QQ Official Test of the Involve Audio Surround Master SM-465

[LizardKing]

.......I've run some stuff that I had done with SPEC through this decoder, and the results are as good or better in some cases.

The testing of the box has been interesting, but it's far more enjoyable to just hook the thing up and listen to the output. In most cases there will be a "wow" moment when listening to something stereo, and that's good!
.......

I've played a couple of things that I had in SPEC via this and IMHO they've been at least as good too...

 

[chucky3042]

Hi

Not my department BUT...

We have a discount for QQ members at $350 + $18 postage to anywhere, just order online on our website http://www.involveaudio.com/products/surround-master

Regards

Chucky

Very impressive results. IMHO it really is not important how this stacks up against 35 year old plus decoders as the results seem to speak for themselves. Again I ask the burning question as I have found it no place in these discussions, How much is the unit shipped? I do know if you are lucky you can get a actual QS decoder on ebay for under $100 but most of the time the QSD-1 and QSD-2 are going for big un justified dollars.

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Jon

Those graphs look more like what I would expect. Thank you for the tests!!!

Hope to finish a bundle of tests this week.

Regards

chucky

 

[Q8]

I can't wait to see how the SQ one performs. When the one with QS and SQ is released and confirmed to be working. I'll be buying one promptly.

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Q8

I too would like the SQ stuff but it will be a few months as our development schedule is as follows

1 Complete bookshelf electrostatic system
2 Finalize first total Perspective commercial speakers and processor
3 provision for HDMI on a (higher cost) Surround Master
4 New technology cone speaker - bookshelf
5 Production of the next 400 surround Masters
6 A high intensity lighting project
7 A military project

We are very busy fellows!!

Regards

Chucky

I can't wait to see how the SQ one performs. When the one with QS and SQ is released and confirmed to be working. I'll be buying one promptly.

 

[JonUrban]

I can't wait to see how the SQ one performs. When the one with QS and SQ is released and confirmed to be working. I'll be buying one promptly.

I ran the SQ side of 'Quadrafile' through the current Surround Master just for kicks. It wasn't pretty.

 

[ClarkNovak]

I can't wait to see how the SQ one performs. When the one with QS and SQ is released and confirmed to be working. I'll be buying one promptly.

I think I'm with you!

 

[chucky3042]

Hello All

I have posted this on Oxforddickie thread on "Reality Teck Involve Decoder - proper QS decoding" but as it is part of general tests I have included it here so it can all be in one area, hope that is OK.

Finally we have finished a fresh round of tests including comparisons to the Sansui QSD -1 with an aim of examining whether we decode QS "by the book" or not.

I wish to thank Richard "Oxforddickie" for pressurizing us into doing this and for all his good technical advice and assistance over the past week or two. In addition many thanks to Ron "Rustyandi" for the loan of his spare QSD -1 for test comparisons.

Please note that the right hand side output of the QSD - 1 was not performing to specification (analogue logic was frozen) but we were able to do some useful tests on the left hand outputs that were performing at or above quoted specification. I claim this is like doing tests on a stereo amplifier with one side faulty, the results on the good channel are still valid. And beggars cannot be choosers.

For those that do not want to be bored by the lengthy report my summary is:

CHANNEL SEPARATION: QSD -1 achieved an average of 23.8 dB separation, Surround Master achieved an average separation of 36.3 dB. Please note both obtained great results but frankly anything more that 12 dB is just a numbers chase.

PHASE ACCURACY: Based on the only valid comparison of the side wall result the best I can say is that both machines are probably similar, QSD -1 had a phase error of 33.8 degrees on one side wall, the Surround Master had figures of 21.8/ 70.9 degrees. All front and rear wall phase measurements for the Surround Master were fully in phase with zero measurable error.

IMAGE LINEARITY: Please refer to the graphs in the report. I is fair to say both machines performed well but we could only test the left hand side wall image linearity. If anything the Surround Master had the edge slightly.

In summary the INVOLVE Surround Master is in my opinion decoding "by the book" as written by the great Tachashi of Sansui in the early 1970". We have however written a new chapter that is not tested in these results in how we hide the control action from detection by the listener. On listening tests I heard occasional evidence of pumping on the QSD -1 but not on the Surround Master. Having said that the QSD - 1 is an stunning device and far better than SQ, Tate, Dolby pl2, neural etc.

We will be conducting a few more tests on decoding of simultaneous 4 channel tone and dynamic response over the next week or two - time permitting.

Regards

chucky

 

[chucky3042]

Hi again

As promised we have documented some more comparative test on the Surround Master and QSD-1. This test is perhaps the most difficult one for any matrix based decoder system - Continuous sine wave tones into all 4 encode / decode channels simultaneously. In essence the "analogue logic" control is given no basis for separating the signals.

The biggest "trick" of analogue steering logic is to pick directional dominance on a transitory basis and adjusting the matrix parameters to suit (or gate if you are SQ, Tate or Dolby). This is very valid as human directional perception takes a significant time to pick the direction of multiple separate continuous signal sources. In music there is little need to be able to separate multiple time synchronized tones as the listener cannot separate those events in the short term. Most analogue steering logic cannot cope with this event and at best defaults to the basic non logic separation of a theoretical 6 dB in the case of QS.

In summary the Surround Master performed well again with an overall average separation of 10 dB. The Sansui QSD-1 suffered slightly with an average separation of 3.7 dB, this result was worse than a non logic decoder mainly because it enhanced the wrong channel in one instance (sent the signal to the wrong channel).

Please note the Surround Masters result is close to the 12 dB threshold where we claim listeners cannot distinguish from discrete (you really do not need 100dB!).

I have not seen this type of test published previously - maybe some one could prove me wrong! Anyway it is only useful in showing the limits of performance and perhaps is some evidence that we really have a different logic steering enhancement compared to the QSD -1.

Happy reading

Chucky

 

[ClarkNovak]

This looks to be some interesting reading. Thank you, Chucky, for posting it up - I'm looking forward to reading more.

 

[JonUrban]

More fun using the Surround Master with some old Stereo LPs into the PC.

This is a minute or so of the track "Here At the Western World", from the old ABC LP "Steely Dan's Greatest Hits" from the '70s. This track was exclusive to this LP. To show how well the surround master does stereo, the attached MP3 file that you should be able to play right from here is the rear channels of a portion of the song.

You can clearly hear the piano bright and clear, the background singers clear and discrete as well. A trace of the lead vocal from the front channels is there, but it's pretty well muted.

Impressive, I thought. NOTE: You don't get spectacular results from everything. The source material determines what the SM can do, but when it's good, it's good!

Juat click the link, turn up your sound, and listen for yourself:

www.quadraphonicquad.com/miscstuff/Here.mp3

 

[phydo]

More fun using the Surround Master with some old Stereo LPs into the PC.

This is a minute or so of the track "Here At the Western World", from the old ABC LP "Steely Dan's Greatest Hits" from the '70s. This track was exclusive to this LP. To show how well the surround master does stereo, the attached MP3 file that you should be able to play right from here is the rear channels of a portion of the song.

You can clearly hear the piano bright and clear, the background singers clear and discrete as well. A trace of the lead vocal from the front channels is there, but it's pretty well muted.

Impressive, I thought. NOTE: You don't get spectacular results from everything. The source material determines what the SM can do, but when it's good, it's good!

Juat click the link, turn up your sound, and listen for yourself:

www.quadraphonicquad.com/miscstuff/Here.mp3

Jon:

Impressive!

Justin

 

[Quadwreck]

Jon, give a try with Joe South's "Walk A Mile In My Shoes". It's always come alive on my Sansui SRX-6500, I wonder what this unit will do for it.

 

[brasil99]

More fun using the Surround Master with some old Stereo LPs into the PC.

This is a minute or so of the track "Here At the Western World", from the old ABC LP "Steely Dan's Greatest Hits" from the '70s. This track was exclusive to this LP. To show how well the surround master does stereo, the attached MP3 file that you should be able to play right from here is the rear channels of a portion of the song.

You can clearly hear the piano bright and clear, the background singers clear and discrete as well. A trace of the lead vocal from the front channels is there, but it's pretty well muted.

Impressive, I thought. NOTE: You don't get spectacular results from everything. The source material determines what the SM can do, but when it's good, it's good!

Juat click the link, turn up your sound, and listen for yourself:

www.quadraphonicquad.com/miscstuff/Here.mp3

Thanks for this, finally a sample of what it's capable of with stereo material and it sounds very good indeed! I like how all instruments and vocals come out undamaged and without artifacts. One thing though, what happens in the fronts to the information that's been steered to the rears? Is it really gone from the L,R (and center) channels, or is it still there, only much softer?

You also mention how not everything will sound as good as your sample, but is it possible to give an indication in percentages?

Thanks again!

 

[JonUrban]

Thanks for this, finally a sample of what it's capable of with stereo material and it sounds very good indeed! I like how all instruments and vocals come out undamaged and without artifacts. One thing though, what happens in the fronts to the information that's been steered to the rears? Is it really gone from the L,R (and center) channels, or is it still there, only much softer?

You also mention how not everything will sound as good as your sample, but is it possible to give an indication in percentages?

Thanks again!

I listened to the fronts on the same section of Here At the Western World as I posted above, and the audio information in the rears that can be heard so clearly is still audible in the fronts, although at a much lower level. The piano that sounds so clear in the rears is buried in the mix, but the background vocals are a bit more noticable than the piano in the fronts. Still, when played together, the ear "hears" them in the rears, as that's where they are the loudest.

There really is no way to give a percentage of how many titles will sound great vs those that will not decode well, because its a subset of millions of albums. It's a crap shoot with each title. Same thing with SPEC or any other synthesis software. If the phase info is there, something will happen. If not, well...

 

[brasil99]

I listened to the fronts on the same section of Here At the Western World as I posted above, and the audio information in the rears that can be heard so clearly is still audible in the fronts, although at a much lower level. The piano that sounds so clear in the rears is buried in the mix, but the background vocals are a bit more noticable than the piano in the fronts. Still, when played together, the ear "hears" them in the rears, as that's where they are the loudest.

There really is no way to give a percentage of how many titles will sound great vs those that will not decode well, because its a subset of millions of albums. It's a crap shoot with each title. Same thing with SPEC or any other synthesis software. If the phase info is there, something will happen. If not, well...

Thanks for the additional information. I will place my order in a couple of months, when the HDMI version is suppose to roll out. Really prefer HDMI over analog myself, got way too much cable spaghetti already..

 

[chucky3042]

Hi brasil99

Don't hold your breath on the HDMI version as it is not a trivial exercise- involving a major redesign including the case. It could be beyond a year - dunno.

Regards

Chucky

Thanks for the additional information. I will place my order in a couple of months, when the HDMI version is suppose to roll out. Really prefer HDMI over analog myself, got way too much cable spaghetti already..

 

[brasil99]

Hi brasil99

Don't hold your breath on the HDMI version as it is not a trivial exercise- involving a major redesign including the case. It could be beyond a year - dunno.

Regards

Chucky

Hi Chucky,

Bit of a bummer this, but for me HDMI connectors are a must, so I guess the only option is to wait...

 

[rick57]

Hi Chucky

Am I right that the decoder works in the analog domain, ie not with an ADC, DSP and DAC?

Cheers
Richard

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Richard

Actually some of the circuitry such as the input buffering, phase shift networks and output buffering is analogue but the majority of the hard work is done via 2 very large and fast DSP chips. So far we have had no reports from any users regarding loss of clarity, detail or distortion.

Regards

Chucky