INVOLVE - Y4 surround sound system reviews

[inkubuzz]

Chucky, any news about the Y4? when will it be ready for shipping?

cheers

 

[chucky3042]

Chucky, any news about the Y4? when will it be ready for shipping?

cheers

Ready now, we are organising sea freight this week.

Regards

Charlie

 

[inkubuzz]

Hi Chucky, any news about when the Y4 will be shipped to Indiegogo backers?

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Chucky, any news about when the Y4 will be shipped to Indiegogo backers?

Hi Inkubuzz

Many apologies. We have delayed shipping overseas units so we can be sure no units have any bugs that we are not aware of. So priority went tpo lacal ones....the one that went to Ray Wright (see review) had a electrostatic panel issue that we fixed for example. In addition we ran out of woofer cases just before Xmas. I am told we will have some next week. I will nag the right people to hopefully get yours sent then. We theoretically have all been away on xmas holidays and due to return next Monday. In reality little Max and Me have been working full time over the holiday preparing for the NAMM show.

Regards

chucky

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Inkubuzz

Many apologies. We have delayed shipping overseas units so we can be sure no units have any bugs that we are not aware of. So priority went to local ones....the one that went to Ray Wright (see review) had a electrostatic panel issue that we fixed for example. In addition we ran out of woofer cases just before Xmas. I am told we will have some next week. I will nag the right people to hopefully get yours sent then. We theoretically have all been away on xmas holidays and due to return next Monday. In reality little Max and Me have been working full time over the holiday preparing for the NAMM show.

Regards

chucky

 

[inkubuzz]

yeaaah!! that is awesome!! many thanks chucky!!1

 

[chucky3042]

Dear Surroundies

As most of you will know " Dave the Bitch" (Overture) and Chris have been very busy redeveloping the Y4 electrostatic surrround sound system. Well here is a sneak preview:

Many changes and at last count internally there is 1500 components. Briefly it has 10 channels of 70 W class D amplifiers (they actually sound great!), a new 4 layed screen menu system that even a cretin like me can use, all super simple on setups and everything can be preset via the menu and remote. Got rid of the internal HDMI's as I resent paying their $20,000 annual fees and we will now include an outboard HDMI prebuilt unit. We have added 2 optical inputs and USB along with an improved Bluetooth unit and my personal favorite RCA line ins and outs plus a 3.5 mm phono input.

Even better it has the 4 channel INVOLVE decoder (Involve, RM, QS, Q Sound, stereo) and our SST (Sweet Spot Technology) that eliminates the center channel built in plus 4 of out improved electrostatic Y speakers and 2 dual woofer subs.

The unit is lower profiled, lighter (easier and cheaper to deliver!).

Manufacture starts in 2 months

I will keep you guys informed and as is tradition QQ discounts will all apply!!!

Regards

Chucky

 

[Simon A]

Dear Surroundies

As most of you will know " Dave the Bitch" (Overture) and Chris have been very busy redeveloping the Y4 electrostatic surrround sound system. Well here is a sneak preview:

View attachment 42173

View attachment 42174

Many changes and at last count internally there is 1500 components. Briefly it has 10 channels of 70 W class D amplifiers (they actually sound great!), a new 4 layed screen menu system that even a cretin like me can use, all super simple on setups and everything can be preset via the menu and remote. Got rid of the internal HDMI's as I resent paying their $20,000 annual fees and we will now include an outboard HDMI prebuilt unit. We have added 2 optical inputs and USB along with an improved Bluetooth unit and my personal favorite RCA line ins and outs plus a 3.5 mm phono input.

Even better it has the 4 channel INVOLVE decoder (Involve, RM, QS, Q Sound, stereo) and our SST (Sweet Spot Technology) that eliminates the center channel built in plus 4 of out improved electrostatic Y speakers and 2 dual woofer subs.

The unit is lower profiled, lighter (easier and cheaper to deliver!).

Manufacture starts in 2 months

I will keep you guys informed and as is tradition QQ discounts will all apply!!!

Regards

Chucky

Congratulations for this new unit and best of luck with its upcoming sales and reviews!

 

[Soundfield]

We have added 2 optical inputs and USB along with an improved Bluetooth unit and my personal favorite RCA line ins and outs plus a 3.5 mm phono input.
Even better it has the 4 channel INVOLVE decoder (Involve, RM, QS, Q Sound, stereo) and our SST (Sweet Spot Technology) that eliminates the center channel built in plus 4 of out improved electrostatic Y speakers and 2 dual woofer subs.

Nice. Looks as though you're progressively building up a lot of the elements of the future surround preamp in there. A sound approach (pun unavoidable) to engineering development clearly in place!

 

[chucky3042]

Nice. Looks as though you're progressively building up a lot of the elements of the future surround preamp in there. A sound approach (pun unavoidable) to engineering development clearly in place!

You are right about the pre amp, it has many of the common features, bit of a practice run actually!

 

[DuncanS]

A well designed Class D is good, my current amp has them, stays cool and sounds good. Having designed one once, I found the design of the output filter was a bit of a *&%$£&%# !

 

[Sonik Wiz]

My thought & impression is that even looks beautiful on the inside:

 

[chucky3042]

My thought & impression is that even looks beautiful on the inside:

View attachment 42345

Damn, there goes your warrantee!!!!! Not supposed to open it up (I will pretend I did not read this)

 

[Sonik Wiz]

My thought & impression is that even looks beautiful on the inside:

View attachment 42345

Er, ah, my bad. I meant to put this in the Surround Master thread.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Damn, there goes your warrantee!!!!! Not supposed to open it up (I will pretend I did not read this)

I used the chromatic X ray filter on my camera. Top js still on....

 

[chucky3042]

I used the chromatic X ray filter on my camera. Top js still on....

Your warrantee is restored

 

[chucky3042]

And here is how the new 10 channel class D amplifier board is coming........next the major processing board:

 

[jonmchugh]

This new Y4 system does look very interesting.
Will the optical inputs accept DD-5.1 and DTS-5.1 bitstreams so it can also be used for watching movies also?

 

[chucky3042]

This new Y4 system does look very interesting.
Will the optical inputs accept DD-5.1 and DTS-5.1 bitstreams so it can also be used for watching movies also?

Hi Jonmchugh

Nope, strictly PCM. If we were going to decode streams we'd have to pay a dolby license, or pay for a chip that has one as well. The whole point of the Y4 is to take stereo input.
At that point we might as well do HDMI and let that chip do the decode instead. The HDMI license we had cost us $20,000 per year for a crap format designed to keep the little guys out of the big guys club.

Regards

Chucky

 

[jonmchugh]

I guess you can't just use FFmpeg libavcodec or similar open source codecs to do the decode?
That is a sticking point for me as I don't have space in my home for separate systems for Music and Cinema.

Thinking of alternatives, my blu ray will output 6 channel RCA, but my Terrestrial TV recorder will not, not will my streaming devices. Most will output multichannel PCM via HDMI but never in my life have I ever used HDMI as an audio transport, I'm all optical here, HD Audio is not something that interests me as I can only hear upto 15.5Khz. I'm afraid Optical/SPDIF really is the universal compatible standard as far as multichannel is concerned.