Hey there Colin,
1) There are connections for 4-channel or 5-channel output. If I want to do 4.0 upconversions of both SQ and QS, should I be using the 4-channel output jacks? Or use FL, FR, SL, SR from the 5.1 jacks? I read over the manuals and addenda twice but did not fully understand the difference between these two connections, and how the front channels differ. There had been some past discussion about the QS decoding only being in 5.1 and not 4.0. Is that still the case? Or can I decode QS in 4.0 (as it was done in the '70s)?
We only included the 5.1 mode for people who like that sort of thing. It's not really our preferred mode, but some people want to use their existing speaker setup, or like the inclusion of the centre channel. Long story short, QS and SQ modes both use the same 4-channel outputs.
The 5.1 fronts have the centre content separated into the centre channel output, that's the difference. You can ignore them completely if that's your thing.
Sorry if the manual is unclear on that, I'll give it a bit of a read and see how it can be clarified.
2) What sampling rate / bit depth are used internally to the Surround Master for digitizing and processing the audio? I usually rip LPs at 96/24, but if the Surround Master works at 48/24, there's no point in doing a 96/24 LP rip. I ask this so I can use the highest bit rate for quality reasons, but not waste space by grabbing higher-resolution samples than the Surround Master can re-output as analog audio.
The processor is running at 48/24, though internally it has 76 bit registers so that the maths doesn't overflow and lose resolution during the more complex calculations.
The a/d process uses 256 times over-sampling so that it doesn't have to rely on anti-aliasing for accuracy, d/a does 128 times up-sampling for conversion, you could argue that the analog output is interpolated accurately enough that you would still get some advantage from recording it at 96, but that enters that grey area between academic and listening that I don't want to broach in the scope of the question
3) How to improve Surround Master and make it appealing to a broader market? The main thing that is missing is digital audio input and output. Relying upon analog input and output is somewhat obsolete in the current home theater world, which has largely migrated to HDMI for everything (except vinyl). I made the switch to HDMI for all my digital sources in 2009 and haven't looked back, as it combines multi-channel audio and video in ONE cable, and eliminates duplicate investment in multiple high-end D/A stages.
Yes, it's something we've been discussing for a while now. Our trouble is, we're a small team with limited funding and time. I would love to incorporate hdmi into the next iteration of the surround master. Architecturally the system can be made capable of accepting the sort of digital output that most hdmi receiver ICs would provide. Interestingly enough it's only over the last 12 months that the hdmi loopback capability has really been implemented in the market - we could use it, but as you say the license fees are exorbitant, and the development time is prohibitive to us right at the moment. Also, HDMI re-encoding and output would require us for compatibility reasons to then remux the video or generate a blank screen for audio-only - before loopback mode, all hdmi signals had to include some kind of video signal (if I'm reading the spec correctly) It also introduces the issue of whether or not we would need to include a frame delay for resync. Anyway, this is largely academic.
The short answer is, we'd love to, and it's in our future, we just lack the resources to implement it just yet.
I'd think perhaps the digital "guts" of the Involve stereo-to-surround processing should be sold/licensed to receiver manufacturers. I'd love to pull up "Involve" modes alongside all those Dolby / dts modes. That would also solve the HDMI / bass management / room correction issues. But I realize receiver manufacturers would probably pay $10-$25 per unit shipped for the firmware. It would take a 20X the sales volume to make the same money, and that's if these big multinational conglomerates even bite in the first place.
Couldn't agree with you more. The first problem we face is getting in the door. Every door-guard is self important and reaching the decision makers is hard without knowing someone who knows someone higher up in the chain.
The second problem is that very few receiver manufacturers are leaders; they're followers, and they almost all wait for other companies to adopt a new technology before they'll consider including it. We've been told that to our face by some C.E companies who have traditionally been innovators. And those that do innovate tend to reject technology not developed by their own in-house r+d.
Still, watch this space. We haven't given up on the idea just yet.
Hope this answers your questions.
~David