[zdjh22]

So a better DAC and Amp may improve things like clarity, noise, general fidelity etc. but usually not the localisation (perceived position, distance and size) of a virtual speaker nor its general sound (timbre, etc.)

One of our more expert contributors from the audio industry noted a couple of years ago in this thread that he never uses the headphone output on his A16, only a digital output to his DAVE and from there to his headphones.

I finally looked up DAVE (Chord Electronics DAVE DAC, headphone amplifier, and preamp). Nice! And only 3x the cost of an A16.

I don’t know whether quadrupling the total cost of an A16 setup also quadruples the listening pleasure, but I would be happy to do a review if someone wants to send me a DAVE .

 

[zdjh22]

More 2.17 testing.

Tonight I measured a pair of PRIRs via async, one 7.1.2 forward facing, and another 7.1.2 backward facing. The sound is well centered with various pre-2.15 stock HPEQs (the factory HD800, and an HD800s from 3DSS), as well as with a newly measured 2.17 with my HD800s. My 2.15 HPEQ is shifted strongly to the left.

So for folks with A16 hardware that requires at least 2.15, it looks like 2.17 has solved the problem of shifted PRIR and HPEQs. I'm particularly happy that I can use my 2.17 HPEQ with other folk's non-2.15 PRIRs now.

I also appreciate that I can go to standby, with HDMI pass-thru enabled, and then re-power up quickly. The bug that required a hard power cycle after pass-thru has been fixed.

 

[jaykay1967]

MODS - I hope it is OK to share this news here, please delete if not allowed.

For anyone who may be interested, a downsizing house move is forcing me into a crushing purge of all my gear. I have just listed my A16 which comes pre-installed with the dtsX mod and every single 26 and 35 channel PRIR from 3Dsoundshop. About £5,300 of cost, going for £3,500.

https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/realiser-a16.61880/

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I checked both. I'm considering buying a COAX cable to try a different output.

You should try the COAX. I connect my Octo Dac8 Pro via spdif converted by Canare transformer to AES/EBU and it works fine.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

One of our more expert contributors from the audio industry noted a couple of years ago in this thread that he never uses the headphone output on his A16, only a digital output to his DAVE and from there to his headphones.

I finally looked up DAVE (Chord Electronics DAVE DAC, headphone amplifier, and preamp). Nice! And only 3x the cost of an A16.

I don’t know whether quadrupling the total cost of an A16 setup also quadruples the listening pleasure, but I would be happy to do a review if someone wants to send me a DAVE .

All I can tell you is I connect my Coax on the A16 to a Octo Dac 8 Pro and connect that DAC to a Topping A70 Pro, and I find it to be flawless. There are a whole lot of very good DACs and amps out there for very modest prices which are probably better than the A16's which are an 8 yo design. You might want to have a look at some of the reviews on the internets, particularly the ones which use measurements, to see if there could be something that fits your needs.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Sorry to be a bit slow. So far I've only done HPEQ measurements. So far, so good. The set I did this evening with my HD800s phones were done with quite a bit of care, as I had heard elsewhere that there might still be up to a few dB gain issue. I used pink noise and verified that my mics were within 0.2 dB of each other, so no gain adjustment was used. I then did autoEQ measurements. I did both listening and REW measurements. To my ears, listening to C, L+R, Ls+Rs, etc., the factory BBC PRIR was back in balance again, as were the 3D Sound Shop "Omega" PRIRs. My own 2.15 PRIR was now quite noticeably shifted to the right, and I verified that my old 2.15 HPEQ brought the sound closer to centered.

As regards the REW measurements, I attach below graphs of the BBC sound room center channel output as measured on the left and right inputs (that is, I set REW to output channel 3, and measured separately channels 1 and 2). The top graph is with my old 2.15 HPEQ, and you can see that there is a substantial shift left vs right, as much as 8 dB. The bottom graph is with my new 2.17 HPEQ, and you can see a noticeable improvment.

Tomorrow I'll do PRIR measurements.

I'm still rocking 2.12. From what I've read, 2.15 and 2.17 were very minor changes. I plan to be doing some new PRIRs with my LS 50 system in a few weeks, and 2.12 seems extremely stable, so I intend to keep using it to accomplish those PRIRs.

When a major new feature like optical headtracking for User B or vertical headtracking is introduced, I'll consider making a revision, but for right now, 2.12 for me seems like a very comfortable place to just enjoy the A16.

 

[GeorgeA]

I wouldn’t write that 2.15 and 2.17 were very minor changes. If rev 2.15 hadn’t introduced the 6dB error in the L-ear microphone gain setting, it might’ve been a major change for approaching Auro‐3D decoder and Auromatic up‐mixer with the Realiser A16. Now, rev 2.17 has fixed the previous error, which is not quite minor change.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I wouldn’t write that 2.15 and 2.17 were very minor changes. If rev 2.15 hadn’t introduced the 6dB error in the L-ear microphone gain setting, it might’ve been a major change for approaching Auro‐3D decoder and Auromatic up‐mixer with the Realiser A16. Now, rev 2.17 has fixed the previous error, which is not quite minor change.

How is it a major change on Auro? Please enlighten me, I'm all ears.

 

[GeorgeA]

Beginning with rev 2.15, Auro‐3D control is accessed from the second PRESET menu page. Previously, one needed to access the settings menu. In addition, the user is allowed to create 12 different Auro‐3D listening rooms as tabulated in the Firmware-rev-2.15-May-19-2023-update-instructions.

Maybe minor or major depends on everyone's experience.

 

[dsperber]

Beginning with rev 2.15, Auro‐3D control is accessed from the second PRESET menu page. Previously, one needed to access the settings menu. In addition, the user is allowed to create 12 different Auro‐3D listening rooms as tabulated in the Firmware-rev-2.15-May-19-2023-update-instructions.

Maybe minor or major depends on everyone's experience.

Unfortunately, with 2.17 Smyth did not publish a required correction to the CSV processor (released in beta form with 2.12) relating to the 2.15 relocation of the Auro-3D control from "main settings" (where it had been previously located in 2.12) to now be in the "second PRESET menu page" (where it really should have been in the first place).

This leaves CSV support for Auro out in the cold. No longer where it once was in 2.12, and not supported in its new location with 2.15/2.17, it is simply not supported via the CSV files. So you've got to do your own manual customizations for Auro following any "factory reset" should that be necessary for a future firmware release.

I had reported that to Smyth last year and was hoping they'd fix this obvious oversight in an upcoming firmware release, but obviously not yet with 2.17. And their summary of "work in progress" at the end of the 2.17 README doesn't mention any continued development from the original beta version released with 2.12. So this may be the end of it for CSV (or maybe not). Very good right now, very close, but not perfect.


I do see that with 2.17 they've addressed the very long time for the A16 to return out of "HDMI standby" and the power LED was green. Apparently it was a bug, not a feature, that it seemed to take as much time to get up to operational state as when you hadn't enabled "HDMI standby" at all and the power LED was red. This had seemed counter-intuitive to me, since "HDMI standby" is really very much mostly semi-powered-on-already status, so you wouldn't think much more would have to be done to bring the A16 out from its already powered semi-state and back to full life.

Well, apparently they actually hadn't intended this to take as long as it did. And they've now fixed the bug which was apparently responsible for this unexpected behavior. So that's one good reason to go to 2.17, if you (like I) would occasionally like to simply play one of your HDMI sources STRAIGHT THROUGH the A16 and directly into the AVR with "straight" sound from AVR/speakers rather than "SVS" sound from A16/headphones.

NOTE: it still takes a fair amount of time to get back to life from "HDMI standby". So it's definitely still not "near instantaneous" as I might have hoped. Really only a small improvement it seems to me.

Unfortunately they didn't make any change to one other aspect of "HDMI standby" I'd written them about, namely that the green lights on the HT ST unit remain on forever, unnecessarily and annoyingly, when the A16 is in "HDMI standby" state and the HT is otherwise not in use. It's one thing to have the power LED on the A16 stay green instead of going red, but keeping the HT ST lights on while you're looking at the TV screen is something else entirely. I find it distracting, as I do even when wearing headphones and I can't help but try to keep the lights "centered" if I casually move my head.

The A16 display display screen goes dark shortly after going into this standby condition, after a short presentation of a message advising which HDMI input is going to remain active while in the standby state. This is 100% appropriate and the right thing to do.

But not powering off the HT ST unit when it's not actually in use as it isn't with "HDMI standby"... well that seems like a real oversight in need of a fix. I just want to look at the TV screen and not see those green LEDs if they're not really doing anything.

 

[LTd head]

Looks like I am stuck on firmware rev. 2.12 Oct 02 2022 on my A16s (24ch).
No matter which firmware I try to install (2.15 or 2.17), I get the same 2.12.
I do "Full restore" before and after the firmware upgrade.
Even tried downgrading to 2.11, but the final result is the same.

Maybe someone have experience with this type of issue? Or can advise how to overcome this issue?

P.S. I was waiting for this firmware with Auro 3D updates, before purchasing the license.

 

[GeorgeA]

@LTd head The following might be dumb questions. Have you unzipped the firmware (rev. 2.17 Jan 26 2024) file and copy the FIRMA001.SVS file into the Realiser directory of your micro-SD card? If another file of that type was already present, did you delete it?

 

[Litlgi74]

Looks like I am stuck on firmware rev. 2.12 Oct 02 2022 on my A16s (24ch).
No matter which firmware I try to install (2.15 or 2.17), I get the same 2.12.
I do "Full restore" before and after the firmware upgrade.
Even tried downgrading to 2.11, but the final result is the same.

Maybe someone have experience with this type of issue? Or can advise how to overcome this issue?

P.S. I was waiting for this firmware with Auro 3D updates, before purchasing the license.

Hmm... Are you certain that before updating... You are putting the new firmware file inside the Realiser folder?

All firmware versions have the same file name.. are you certain your copying the correct one to the SD card?

After you installed the new firmware.. And before you do a system restore... Have you checked the about page to verify the firmware version?

As a backup, I keep all my firmware files inside the Realiser folder. But after successful installation... I change the file name to indicate which version number it is. For example: FIRMA001.SVS.212

 

[LTd head]

Hmm... Are you certain that before updating... You are putting the new firmware file inside the Realiser folder?

All firmware versions have the same file name.. are you certain your copying the correct one to the SD card?

After you installed the new firmware.. And before you do a system restore... Have you checked the about page to verify the firmware version?

As a backup, I keep all my firmware files inside the Realiser folder. But after successful installation... I change the file name to indicate which version number it is. For example: FIRMA001.SVS.212

Yes, of course, unzipped the correct firmware 2.17 to SD Card. After long verification, I am getting something like "Successfully installed" in green color. Afterwards A16 restarts and completes the FPGA(?) updates. At the end I am still getting my previous firmware 2.12.
Strange, 2.17 suppose to be installed, as the results confirms.
First time I see such behavior.

 

[VandyMan]

As a backup, I keep all my firmware files inside the Realiser folder. But after successful installation... I change the file name to indicate which version number it is. For example: FIRMA001.SVS.212

That is a good idea, but I would recommend also backing up to a computer because SD cards do fail sometimes.