Official DataSat RS20i thread. (Setup Tips, Questions,General Info, etc) - Page 11

Yes! It's a good product. If you use a quality DAC (RME or Lynx for example) you will be very happy with the results. I highly recommend it.
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Best Regards,
Carl Huff

Thanks. I will be using an external DAC.

Nice little video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rxZ3AGs9Mg

Hmmm. Maybe if the vacuum motor Datasat used for the fan wasn't on 24/7 there wouldn't be so much dust in it.

Oops, did I say that out loud....?

Ha, ha ...

There are six Analog Devices DSPs churning away at 450mHz in there and those buggers generate some heat!

Think of that gentle 'whoosh' as evidence that your investment is being properly taken care of.
______________
Best Regards,
Carl Huff

No reason to have the fan blowing when the unit is in standby. Datasat tells me that the power supply is always on and therefore the fan must remain on. Their suggestion is to power the unit off with the switch on the back to totally defeat the fan.

That is not a well-thought out process for an $18,000 residential box. I requested an update to turn the fan/power supply off when it is shut off, but was denied... Why not just have the power supply turn off when it is shut down so the fan is not needed? Because of the extra 10 seconds when you start up from scratch?

Historically I have said it's not a big deal, but I have to admit that it is really starting to irritate me. If it was a $200 Best Buy special I'd live with it, but I expect a very high level of refinement at this point. I accepted it in the commercial AP20 because they can be on continuously in some rough environments, but you would think the massive retail price up-charge for the RS20i would have covered things like this by using an ultra-quiet fan and/or changing it's on-off spec.

I have owned lots of fairly big $ residential equipment, and none of it ever ran a fan like this. And while I'm at it, the fan is comparatively loud. Granted it's not an issue when something is playing, but it is noticeable when the room is quiet. And that is with the RS20i embedded in a rack WITH a smoked plexiglass door in front of it.

And yes, I would like some cheese with my whine, thanks for asking.

Schlitzie,

There is a reason. When the RS20i is in standby mode the DSPs are still under power and generating heat. The current draw is less but still happening. If the DSPs were not kept powered up it would take much longer to go from standby to operational state. The evidence of that is the time difference from cold boot. That is why the fan (altho slower) is still running.
_____________
Best Regards,
Carl Huff

Warm Boot Time -- 22 secs
Cold Boot Time -- 68 secs

I'd happily wait the extra 46 seconds if I could avoid having the fan on the extra 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I still maintain this is a misguided engineering decision held over from the AP20's commercial days. To have owners with 6 month old boxes that they have to vacuum out is very telling and wholly unnecessary.

And I did notice that my rant about the cheap fan motor did not get addressed

You obviously have not heard an unmodded Ada unit. Now those are loud. Lol.

And I doubt we will see much of a fan speed adjustment, as Carl says there is currently 6 dsp chips and soon to be 8!

Based on Carl's advice I was running my unit 24/7 but as my use is 99% related to weekend viewings (ie Friday to Sundays) I have been recently turning off the RS20i throughout the week - my uneducated thinking being that the reduction in potential dust accumulation is most beneficial (I have an open rack). We are also in the midlle of summer at the moment, with temperatures reaching up to 40 degrees Celsius so I figure that is another good reason to turn the unit off. For me I can easily access the back of the unit to turn it off but I understand the perspective from which schlitzie is coming from.

"... could having the RS20i on a static IP address cause the connecting failure to the server?"

I don't think so. Your RS20i must be finding the internet and web alright. If it wasn't the update file would not be visible to you. I don't really understand what is going on.
_____________
Best Regards,
Carl Huff

http://www.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=24905&p=5

Prometheus gets an RS-20i upgrade, were flying Carl for the Calibration.

Dave - the new Dolby HD card includes two additional DSPs (to bring the total DSPs to 8)

I may have found a glitch in Neo 6 with the latest update.

I have just watched Total Recall (remake) on BD. As this disc has a Dolby HD soundtrack I had my player (Sony S5000ES) decode and send PCM to the RS20i.

The RS20i displayed PCM 5.1 plus Neo6 but had limited sound playing (primarily no centre speaker channel sound). This was evident in chapters 1 to 3 (I didn't continue playing the disc in this mode after that). When I removed the Neo6 overlay all sound on all chapters (throughout movie) then played fine.

Haven't tested this any further - may try some other discs tomorrow.

I have let Datasat know of this problem. Has anyone else had any problems with Neo6 since the update?

According to the LCD screen and the recent Release Notes Neo6 only works on 2-channel PCM and DD 2.0. In my opinion Neo6 has never worked properly for the two years I have had my AP20/RS20i and I have reported the problems to Datasat. This is especially ironic since Neo6 is a Datasat/DTS product.

I think our best bet is to wait for the DD card and hope all these problems are addressed.

When applying Neo6 to the 5.1 PCM stream was your goal to expand to 7.1?

Sorry, I should have worded my post better to explain the problem - I hadn't meant to apply Neo6 to the 5.1 PCM signal - it was automatically applied as a result of the new update.

Got it. Sounds like you will have to each time manually able/disable the Neo6 setting or easier would be to create another preset with Neo6 not selected.

I have a 7.1 setup and copy the Sides to the Rears. I have a modded Oppo and always send PCM to the DB25. This works fine for 5.1. However, for 7.1 I had to create another preset where the Sides were not copied to the Rears in order to maintain discrete 7.1.

When PLIIx and Neo X become available hopefully all these workarounds will not be necessary.
Edited by GGA - 2/9/13 at 5:19pm

Neo:6, as the name implies, outputs 6 channels max. When applied to a 5.1 source, it will extract a mono surround-back channel (which will be sent to both rear speakers). By comparison, PLIIx outputs 7 channels, extracting stereo surround-back channels from 5.1 sources.

Yes I suppose I should have said "7.1 configuration" but we are getting very close to Tetrapyloctomy.*

* The art of splitting hair four ways.

Any of you guys using REW planning on posting any before and after room measurements vs. Dirac Live's calculated results?It would be nice to see some actual in room measurements of the ETC and waterfall plots before and after, as well as the magnitude response results.

Both Dirac and Trinnov seem to be lacking in the actual room measured results area in my opinion.

Would be nice to see how well Dirac Live controls discrete/overall early reflection levels and it's effectiveness on modal ringing, now that more people have their hands on these units.

What are some of you using for an amp with the RS20i?

I currently use AB intenational cinema special edition amps. ( http://www.abamps.net/ )

3x500w for front 3 and 4x 200w for rears and sides. Awesom amps and much better than the old denon poa a1hd I had before and the bel canto ref 1000s I had before that. And of course heaps better than the emotiva xpa5 that just enjoyed clipping.

But I must admit I think I am going to get the matching RA7300 for now and an RA2400 for the front two in the future. If my business goes well then I may get 3 ra2400 amps to biamp the front 3 channels.

Currently using ATI; will probably go to either CAT or Datasat amps ( all OEMed by ATI ).

Dan

I use (or are about to use) some local Aussie products - a soon to arrive SGR Audio EL30s (for L&R duties) and Elektra TheatreHD (normal 7 channel duties with the soon to be freed up 2 channels used for wides once the new Dolby HD card ships). There are a few amps I would like to consider (eg the Datasat or AB Internationals) but in all reality don't expect to change in the next couple of years.

What would be the reason to change from ATI or ATI OEM'd?

In a word: BALLS

CAT amps are the highest-level product ATI makes, it appears to me that Datasat has adopted many of the features developed for CAT amplifiers (along with the cost).

In all the crazy CAT systems I've been involved with; I've never experienced one of those amps clipping - granted overkill is de rigeur at CAT, but still that I why I use them in my demo room system.

ATI is probably the highest value amplifier you can buy - stellar performance, really good sound, low bucks. And American made!

Dan

Dan - is there a website for CAT amps - interested in learning more about them?