Anyone here using an Emotiva UMC-200? What are your thoughts? - Page 2

I would like to see Emotiva succeed as well. But for me the UMC-200 and UMC-500 do not offer the features that I'm looking for. The XMC-1 has my interest but only if TacT is as good if not better than XT32. The ongoing delay of the XMC-1s release has me thinking that implementing TacT in a $1500 prepro is more challenging than originally thought.

Bill

Yeah, they've missed another delivery date, and that's just the Tactless version. But I've got a funny feeling they're really going to do it this time, a couple more months won't hurt!

I just set up my UMC-200. The reviews seemed good, and its priced right, so I gave it a shot.

I'm not asking for a lot. I have a true 7.1 system, with the fronts and center bi-amped to run tube amps for the horns. A lot of stuff, but not that crazy.

I wanted a clean 7.1 path to run my Oppo BDP-95, but then the option to run 5.1 material through HDMI to add something to the center rears. Oppo said they won't do it, so if the source is 5.1 you get nothing out of the rears, which is weird to me - technically correct, but no fun.

I had a B&K Ref50. I could get all 7 speakers on the optical, with some matrixing. Then for a true 7.1 source, I'd rig the second zone to handle the rears, but with a rigged volume. Not perfect, but OK. The manual switch for the rears was getting old. I tried a Rotel a few years back, but it has a bunch of popping issues, so it went back.

For the UMC-200, so far so good. The HDMI decoding and switching is solid. The 7.1 input seems goofy though. I was watching Celebration Day and it really sounded great. But something is adding the rear channels. It a decent effect, but I was assured this was a true unprocessed 7.1. I pulled the RCA from the Oppo for the rears and it still played. Hmmmm. Maybe there is a setting somewhere ...

Anyhow, is there going to be an owners thread for this one.
Edited by Chriscpm - 1/13/13 at 3:29am

According the the web site:

Try the Pure/Direct mode. If the phantom channels are still present, contact tech support.

- Rich

I'm in direct mode.

There was a bi-amp mode. It didn't seem to do anything, but totally messed up all the outputs. Without that, its closer to normal, but still weird.

So for Celebration Day, everything says 5.1, but there seems to be a signal on the rears. I does go away when I pull the RCA from the Oppo. Maybe its really 7.1? For other 5.1 material, the rears are dead.

Also, its not so easy to just get 7 channels from a regular DD 5.1 source. It looks like a switch to a totally different processing mode is needed. They do have a way to assign all input modes to a particular processing mode, that works across all inputs. Its hard to tell what mode its using at any given time though. There is nothing on the front panel.

I hope they plan to make a decent manual for this one. The one now is basically not much help. Its overly basic.

Bi-amp mode is for repurposing the rears to be a copy of the main channels so that you can separately power the woofers and midrange/rweeters on speakers that have binding posts to remove the bridge.
You should not be turning that on, unless you are actually bi-amping your speakers.

I do not think anything is wrong.


- Rich

I said that I turned the bi-amp off. The rest of what I wrote was still the case. Celebration Day is probably a 7.1 disc I guess. Any 7.1 setup is just a mess basically. I'm not sure how you know the bi-amp repurposes the rears though. Its a good guess, but I don't see any docs. it seemed to mess up everything a lot more than that.

Go to Emotiva.com.
Select the UMC-200.
Download the PDF manual.
Search for "Bi-Amp".

Voila.

- Rich

Not sure why a preamp needs a biamp mode, but from page 25 of the manual:

"BI-AMP: when Bi-Amping is enabled, the rear surround outputs on the UMC-200 output a
duplicate of the signal on the front (main) outputs. (In a system where the front speakers are
“vertically bi-amped”, the upper and lower frequency sections of each front speaker receive
the same audio signal, but delivered by a separate amplifier channel. This may improve the
audio quality. Bi-Amping requires a speaker which offers “bi-amp” connections, and another
pair of amplifier channels.)"

About the 5.1 being converted to 7.1, there is a similar issue with the newer Denon receivers. The default setting, which can no longer be changed, is to automatically upconvert all 5.1 DTS / DTS-HD to 7.1. Maybe the UMC does the same. See here:

-Mike

Your right on the bi-amp. I don;t think it works right though. The speaker level setting put the mains at full blast. I see no reason changing the rear would do that.

I really could use a bi-amp mode and a rear center output, but no worries. Splitting the fronts works. I'm not sure why you wouldn't know why a pre-amp would have these.

On the 5.1 to 7.1, I don't see it happening, except for the one disc. I have a long email in to their tech support.

I guess DTS MA discs call for the player to add the rears on the discrete outputs, but Dolby dos not. I'm down to one issue now - how to get Dolby True HD sources to play with 7 channels.

I am very pleased so far with my UMC-200. The biggest surprise has been how good music sounds. SACDs and dvdaudio discs sound very nice and bluray movies sound great. I am using the 7.1 inputs of the UMC-200 along with my Oppo 93 and I like the sound better than my old UMC-1. I am also using the xlr balanced sub output going to a SVS PB12-plus and the bass is quite accurate. For video, I have the oppo connected directly to my tv. I have not used the new version of EmoQ but maybe this weekend.

I've had mine for a week and no issues or bugs have emerged. Not a single audio or video dropout. Very pleased.

That is good to hear. I had some audio dropouts when I first got it but it turned out to be a faulty hdmi cable.

I got some strange EmoQ results, like saying ALL my speakers are out of phase. Is that not the same as ALL being in phase? Subsequent runs find nothing wrong with 'phase'. Things like that make me a little concerned
about the effectiveness of the process.
All in all, I would say the SQ is a notch above what I had with my Onkyo receiver (TX-NR809). I do have some bass resonance with no equalization and EmoQ seems to tame that equally as well as when i was using Audyssey.

Another quibble has to do with input levels for both my Sat box and BD player. I raised those both to 7db .This puts normal listening levels around 35-40% when they were at 50+% on the volume indicator with no change.
I plan to do some critical listening through the weekend before making any more tweaks.

I did experience some dropouts with the last track of the Beatles Love album (2 ch). That's the only time, so for now I will write it off unless it repeats.

My UMC is mated with an XPA-5 amp, which I just adore. I am hoping I don't have split up the team for some time.

Emotiva has said that the phase thing is something that a lot of people have been getting even though their speakers are actually in phase. They just said to ignore this. I also have an xpa-5 and it sounds great with the umc-200. I am going to try the new emoq this weekend but it is hard to imagine that it will make the sound any better than it already is but I still want to try it out.

Thanks, I was aware that the 'phase' indication can be ignored according to Emotiva. I just thought it strange that it will repeatedly show up on mine if I do a full reset to default and run EmoQ again from the start, then disappear on subsequent runs. So it's kind of like if that changes on a second running EmoQ what else might be changing? I certainly may be over-thinking it.

There are some nice (Integra, etc.) processors for sale on the used marketplace. They would still cost more than the UMC-200. I don't need all the features they include, and while I am still a bit on the fence in regards to EmoQ vs. Audyssey, I am willing to give this one, and myself, more time to settle in with it.
I doubt it will sound any better with further listening, but I am just looking forward to trying it with more varied program material.

Another observation:


After running EmoQ2, when I look at Speaker Settings/Crossovers I find my speakers are set SMALL.
That is fine. But scrolling down to ENHANCED I will see it is ON. It should only be ON (or available?) when my speakers are set for LARGE.

Now, with my speakers set to SMALL by EmoQ2 as I described, if I move my cursor over SMALL and click it to LARGE and then back to SMALL, ENHANCED will go to OFF.

I am just offering this as an observation, I have no idea if anything actually significant is happening in this instance.

I will say I am liking the SQ more every day!
Edited by videoaddikt - 1/19/13 at 12:25pm

I tried out the new emoq2 and I ran it 3 times. I was ok with the crossovers, distances and levels but it just did not sound right in my system. I tried
some bluray movies and it seemed to just take all the life out of my system. I ended up just going back to my manual calibration with my AIX
disc and left everything at flat with no eq. I know others have had good results with emoq2 in their particular systems though.

I agree with this assessment. Each time I run it I think I will finally get the sound I would expect. When I have it set to Flat, the overall sound is more full and loud, however some of the frequencies then appear to be more muddled and less detailed. With EmoQ engage some detail is restored in the higher frequencies but the bottom seem to have dropped off. The sound is constrained and lifeless. Wish I was adept at doing manual room equalization because outside of EmoQ I think this is a nice sounding preamp.

I had an Onkyo receiver before with Audyssey. I have some room treatments and good speaker placement, but had some issue with bass resonance that Audyssey seemed to tame. EmoQ2 seems to work as well in that regard. Since I have no other major issues, I left EmoQ alone to do it's thing, So far I am pleased with the results.

Speaker distances are spot on except for my sub which it says it much further away, but it is a down-firing sub and against a side-wall. If I corrected the distance to actual as measured by hand, I suspect the bass would be reduced quite a bit. Right now it seems be in balance with everything so I will leave it as is.

I may try the meter/tone level method as I did in the pre-auto cal days, and save it as an option for comparison. From the Emotiva forum, there is some issue with the cal tones as supplied by the UMC. Apparently, a change is expected with a next firmware upgrade. This is still a new kid on the block.

The first time I tied EMOQ2 I liked the results, better bass and much better center ch. voice articulation.

I had to do a system reset because of all the garbage that the factory left on it in the Man EQ sections.

Just hitting reset for each man eq did't work. It would reset but, then the same garbage settings would come back.

So I reset the entire device and of course lost my original EMOQ-2 settings.

When I ran EmoQ again it was nothing like the first time. I have run it several times and can't get it even close to the first.

It sets my rear surrounds (small) with a +7db boost at 32hz & 34hz. Whacky. And the center ch isn't as articulate as the first emoq2 run.

So a word to the wise, if you get an emoq2 result you like, note those settings.

Part of the problem with that, and as explained in the Emo manual, specific settings you can see like levels, freq. points, xovers, etc. are only part of the picture. There are settings you don't see between points that make up the whole response curve.

Both times I reset the UMC EMQ would say all my speakers are out of phase. Then they would always be in phase on subsequent runs. That tells me you want to run it more than once from the beginning because if that changed how do I know something else did not change also, whether I can easily hear it or not..

agree, but a least saved settings MAY get you close to the original, a point to start from if subsequent emo2 eq'ing doesn't sound right, as in my case.

I'm just going to go with a disk, ratshack meter and my ears.

I know what I like.

You may want to use your SPL meter, because every time I have run the calibration it never even gets the SPL readings close and close is 1 db for me. For example I ran it today, the left was 76 db, center 71 db, right 73 db, left surround 74 db, right surround 77 db, sub 72 db. If I use an audyssey microphone that came with a Denon the SPL readings are much closer within 1 db.

All good suggestions. I will likely wait for the next upgrade and do more evaluation and comparisons. Right now the only real difference I can hear is an improvement in overall SQ.

I ran the emoq2 this weekend. I was a skeptic, but overall I'm impressed. All my speakers are big enough to handle full range. The system added some crossovers to all but the mains. The tweaks seem subtle on the screen, but it seems to add some serious kick to the bass. Probably redirecting more to the sub. I ran it a second time and don't think the center sounds as good as the first time. I regret not noting the settings.

I dropped in the SACD of dark side of the moon and listened to the first few tracks. Wow. That is some serious bass now! It reminds me of the Waters show a few years back. Not that good, but it brings me back.
Edited by Chriscpm - 1/29/13 at 2:55pm

I had to run EmoQ2 a 3rd time upon adding a new sub - the distances were almost perfect, unlike the prior two times. Channel levels were pretty close to my prior manual calibration and some change was expected due to new room treatments. My only complaint is that the center seems too low re dialog on some DD stuff, though most lossless is fine. There are exceptions both ways. Having the channel trim on the remote sure makes this less of an issue.

I just bypass EmoQ by setting every input to Direct Mode, since in my room EmoQ is just not satisfying. I swapped in a new Pioneer SC-61, D3 amps, MCACC etc, and even though I wasn't able to do A/B testing, I ended up being very disappointed in the Pioneer in comparison to my UMC-200/UPA-500 combo, yes just the 80wX5 emo amp.

I was actually shocked at the difference and was not expecting it. The UMC-200/UPA-500 in direct mode (bypassing EmoQ) sounds much more open, transparent, greater detail and better bass at lower SPL readings (as opposed to running the SC-61 10db hot on sub). I was ready to sell my Emo pair but not sure I will give it up for the SC-61. To be fair I put the SC-61 in Pure Direct mode (bypassing MCACC, and the crossovers) and it still seemed less detailed and contrained in comparison to the Emo pair. I listened to a James Taylor Multi-SACD and remembered being wowed hearing it with the UMC-200 and then listening to the same tracks with SC-61 and thinking it wasn't a high fidelity format. I really need a component input, so I may try the offering from Outlaw, which forgoes the room EQ which I don't like with the Emo anyway but has legacy component inputs.

any word on the release of the umc 500?