Surround Master v2: Thoughts and Impressions

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
What are the dimensions of the unit and less importantly, the weight? If I'm going to order one, I need to know if there's place in my cabinet I can get it to fit as the regular spots are taken up. I might be able to stack it on top of something like my speaker switch, though.

I see the shipping is $60, which seems quite high. Is it coming directly from Australia?
 
What are the dimensions of the unit and less importantly, the weight? If I'm going to order one, I need to know if there's place in my cabinet I can get it to fit as the regular spots are taken up. I might be able to stack it on top of something like my speaker switch, though.

I see the shipping is $60, which seems quite high. Is it coming directly from Australia?

16.5 x 16.5 x 5.5 cm 850g
It comes directly from Australia.
 
The other issue I'm having is finding a good way I could get audio to the device. For example, the NVidia Shield can use USB Dacs or the headphone jack on the remote, but as soon as you plug the DAC in the HDMI output goes dead (i.e. for discrete movies like Atmos, X, etc.). The best option I can find so far is my Zidoo X9S has an optical output that is probably always active for 2-channel signals (and use KODI on it to play music and/or 2-channel Pro Logic type movies to try; I'd probably dump any Quad albums to digital audio anyway to get the best recording on the 1str play), but I would then have to buy a DAC to put in-between. Or I could hook up my old Gen1 AppleTV that has RCA outs and I could control it from an old iPod Touch to select music without even needing the video output, but then I couldn't try movies out so I'd probably ditch my ROKU which I never use and use its output. I just don't like how much power it uses at idle (kind of like a tiny room heater and unlike the Surround Master, I can't turn it off while not in use as easily).

I did some measuring, though and with my speaker switch slid over to the right (sitting on top of my LG UHD BD Player), there should be enough room to set it there (might have to black out those blue LEDs, though as that's close to the screen level). Similarly, I could fit one upstairs next to my active crossover box (just enough room for both). So at least that part is good news.
 
The other issue I'm having is finding a good way I could get audio to the device. For example, the NVidia Shield can use USB Dacs or the headphone jack on the remote, but as soon as you plug the DAC in the HDMI output goes dead (i.e. for discrete movies like Atmos, X, etc.). The best option I can find so far is my Zidoo X9S has an optical output that is probably always active for 2-channel signals (and use KODI on it to play music and/or 2-channel Pro Logic type movies to try; I'd probably dump any Quad albums to digital audio anyway to get the best recording on the 1str play), but I would then have to buy a DAC to put in-between. Or I could hook up my old Gen1 AppleTV that has RCA outs and I could control it from an old iPod Touch to select music without even needing the video output, but then I couldn't try movies out so I'd probably ditch my ROKU which I never use and use its output. I just don't like how much power it uses at idle (kind of like a tiny room heater and unlike the Surround Master, I can't turn it off while not in use as easily).

I did some measuring, though and with my speaker switch slid over to the right (sitting on top of my LG UHD BD Player), there should be enough room to set it there (might have to black out those blue LEDs, though as that's close to the screen level). Similarly, I could fit one upstairs next to my active crossover box (just enough room for both). So at least that part is good news.
It gets to around 45 degrees C , if thats too warm then wait till around January for the V3 as we are replacing a linear 5V rail regulator with a switchmode - that will drop the temp by say 5 to 7 degrees.
 
20201002_135802.jpg

Evaluation boards came today are working great, thank you Chucky and Dave the Bitch. I ran some SQ/QS test tones and it definitely passed with flying colors with cf/cb seperation on my vu meters, didn't really get a chance to do much music listening yet, will do a more in-depth comparison with the Space & Image Composer next week, thanks again!
 
View attachment 57218
Evaluation boards came today are working great, thank you Chucky and Dave the Bitch. I ran some SQ/QS test tones and it definitely passed with flying colors with cf/cb seperation on my vu meters, didn't really get a chance to do much music listening yet, will do a more in-depth comparison with the Space & Image Composer next week, thanks again!

Wowsers. That looks so much different from the SM v2 board. So, you plug SQ recordings into the jacks at top left? And stereo/QS into jacks into top right? And SQ decoded output is at lower left while stereo/QS output is lower right? Looks like two completely separate decoders on one board??
 
Last edited:
Back
Top