- Thread Author
- #1
Recall your post:
"We are in the Surround Sound Hound exploration zone here.
This audio article here on Dolby Atmos mentioned among others Illusonic 3D, Barco, Immsound, and Iosono."
We discussed all 3 competitors over a fun lunch yesterday in Lausanne.
The main setup is in Uster near Zurich with the 16 speaker setup.
As they have 2-3 guys in Lausanne and many audio firm in this region, they decided to do a simple setup in the Lausanne office too. Its a 5 PSI monitor speaker setup (100hz minimum) and I brought my own self powered Energy 8 inch sub (more from music than HT, and goes to just 33hz). They will get a sub later for their permanent use.
So, we went through the paces with 1 SACD (Pink Floyd 4.0 m-Channel), a few RBCD samplers and a Tom Cruise action movie (oblivion). The porcessor is a Dac/preamp/signal processor. There are reviews/feedback at AVSforums and WBF by a retired Dolby gentleman named Dressler, I believe. The processor can be controlled by softare on an external computer with every parameter imaginable and has integrated DRC and bass management included. Time domain and EQ features galore.
We tested with bypass, Bypass and room EQ removed, normal music setup, and boosted for HT. In normal music we were able to isolate the effects of Immersive procession, depth and centre channel:
Center: degree to which phantom center is converted to center
Depth/3D: degree to which sound is reproduced with volume and depth
Immersion: degree to which sound is reproduced immersively
My impression:
It works best for HT, then MC like SACD and then 2 channel stereo. With 2 Channel on certain songs, the centre channel makes the imagine much more precise. I could hear the lead vocalist from the Fairfield 4 (Swing Low) apart from the rest and dead smack in between the centre channel and the right speaker. Christof who was to my left heard exactly the same. On deep bass stuff, the processor also helped a lot. Illusonic really almost eliminates the sweetspot , opening it up from nearly everyone in the room. Even standing behind the rear speakers I still has a great sense of the music.
The bypass buttom (which keeps DRC and only removes processing) was a button press away and enabled us the hear the difference.
I am a bit of a Surround Sound novice, so it was my discovery to notice that you dont hear the rear channels much and almost not at all for 2-ch stereo stuff, you rather FEEL their presence.
Illusonic in essence give the feeling of stitching the speakers together, giving a more cohesive sense of the sound. On HT stuff, this is absolutely a no-brainer. On MC material as well. On 2ch stereo, its not a must in my book, but a handy feature to have as it really is a nice DRC application and the immersive processing really sharpens up the imaging on certain recordings and the bass management is also another big plus. However, as its pricey ~$20K, its not something for a 2-ch guy who doesnt delve into multi-channel music or HT. If you do, then this is the most compatible of the 4D applications at the moment and offers an impressive feature set, scalability from 3 to 16 speakers and uses high quality components. Perhaps they will make a cheaper 7.1 system in the future? Now I want to hear the full 16 speaker setup in Uster.
Input Formats
stereo
Lt/Rt, 5.1, 7.1
Aurophonie 6 (2+2+2)
Aurophonie 8 (2+2+2+2)
50 HDMI PCM formats
Output Formats
168 variations using from
2 up to 16 loudspeakers
Bass Management
16-channel bass management with several parametric cross-overs
unique bass coupling
high precision (32/64 bit float)
Calibration
delay and gain trim
80 fully parametric equalizers
high precision (32/64 bit float)
"We are in the Surround Sound Hound exploration zone here.
This audio article here on Dolby Atmos mentioned among others Illusonic 3D, Barco, Immsound, and Iosono."
We discussed all 3 competitors over a fun lunch yesterday in Lausanne.
The main setup is in Uster near Zurich with the 16 speaker setup.
As they have 2-3 guys in Lausanne and many audio firm in this region, they decided to do a simple setup in the Lausanne office too. Its a 5 PSI monitor speaker setup (100hz minimum) and I brought my own self powered Energy 8 inch sub (more from music than HT, and goes to just 33hz). They will get a sub later for their permanent use.
So, we went through the paces with 1 SACD (Pink Floyd 4.0 m-Channel), a few RBCD samplers and a Tom Cruise action movie (oblivion). The porcessor is a Dac/preamp/signal processor. There are reviews/feedback at AVSforums and WBF by a retired Dolby gentleman named Dressler, I believe. The processor can be controlled by softare on an external computer with every parameter imaginable and has integrated DRC and bass management included. Time domain and EQ features galore.
We tested with bypass, Bypass and room EQ removed, normal music setup, and boosted for HT. In normal music we were able to isolate the effects of Immersive procession, depth and centre channel:
Center: degree to which phantom center is converted to center
Depth/3D: degree to which sound is reproduced with volume and depth
Immersion: degree to which sound is reproduced immersively
My impression:
It works best for HT, then MC like SACD and then 2 channel stereo. With 2 Channel on certain songs, the centre channel makes the imagine much more precise. I could hear the lead vocalist from the Fairfield 4 (Swing Low) apart from the rest and dead smack in between the centre channel and the right speaker. Christof who was to my left heard exactly the same. On deep bass stuff, the processor also helped a lot. Illusonic really almost eliminates the sweetspot , opening it up from nearly everyone in the room. Even standing behind the rear speakers I still has a great sense of the music.
The bypass buttom (which keeps DRC and only removes processing) was a button press away and enabled us the hear the difference.
I am a bit of a Surround Sound novice, so it was my discovery to notice that you dont hear the rear channels much and almost not at all for 2-ch stereo stuff, you rather FEEL their presence.
Illusonic in essence give the feeling of stitching the speakers together, giving a more cohesive sense of the sound. On HT stuff, this is absolutely a no-brainer. On MC material as well. On 2ch stereo, its not a must in my book, but a handy feature to have as it really is a nice DRC application and the immersive processing really sharpens up the imaging on certain recordings and the bass management is also another big plus. However, as its pricey ~$20K, its not something for a 2-ch guy who doesnt delve into multi-channel music or HT. If you do, then this is the most compatible of the 4D applications at the moment and offers an impressive feature set, scalability from 3 to 16 speakers and uses high quality components. Perhaps they will make a cheaper 7.1 system in the future? Now I want to hear the full 16 speaker setup in Uster.
Input Formats
stereo
Lt/Rt, 5.1, 7.1
Aurophonie 6 (2+2+2)
Aurophonie 8 (2+2+2+2)
50 HDMI PCM formats
Output Formats
168 variations using from
2 up to 16 loudspeakers
Bass Management
16-channel bass management with several parametric cross-overs
unique bass coupling
high precision (32/64 bit float)
Calibration
delay and gain trim
80 fully parametric equalizers
high precision (32/64 bit float)
