hobie1dog
500 Club - QQ All-Star
I'm hoping this will work for me as I want to be able to eliminate the solo trumpet in the hundreds of trumpet lp's I have. That way I can use them for background tracks, something I have wanted for 40 years.
Surround Master v2: Thoughts and Impressions
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I'm hoping this will work for me as I want to be able to eliminate the solo trumpet in the hundreds of trumpet lp's I have. That way I can use them for background tracks, something I have wanted for 40 years.
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If the Trumpet solo is in the center it will be eliminated as we don't just separate the center we actually remove it from the Left front and right front........even though its mathematically impossible.
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Mine runs hot. Very hot.
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Can you measure the temperature?
The one thing I have noticed is the V2 runs cooler than the V1. I had the AC set at 74f and measured the temp of the unit after a few hours and it was running at 95f
I felt more heat at the bottom of the unit so measured that and it was the same as the top
And since I referred to the LED's as flame throwers I measured them and was surprised as I thought blue was a hotter temp than red
Now in comparison the Marantz SR7011 receiver is running at 100f
I have no worries with my V2
Yup, mine runs a consistent 100 degrees F. (well within specs.) measured with a laser thermometer. Now go measure your cable TV box; for those that have them; haven't measured mine yet but I will, it feels like I could brown toast with it!
You will probably melt the thermometer if you put it on top of one of those cable TV boxes.
My U-Verse box is at 108 deg. F.
I just found out about this device and I'm intrigued. I'm not sure if this is the right thread to ask these questions, but you guys seem to to be the right audience in any case.
I just happen to have a 7.1 input mode on my Marantz 7012 that aren't being used. I have three rows of seats (well the last row is one seat) and I already use active mixers to add front wides and surround#1 (along with Pro Logic Center extraction for "Scatmos" Top Middle (also used for Auro-3D "Surround Height" via 2-in,2-out Monoprice switchbox that lets me swap rear height to side height or copy it or use the extracted "center" between as top middle).
What I'm getting at is given my 11.1.6 layout, if I bought one of these units, would I likely be better off connecting the surround outputs to my side surrounds (which are at around 110 degrees behind me), but my MLP is a bit closer to them than my mains (6.5' to sides versus 8' to mains) or routing to the rear surrounds (they're about 10 feet behind me) for quadraphonic playback? There's also the option to use the mixed front wides and surround#1 speakers which act as a summed array in each case and are level tuned to make the side surrounds phantom image to my sides instead of behind me with a straight signal (but also aids in smooth panning around the entire 24' long room). I could get splitters and send the "sides" to both the sides and rear channels and I'd end up with a multi-channel speaker array of front wides + sides + surround#1 + rears for the surround output.
Lest the front channels feel left out, I also mix L/C/R to the front heights as a "dialog lift" feature (so it sounds like it's coming out of the screen instead of under it across the front stage) and the front wides also get the L/R mains to some degree. Thus, my "stereo" mode (without the amps defeated) is actually already a 6.1 arrayed mode and with the mixer delays not being accounted for, the slight difference in sound arrivals tends to give stereo mode a more "bipole/dipole" like ambience (my upstairs 2-channel system consists of Carver AL-III dipole ribbons with a bi-amped active custom crossover system designed for the AL-III by a former Carver engineer and is driven by a Carver C-5 Sonic Hologram Pre-amp). Yeah, I made it a bit complex, but the Auro-3D and Atmos and X soundtracks move around the room smoothly on both ear-level and ceiling-level planes and voices no longer come from below the screen as did when the room was 6.1 only with a 720p projector and even the off-axis seats get phantom surround around them instead of diagonally through them with the extra summed mixer speakers.
Needless to say, I'm used to some pretty ambient mains upstairs and my 6-channel approximation downstairs is the first time the PSB speakers there reminded me of the Carvers. It also theoretically acts as a partial line source below around 230Hz or so. I typically get up to around 90 degree to my sides imaging with some albums in stereo mode without any side surrounds (on both systems, but the Carvers need Sonic Holography turned on for it to happen there; the PSBs do it with just the 6-speaker array, all in front of the first row). An album like Amused To Death by Roger Waters with Q-Sound images virtually identical to the newer 5.1 discrete mix, but I think the stereo version has more "punch" to it and I prefer the original songs to the ones that were modified. I'd be curious to try something like Pink Floyd's Animals album through the unit as it never got a quadraphonic mix, unlike DSOTM and WYWH (and the version Roger mentioned hasn't yet materialized, presumably do to disagreements with David or whatever).
I'm certain I could play around with which setup might work best (certainly extending a copy to the sides and rears would probably give at least the 2nd row of seats an interesting experience too), but I'd be curious to what more experienced people think would happen in my setup.
Here's a 360-type rotating set of pictures of my room layout (not completely up-to-date, but that's mostly in terms of the movie prop decorations). There's 3 chairs in the front row (about 8.5' from the mains, 2 in the 2nd row about 14 feet from the mains and one in the 3rd row about 18 feet from the mains).
Rotating View standing in front of front row:
Front Row:
Carver AL-III System Upstairs:
I just happen to have a 7.1 input mode on my Marantz 7012 that aren't being used. I have three rows of seats (well the last row is one seat) and I already use active mixers to add front wides and surround#1 (along with Pro Logic Center extraction for "Scatmos" Top Middle (also used for Auro-3D "Surround Height" via 2-in,2-out Monoprice switchbox that lets me swap rear height to side height or copy it or use the extracted "center" between as top middle).
What I'm getting at is given my 11.1.6 layout, if I bought one of these units, would I likely be better off connecting the surround outputs to my side surrounds (which are at around 110 degrees behind me), but my MLP is a bit closer to them than my mains (6.5' to sides versus 8' to mains) or routing to the rear surrounds (they're about 10 feet behind me) for quadraphonic playback? There's also the option to use the mixed front wides and surround#1 speakers which act as a summed array in each case and are level tuned to make the side surrounds phantom image to my sides instead of behind me with a straight signal (but also aids in smooth panning around the entire 24' long room). I could get splitters and send the "sides" to both the sides and rear channels and I'd end up with a multi-channel speaker array of front wides + sides + surround#1 + rears for the surround output.
Lest the front channels feel left out, I also mix L/C/R to the front heights as a "dialog lift" feature (so it sounds like it's coming out of the screen instead of under it across the front stage) and the front wides also get the L/R mains to some degree. Thus, my "stereo" mode (without the amps defeated) is actually already a 6.1 arrayed mode and with the mixer delays not being accounted for, the slight difference in sound arrivals tends to give stereo mode a more "bipole/dipole" like ambience (my upstairs 2-channel system consists of Carver AL-III dipole ribbons with a bi-amped active custom crossover system designed for the AL-III by a former Carver engineer and is driven by a Carver C-5 Sonic Hologram Pre-amp). Yeah, I made it a bit complex, but the Auro-3D and Atmos and X soundtracks move around the room smoothly on both ear-level and ceiling-level planes and voices no longer come from below the screen as did when the room was 6.1 only with a 720p projector and even the off-axis seats get phantom surround around them instead of diagonally through them with the extra summed mixer speakers.
Needless to say, I'm used to some pretty ambient mains upstairs and my 6-channel approximation downstairs is the first time the PSB speakers there reminded me of the Carvers. It also theoretically acts as a partial line source below around 230Hz or so. I typically get up to around 90 degree to my sides imaging with some albums in stereo mode without any side surrounds (on both systems, but the Carvers need Sonic Holography turned on for it to happen there; the PSBs do it with just the 6-speaker array, all in front of the first row). An album like Amused To Death by Roger Waters with Q-Sound images virtually identical to the newer 5.1 discrete mix, but I think the stereo version has more "punch" to it and I prefer the original songs to the ones that were modified. I'd be curious to try something like Pink Floyd's Animals album through the unit as it never got a quadraphonic mix, unlike DSOTM and WYWH (and the version Roger mentioned hasn't yet materialized, presumably do to disagreements with David or whatever).
I'm certain I could play around with which setup might work best (certainly extending a copy to the sides and rears would probably give at least the 2nd row of seats an interesting experience too), but I'd be curious to what more experienced people think would happen in my setup.
Here's a 360-type rotating set of pictures of my room layout (not completely up-to-date, but that's mostly in terms of the movie prop decorations). There's 3 chairs in the front row (about 8.5' from the mains, 2 in the 2nd row about 14 feet from the mains and one in the 3rd row about 18 feet from the mains).
Rotating View standing in front of front row:
Front Row:
Carver AL-III System Upstairs:
I'm trying to figure out the best way I could get sound into one of these units given everything is pretty much HDMI at this stage. All I can think of is Nvidia Shield to a HDMI switcher with optical/RCA out and passthrough the HDMI to the receiver so I still get Atmos, etc. for movies yet I can switch to the 7.1 analog input for Involve (seeing as my lossless audio library is accessed primarily with KODI on the Shield). I kind of hate using of those, though. I guess there's USB to optical adapters, but then I'd need a DAC on top of that. Ironically, my Carver system would be much better to plug one of these into it as the Carver C5 has a tape loop and I do have an old Technics AC-3 external surround unit and some rear Klipsch ProSonus 2.1 speakers connected for occasional 4.0 use (mostly TV shows and occasional comedy movies I don't mind watching on a smaller screen upstairs). But the rear speakers really aren't up to snuff compared to the home theater system in terms of perfectly matching timbre, etc., although I do have my turntable there (not that I own any QS/SQ albums.... Hmmm I had a look on eBay and I'm surprised to see many quad LPs for sale for quite reasonable prices. I might end up with a new hobby collecting quad LPs if I put one up there... 
).
Any suggestions? How well will the system work if not sitting dead center between the mains and surrounds (i.e. at the center of the "X").
I put seating in the home theater along the lines of least room mode interaction (i.e. 37%, etc.) and the Carver system uses Klipsch satellites on either side of the MLP and bounces them off the side walls (kind of like Atmos bouncy speakers, but for surround; because they're under the arm rest area, it works shockingly well and sounds like the surrounds are coming from the side walls, not below the chair and the Klipsch speakers are brighter than the Carvers so the reflection is mellowed out a bit and this keeps the unsightly speakers out of sight for the most part in the main living room (and the Carvers themselves look more like giant totem poles than speakers or at least that's what most women that come over think they are...art. )
Edit: Hmmm, I see there's a headphone jack on the Nvidia Shield remote (I'm actually using a FireTV remote as a Bluetooth device as the batteries last longer. I wonder how well a headphone to RCA adapter would work in terms of sound quality and just keep it plugged into one of the USB ports. The device might go to sleep, though so that could be a pain, but I guess I'd just have to turn it on the same time as the Involve box if I were going to use it.
).Any suggestions? How well will the system work if not sitting dead center between the mains and surrounds (i.e. at the center of the "X").
I put seating in the home theater along the lines of least room mode interaction (i.e. 37%, etc.) and the Carver system uses Klipsch satellites on either side of the MLP and bounces them off the side walls (kind of like Atmos bouncy speakers, but for surround; because they're under the arm rest area, it works shockingly well and sounds like the surrounds are coming from the side walls, not below the chair and the Klipsch speakers are brighter than the Carvers so the reflection is mellowed out a bit and this keeps the unsightly speakers out of sight for the most part in the main living room (and the Carvers themselves look more like giant totem poles than speakers or at least that's what most women that come over think they are...art.
)Edit: Hmmm, I see there's a headphone jack on the Nvidia Shield remote (I'm actually using a FireTV remote as a Bluetooth device as the batteries last longer. I wonder how well a headphone to RCA adapter would work in terms of sound quality and just keep it plugged into one of the USB ports. The device might go to sleep, though so that could be a pain, but I guess I'd just have to turn it on the same time as the Involve box if I were going to use it.
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Well I do think I'm on information overload from your posts here @MagnumX ; but here's a thread with some member's usage and how they like it:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ounds-amazing-with-the-surround-master.20908/
With your analog inputs, I'd seriously consider one of these babies, loads of fun no matter how you slice it IMO
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That was my problem also, its a very complicated system centered on many many channels and I could not think of how the SM would blend- perhaps add simplicity????Well I do think I'm on information overload from your posts here @MagnumX ; but here's a thread with some member's usage and how they like it:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ounds-amazing-with-the-surround-master.20908/
With your analog inputs, I'd seriously consider one of these babies, loads of fun no matter how you slice it IMO
Hey I figure just because folks here have systems with Bookoo number of channels available shouldn't keep us from enjoying what it all started out as, good ol' 4.x! I mean heck they still produce newly mastered digital surround titles in 4.x - DV SACDs, Rhino Quadio BD, Sony Japan SACDs, just to name a few. You might even say we're enjoying a brilliant renaissance in Quad
And there's still lots of legacy Quad LPs, Q8s etc. that can be had with the right gear; and the Surround Master is considered essential in that realm (hopefully someday even CD-4 )Well, it's not like I can't run less channels on it. It can still do 2-channel stereo at the push of a couple of buttons. I'm just not sure the surround placement is ideal for true quadraphonic recordings since the main listening chair isn't right at the center of the "X" (in either room). I'm not sure how important that really is. I've heard the Pink Floyd DSOTM and WYWH quad recordings on both systems and they still sounded pretty good so I figure it would still work either way. I guess I could always try it out on both and see how it sounds.
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Yes the original quad (and the good ol SM) relies on you sitting in the central position on 4.1 mode (if you do not have our SST - Sweet Spot Technology- see Y4) but the SM does have 5.1 mode were you get to use the crappy center channel enabling you to sit off center.
Regards
Chucky
I meant off-axis as in front of or behind the central point halfway between the main and surrounds front-to-back (y-axis), not off-center left-to-right (x-axis).
I assumed with less channel separation in some of the quad formats on LP that you would get the best illusion equidistant from all four speakers (center of a square) rather than say my Carver room where my surrounds are alongside the main chair. It seems like at the very least it would throw off any front-to-back panning due to the precedence effect where sounds halfway in-between sound like they're closer to the nearest set of speakers rather than the actual center.
I'm beginning to like the crappy center channel mode...Forgive me for I have strayed.
I have to admit every time I've tried to listen to something with the SM2 5.1 mode switched in I've rapidly gone back to the Quad!
Sometimes vocals seem to be buried in the mix. Adjusting the center front improves the balance in that case. I've also said that quite a few movies can have a pretty marginal surround mix. I take the 2ch analog out from my Oppo & feed to the SM & I get much more all around sound field. Ditto for Netflix. The center front does what it was intended to do: keep dialouge centered for movies.
Soundfield
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
I'll have to take your word for it Sonik, I very rarely watch movies!
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