wave NX”), which is a small Bluetooth device that attaches to your headphone band. There’s a Japanese app for Mac (only) called NXOSC that feeds OSC messages to Virtuoso. This is a 3-axis setup, and it works well. Although I will note that yaw and roll are far more important than pitch (evidently the human ear isn’t very sensitive to above/below directionality). I’ve tried Music (so Atmos over DD+), TV (again multichannel/Atmos over DD+), Netflix via the browser configured for 5.1, and an MKV rip of the UHD (“Director’s Cut”) of The Doors via VLC, so Atmos via TrueHD and DV. All worked well, with the source feeding Virtuoso via Loopback. The head tracker definitely helps with my perception of a wider soundstage. The Doors has lots of multichannel music, ambient sounds, and dialog up front and for the most part my out-of-head experience was good. A very good and cheap way to listen to Atmos on Apple Music with headphones. I’ll note that my cheap M1 Mini handles UHD plus TrueHD Atmos plus Virtuoso virtualization with no hiccups.

Windows: The Wave NX head tracker is a BlueTooth 4 (low energy) device so it requires a dongle on most Windows hardware. I have a dongle, but I would need to write the equivalent of NXOSC and that will mean a short wait for a BlueTooth sniffer (“Ubertooth”) to be delivered and some coding. In the meantime, NXOSC simply spits out UDP packets to localhost:8000 so a UDP reflector (or suitable firewall configuration) should work fine to push the data from a Mac to the Windows machine. Admittedly a kludge. I have a Supperware USB head tracker on order, and will also put together an Arduino tracker next week.

So far I’ve fed Virtuoso on Windows via Dante Via from FOOBAR2000 and the Dolby Reference Player. Both sequences work well, but Dante Via takes some study and FOOBAR2000 needs to be setup to resample to 48000 (until I can figure out how to make Dante Via work at other sample rates). I haven’t found a good video player that supports ASIO yet. DRP does both DD+ and TrueHD music and supposedly can play video as well, just not from my MKV rip. Cavern/Cavernize is an alternative for DD+ audio rendering, although it isn’t realtime (you have to render to an intermediate file and play the file back via FOOBAR or the like). The big advantage of a Mac over Windows is the built-in Atmos renderer (supporting both DD+ and TrueHD data rates). Overall Virtuoso on Windows is equivalent to Virtuoso on Mac to my ears.

As an A:B comparison (or rather A:B:C) I used the same media and headphones last night on my A16. Using the included BBC room, Virtuoso and the A16 sound the same and the perceptual experience (immersion) is equivalent. Using 3D Sound Shop’s Omega PRIR, however, is a totally different story. Much richer sounding, much bigger soundstage, better immersion, better perception of front dialog in The Doors (i.e., dialog in front of me). It’s always possible that the effective HRTF in that PRIR matches the shape of my ears and head better, or that the included Virtuoso sound rooms are not as good, or that the extra processing power of the DSPs in A16 is showing through.

For folks waiting for their A16, or wanting to pay less than 1/20th of the cost, the Virtuoso route works well, at least for my ears. Lots of fiddly bits and being computer savvy helps a ton. OTOH, the user interface for the software tools is a big improvement over the A16 (which obviously requires a different sort of savvy that needs to be developed). If I had an easy way of generating HRTFs and sound rooms for Virtuoso, it would be a definite winner.

Sounds like the perfect replacement for Darin Fong's OOYH which no longer is functional in a Window's environment.

 

[zdjh22]

Sounds like the perfect replacement for Darin Fong's OOYH which no longer is functional in a Window's environment.

Sorry that OOYH seems to have faded away. Market timing is everything.

Virtuoso is aimed specifically at sound engineers as part of their mixing workflow, just as the A8 and A16 are good tools for that same audience. We just happen to be in the middle of the Atmos and spatial sound explosion. I’m happy to go along for the ride even though I‘m not a sound engineer.

I did get a big nerdy kick out of Wagner’s video where he explains the difference between Ambisonics and Atmos. All Ambisonics explainers have the same set of space filling models for the various increasing Ambisonics orders. And … they are just the spherical harmonics that correspond to hydrogen atom electron wavefunctions, and I’ve been seeing those diagrams (s, p, d, f orbitals) for almost 50 years.

 

[weijiangnan]

To tell you the good news.
Today I talked to AV-IN's French distributor about purchasing asynchronous measurement files, and they tested that PRIRs made with asynchronous measurements under the 2.15 firmware don't have the problem of shifting the positioning of PRIRs made with synchronous measurements that we found before.

 

[GeorgeA]

Thanks. Good to know.

 

[Sanctuary]

TLDR; If you ever have to replace drivers from your headphones, or you simply buy a new pair of headphones, even if they are the exact same model as what you are replacing...always make a new HPEQ for them. You could get lucky, but you probably won't.

I just learned something somewhat interesting regarding HPEQs. This is probably going to be an extreme outlier situation for those that have an A16 reading this thread, but here goes...

The right driver of my DT1990s for a while had been giving me some "buzz" where it sounded like it was either blowing, or there was a piece of hair/other particle that would vibrate against the diaphragm membrane during any really low frequencies. I ended up buying two "matched" replacements from an official Beyerdynamic partner and decided to switch them out tonight. Was a fairly simple process.

Then I decided to listen to them to see that I didn't screw anything up and of course to hear if the previous issue had been corrected.

Apparently firmware 2.15 is causing balance issues for some users with their PRIRs as well as HPEQs, so if that's a general issue, I wouldn't have been able to make a new, functioning HPEQ for the new drivers. I don't have any working mics yet anyway, so...yeah.

Anyway, I put on some material that I normally use to demo with and wow...it sounded absolutely awful. The best way I can think to describe it is to say that the out of head experience seemed almost entirely absent. While some was there, the center seemed more like it was hovering right outside of my forehead instead of six feet away and it also sounded like if I had used ManLOUD and just randomly started moving frequencies up and down.

Do not recommend ever doing this. I thought that since they were the same drivers from the same series that they should be close enough to my old ones that it wouldn't cause any issue, but that's really not the case. Initially I thought I might have somehow just screwed up the headphones or that the wire/housing placement difference was causing that much of a change. It was just the drivers.

As it turns out though, both drivers new and old still give a kind of "buzz" (although not as bad as what the old right one was doing at first) and I'm not sure if it's just the headphones themselves, or if my ears just can't handle the vibrations. I don't have this same problem with my HD800s, but they don't produce quite a much bass by default.

 

[JMR77]

Hi,

Does anyone know if Smyth offer discounts on Black Friday?

I'm considering one but the price in Euros (plus VAT and shipping) is a hard pill to swallow considering what surrounds this company and the malfunctioning units some users seem to be experiencing.

Thanks

 

[DenverW]

Sorry that OOYH seems to have faded away. Market timing is everything.

Virtuoso is aimed specifically at sound engineers as part of their mixing workflow, just as the A8 and A16 are good tools for that same audience. We just happen to be in the middle of the Atmos and spatial sound explosion. I’m happy to go along for the ride even though I‘m not a sound engineer.

I did get a big nerdy kick out of Wagner’s video where he explains the difference between Ambisonics and Atmos. All Ambisonics explainers have the same set of space filling models for the various increasing Ambisonics orders. And … they are just the spherical harmonics that correspond to hydrogen atom electron wavefunctions, and I’ve been seeing those diagrams (s, p, d, f orbitals) for almost 50 years.

It didn’t fade away, it wasn’t compatible with a windows update and stopped working. He claimed to be fixing it but never did, and never replied to inquiries.

I was not happy I gave him money. Perhaps once day if I ever get a realiser I’ll forget all about that .

 

[weijiangnan]

TLDR; If you ever have to replace drivers from your headphones, or you simply buy a new pair of headphones, even if they are the exact same model as what you are replacing...always make a new HPEQ for them. You could get lucky, but you probably won't.

I just learned something somewhat interesting regarding HPEQs. This is probably going to be an extreme outlier situation for those that have an A16 reading this thread, but here goes...

The right driver of my DT1990s for a while had been giving me some "buzz" where it sounded like it was either blowing, or there was a piece of hair/other particle that would vibrate against the diaphragm membrane during any really low frequencies. I ended up buying two "matched" replacements from an official Beyerdynamic partner and decided to switch them out tonight. Was a fairly simple process.

Then I decided to listen to them to see that I didn't screw anything up and of course to hear if the previous issue had been corrected.

Apparently firmware 2.15 is causing balance issues for some users with their PRIRs as well as HPEQs, so if that's a general issue, I wouldn't have been able to make a new, functioning HPEQ for the new drivers. I don't have any working mics yet anyway, so...yeah.

Anyway, I put on some material that I normally use to demo with and wow...it sounded absolutely awful. The best way I can think to describe it is to say that the out of head experience seemed almost entirely absent. While some was there, the center seemed more like it was hovering right outside of my forehead instead of six feet away and it also sounded like if I had used ManLOUD and just randomly started moving frequencies up and down.

Do not recommend ever doing this. I thought that since they were the same drivers from the same series that they should be close enough to my old ones that it wouldn't cause any issue, but that's really not the case. Initially I thought I might have somehow just screwed up the headphones or that the wire/housing placement difference was causing that much of a change. It was just the drivers.

As it turns out though, both drivers new and old still give a kind of "buzz" (although not as bad as what the old right one was doing at first) and I'm not sure if it's just the headphones themselves, or if my ears just can't handle the vibrations. I don't have this same problem with my HD800s, but they don't produce quite a much bass by default.

Any troubleshooting on the PRIR measurement? And HPEQ acquisition issues?

 

[GeorgeA]

Hi,

Does anyone know if Smyth offer discounts on Black Friday?

I'm considering one but the price in Euros (plus VAT and shipping) is a hard pill to swallow considering what surrounds this company and the malfunctioning units some users seem to be experiencing.

Thanks

You might contact the French business partner of Smyth Research at av-in.com, if you live in Europe. There will be an audio video show in Paris on 21-22 October 2023.

 

[Sanctuary]

Any troubleshooting on the PRIR measurement? And HPEQ acquisition issues?

I can't make any PRIRs or HPEQs right now due to not having balanced mics. So I can't verify that my unit and firmware are problematic when it comes to either right now.

 

[shmau]

Looks like the PS5 Atmos update is now live globally.

Btw it is entirely possible to utilize the PS5's full video capabilities while feeding audio to the Realiser despite the Realiser being limited to HDMI 2.0's 18Gbps. I'm sure we have discussed this in the past but there are some devices that allow one to split audio from video. The audio signal will be fixed frame rate 1080p with a test pattern even if the input signal is 4k120hz VRR. I use the HDFury VRROOM myself. Another option is https://www.hdtvsupply.com/av-pro-edge-ac-sc-1x.html with its similar "audio freerun" capability. I am not sure if there are any cheaper devices available currently.

 

[zdjh22]

Any troubleshooting on the PRIR measurement? And HPEQ acquisition issues?

I received my repaired A16 a few weeks ago and, with a fresh set of Dekoni earphone tips to hold the mics, yesterday started trying HPEQs again. I have the new APM and ARM processor boards so have to use 2.15.

I’m hearing the same issue as before the repair. The sound is shifted decidedly to the left using my measured HPEQs. Using “Test” and iterating with the new left-right pan function in 2.15, I can shift the apparent sound to the center of my head only by using a rather large offset (4.5 dB). Spatialization is still excellent with that shift, and otherwise the HPEQ is fine. The release notes warn that more than a few tenths of a dB will lead to degradation of spatialization, but honestly the shifted HPEQ works fine for me.

I tried to apply a reverse L/R microphone asymmetric gain of 3 dB to see if that makes a difference on the measured HPEQ, and weirdly it doesn’t have any apparent effect.

The problem doesn’t follow the microphones (i.e., swapping left and right).

I’ve tried reverse engineering the produced HPEQ files but so far no luck. I believe the TI DSP (“K2G”) on the APM board might be using 24-bit packed integers, but I haven’t found the pattern. I’m mostly just interested in comparing a good HPEQ from pre-2.15 (as shipped with the A16, and another from 3D Sound Shop) with my shifted HPEQs. I know the files are protected against corruption by some sort of checksum or hash, so I’m not holding out any hope of applying a correction successfully without significant effort figuring out the hash used.

I’ll probably try a 5.1 async PRIR next week, given that the French shop has indicated success with the async app on 2.15.