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Emotiva XMC-1 coming soon (please limit posts to technical issues)

73K views 1K replies 117 participants last post by  markrubin 
#1 ·
Please take a look here


Among the features of audio capabilities this Emotiva processor has something like: "Selectable Fletcher-Munson loudness compensation".


Boy, now that is something I would have never expected to see any company in the 12th year of the 21st century to enlist as a "feature". What are they talking about? Technology 80 years behind us? Arrrgh!!
 
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#386 ·
Mr. Barnes,

I haven't been here in ages and just stopped by to browse and saw this thread. I do own Emotiva equipment and am aware of the long delays over 5 years or so for the XMC-1. Just wanted to make a comment about your posts. You really seam to have a big time chip on your shoulder over this. I've had a lot more issues with Microsoft and their products and also my Honda auto that I own over the last 5 years than with my Emotiva equipment. Sure I would like to see the XMC-1 finally appear too, but I hope you don't get a ulcer getting so worked up over this. Yeah, they have made some mistakes but I don't really think they were intentional. They are not the only firm that have had some very serious issues with developing a pre-pro.

Just my honest thoughts.
RR6
 
#396 ·
Hey RoadRunner - no need to worry about my health, but thanks for the concerns. Despite how it may seem, I'm not getting very worked up about the delays on the XMC-1. Everything I have posted has been factual AFAICR, or clearly stated as opinion/speculation. It isn’t the delay on the XMC-1 that is the main issue - it is the lack of information or even disinformation coming out of Emotiva that is the part that is worrying. Like saying there have been units shipped in April and May but then not being able to answer questions about the tech spec of their implementation of Dirac. I have no chip on my shoulder and have been delighted with every Emotiva product I have owned (which is 11 for the record).
 
#388 ·
Quick mention of XMC-1 to stay on topic.

When I received the email from Emotiva about a new club right before Memorial Day along with news about the holiday 10% discount I assumed that eventually I could get my 10% off on the new amp I want to buy from them without having to pay $45 a year for the privilege. Nice 5% discount on a $1000 purchase. Millionaires Club - I keep reading that just to make sure I am not dreaming, what a joke. Repurchase program means a lot of "certified" products coming on the market later to compete with their new and now they are getting in the retail business.

All I can say is that given the latest marketing moves coupled with the XMC-1 issues I predict in a few years there are going to be some MBA classes studying what not to do when you have a successful company and then go astray of your mission. I speak from experience, success can lead to some poor decisions regarding the future course of your company - like moving production to the US - sometimes it is better to just keep doing what you do well and learn to be happy with where you are in the marketplace.

These moves do not look like the future is a good one for Emotiva. The amp I was getting ready to buy from them next week may not happen - I would rather spend more and feel like that company may be in business 2 or 3 years from now in case I need them. Of course as mentioned above they have done a great job of getting us off topic.
 
#392 ·
If I had the $100,000 to basically loan to them for future shipments of unknown products, I would be in an income bracket that would allow me to select from a tremendous range of high dollar high quality equipment. Emotiva would most likely never make the list of products under consideration. McIntosh would be my entry level equipment with those dollars available!

Screams SCAM to me.
 
#400 ·
No, just an ill-advised marketing gimmick that will probably draw no takers, or a Hail Mary pass to somehow find a gadfly investor or 10 with money to burn for a hobby.

I wouldn't put Emotiva on any list of mine either if I had $100K to burn for A/V equipment: I'd be spending it on a 12 channel Trinnov Altitude pre/pro, a Seaton Catalyst based system in our dedicated HT (after we buy our million dollar home with one LOL) with appropriate amplification, and a wage slave to position treatments and conduct REW measurements to optimize the whole thing :D
 
#393 ·
I agree totally with the posts from Reefdvr27 and PeterK. Anyone with $100k to drop is not going to be online looking at emotiva.com for their next audio purchase ;).


Bill
 
#397 ·
"You'll have input on upcoming products, before they are released."

That line reminds me of the following from a colorful baseball manager...

Listen, if you start worrying about the people in the stands, before too long you're up in the stands with them.
Tommy Lasorda
 
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#406 · (Edited)
Well that is IF Emotiva actually releases new products!! ;)
Thinking of the speakers that were discontinued and supposed to be replaced with new models that never hit the market, the subwoofers that never hit the market, the XMC and RMC, the list goes on.

Oh and the rumored turntable, the supposed tube amps, the mini component line.
 
#408 ·
To be fair, they have released a lot of products, just not the promised ones. The Fusion receiver came out of nowhere. They also put out a third CD player, DAC, phono pre-amp, and new XSP-1, and four of their amps have been upgraded in the past year to Gen. 2. All this in the past year. If you were an EMC member you would have gotten all those products. And the XPA-1L, not much over a year old, is being upgraded "soon". I think their announcement said they released $16k in new products in the last year.

There are some people on their forum who have a ton of their products, and probably have spent ten thousand or more on Emotiva alone. While I think it's a silly idea, I think they may get one or two takers on this, because there are a handful of rich people who are still into the DIY side of the hobby. Of course they could also just be friends of Dan.

I'm not defending it, and I wouldn't go for it even if I could afford it, well maybe if the XMC-1 had come in a timely manner I'd be more enthusiastic, but I don't think it's fair to call it a rip-off or a con. They do release new products, and enough of them that you'd get your money back in products, albeit often redundant stuff that you probably wouldn't need. But you could sell that, and you could use your 50% discount to hook friends up with good equipment for a real good price. Just as an example, if you wanted to do 13 channels with XPR-1s for each channel, that would save you $11,050.

Hmmm...great technical discussion!
This thread is over one and a half years old, and was started back when the XMC-1 was going to be released "real" soon. It's not surprising to see it go in this direction. Hopefully if it's ever released a different thread will be started for actual technical discussion.
 
#410 ·
Interesting approach to setting up B&M dealers. You'd get every new gadget for your showroom. Sell at the internet price and you've got a decent margin. EMO would have to throw in one (or two) of every existing product to make that work though.

Do they still have B&M resellers?

:rolleyes:
 
#411 ·
I'm curious how this would be treated for accounting purposes?
 
#415 ·
After all they are in a business and making money is their chief goal.
The 50% off products promotion might be attractive to a reseller and they may find enough international resellers that would go in on this. These resellers wouldn't really compete domestically and could grow the Emotiva market in a new direction.
 
#423 ·
Good luck on waiting for a follow-up! First we'll need to see something to actually follow ;)

And although Dirac have a stellar reputation, remember that at this time not a single scrap of information has been revealed, TTBOMK, about the Dirac LE version which is going to be implemented in the XMC-1. The big question is will it be better than Audyssey's XT32, which seems to have ceased development now and has not been updated for years.

I am hopeful that the XMC-1 will see the light of day, and that Dirac LE will be everything we hope it will be, just for the reason that I hope it would then encourage Dirac to partner with other AVS manufacturers like Denon and Onkyo. The latter have already dropped Audyssey on some of their new products and replaced it with the inferior on-board chip version. We can only speculate on why this is the case, but clearly Audyssey charge a license fee for MultEQ and clearly Onkyo are not paying this fee any more on the units affected. We may put two and two together there and make four. It would be terrific if Dirac LE was better than XT32 and started appearing on units from mainstream manufacturers.

But it's all speculation. Until (and if) XMC-1s start shipping, we can only guess.
 
#424 · (Edited)
It would have been insanity for Emo to delay the XMC-1 yet again for Dolby Atmos. If they actually release it next weekend at Emofest in Atlanta, and it proves to be essentially bug free (and sounds great) they will sell a lot of them. They'll be positioned right next to the Krell Foundation, with potentially better room correction, at less than one third the cost.

If the hardware and code platform is truly modular they've got a good start on a new processor with more channels and Atmos.

The XMC-1 has to ship SOON, or their processor business is toast, IMHO.
 
#429 ·
It doesn’t matter how modular the design is. They are stuck with a backplate that caters for 7 speakers. To go to 9, 11 or 13 will require a new backplate - no way will that ever come under the banner of a 'module upgrade'.

IMO their processor business is already toast, but it's just my opinion.
 
#426 ·
I read somewhere that Dirac Unison was so complex to set up that it would probably have to be limited to commercial applications (ie cars) and maybe very high end pro installations. For example, it sounds like it needs hundreds or even close to a thousand measurement positions. Maybe it could come with a Roomba with mic stand mount. :)
 
#427 ·
Flavio of Dirac posted this blurb about Unison elsewhere on this forum:
It is not a product as of now, the tuning is really complex to release to the public so if/when we make it a product it will probably be for manufacturers, installers and pro markets only for very high-end systems.

Things are easier in a fixed environment (a predefined car model with unlimited available measurements, i.e. 900 as you will see) so the first licensee to use Dirac Unison is the Volvo Car Group making the technology available in the all-new Volvo XC90 with a Bowers & Wilkins audio system.
 
#432 ·
Keith, sure my comments are speculation...just as your comments on it are.

As far as their pre/pro business being done, there seem to be plenty of people quite happy with their Emotiva pre/pro's, and their UMC-200 appears to be selling well. And, they have had multiple pre/pro's based on the cirrus platform. The TI platform being modular looks like it will be even easier to make spinoffs from, esp. given they are working with MDS. Personally, I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the first spinoff isnreasdy in 6-9 months.

Re. Dan being quiet, whether he is or not, I take any timing comment from his with a grain of salt. He's a dreamer, not practical enough to be realistic on timing estimates.
 
#434 ·
Regarding min phase, linear phase, and mixed phase...here is my understanding. If I have this wrong, please correct me.

Filters can be created to alter the amplitude and time (phase) according to frequency. The frequency selecing filters can cause time smearing (ringing), particularly when they filters have steep slopes. With a linear phase filter, the time smearing will be centered on an impulse, but with a min phase filter, the time smearing will happen after the impulse. The crossovers, drivers, speaker cabinet, and the room itself act as filters - sometimes linear phase, sometimes min phase, sometimes in-between. When doing correction, it's best to match what the room and equipment are doing to cancel them out. When doing equalization, usually min phase sounds best, but sometimes linear phase works better to avoid weird phase interactions.

Anyway, my understanding is that Dirac identifies what the equipment and room are doing, and use the appropriate type of filters to make the matching corrections.

I have been using Dirac Live for about a month, and and love it. It's difficult to say how much of it is due to the mixed phase approach and how much is due to the really nice interface and iteration for tuning the target curves. I suspect it's both. I just know that I'm much happier with the results than what I was getting with XT32.

I just wish it had more channels, routing, and crossover capabilities, but I couldn't imagine dropping $25k on a Datasat.

One of these days, when I have the time, I'd like to experiment with JRiver + Audiolense XO.
 
#470 ·
Regarding min phase, linear phase, and mixed phase...here is my understanding. If I have this wrong, please correct me.
General idea is right, but I'll correct some details...

The crossovers, drivers, speaker cabinet, and the room itself act as filters - sometimes linear phase, sometimes min phase, sometimes in-between.
The crossovers (analog LPF/HPF filters as separate devices), drivers - are pretty much pure min-phase (this means when corrected by min-phase filter the 'time smearing' you are talking about is also corrected 'automagically', because the amplitude response and phase response are bound to each other by the nature. The room modes are also mostly min-phase, except in nulls, where anything including phase is uncorrectable. But when those min-phase pieces sum together they can create non min-phase product (the sum of min-phase LPF+HPF crossover filters is not min-phase anymore, the sum of two non-standing-wave reflections is also). The phase is not anymore bound to the amplitude and the difference is called the excess-phase. Is is NEWER linear phase! (except the digital linear phase crossovers of course, that is a separate animal). It is impossible to get linear phase with any analog filter (let's consider the room also to be the filter) except the case of 'unity' pass-everything as is filter with linear frequency response that is also min-phase in this particular case. So, the excess-phase is not something 'in between of min-phase and linear phase', it has nothing to do with linear phase at all, it is just everything that is outside of those two particular cases.

When doing correction, it's best to match what the room and equipment are doing to cancel them out.
Sure, plus care for psycho-acoustic reasons not to over-correct some particular things.


When doing equalization, usually min phase sounds best,
Sure, because it is how the nature 'equalizes' things, so we are used to this kind of distortion - it is everywhere around us, always.

but sometimes linear phase works better to avoid weird phase interactions.
Newer, as explained above. As it never happens in nature. Except the weird case when we try to correct for weird use of another digital linear-phase EQ. But this is really the sign someone used linear phase filters without understanding of their purpuse.

Anyway, my understanding is that Dirac identifies what the equipment and room are doing, and use the appropriate type of filters to make the matching corrections.
It does and does it very well!

I have been using Dirac Live for about a month, and and love it. It's difficult to say how much of it is due to the mixed phase approach and how much is due to the really nice interface and iteration for tuning the target curves. I suspect it's both. I just know that I'm much happier with the results than what I was getting with XT32.
I am also... And thinking about building a HTPC for that instead of a receiver as it seems XMC-1 is not going to happen... And I learned the way how to do the necessary mixed-phase manually already while waiting for this endless Emo release, so it would be fun to do all the necessary coding, or just start with Audiolense or similar if I will be too lazy :D

I just wish it had more channels, routing, and crossover capabilities, but I couldn't imagine dropping $25k on a Datasat.
All this leads to... HTPC. I see no other option with all the necessary flexibility in near future :( Unfortunately there is loss of usability, but about the sound - absolutely anything can be done.
 
#441 ·
Some speculation of things Dirac LE might mean:
1) Limited to working with the XMC-1, not PC output devices.
2) Limited sample rates to 44.1/48khz (like most Audyssey implementations), rather than supporting 96khz.
3) Uses reduced FIR filter sizes, relying on the IIR filters more.
 
#442 ·
The sad thing is that we shouldn’t be reduced to speculating on the features of a unit that, according to Emo, was shipped two months ago. Regardless of who they were shipped to, reviewers, beta testers, staff etc, if units have been shipped then specs are known and it just fuels the fire for Emo to keep schtum on what they are.
 
#443 ·
Emo truly shat on themselves with the XMC-1. I feel sorry for any early adopters as I am well aware of Emo's track record with processors. I don't really see a good release for Emo. It will be released, the Emo lovers will buy it, do all the beta testing and troubleshooting. If Emo manages to have produced a good to very good product then some other people may buy one. However, by that time the other bigger companies and more well established higher end companies will have processors that are much, much more up to date and there will be more competition.

I saw the appeal of the XMC-1 3 years ago. I don't see it any longer.
 
#447 ·
Sure, it would be like a manufacturer introducing a $199 AVR with Audyssey XT32. Who wouldn't want it to succeed, even just to get more XT32 options at that price level. But if that AVR was limited to 5 speakers and could only decode legacy codecs (DD and DTS), then it would make some consumers think twice about buying it, even if they really liked XT32.
 
#448 ·
what do you mean by dated...? not greater the 7.1? If so, then consider this.. .not every one has the room size or sometimes budget for 11.2/13.2 etc. Second I do see the logic in always paying for features one will never use.
For those who have the room size and pocket it is wonderful....and please share:D
 
#460 ·
After listening to most every brand AVR and numerous processors over the years I ran across Emotiva. I no longer have a desire to try and get better processing. If that makes me a fanboy then I am one. OTH I have no allegiance to any brand and if something better hits the market I will switch brands.

I would rather be a fanboy than one who has spouts off with no hands on experience.
The firmware upgrades that you mentioned must be of no value since you still can't answer a simple question.
 
#461 ·
thanks to those members who are sticking to technical issues: this would be good advice for all
 
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