The XMC1 looks like it has a pair of stereo balanced inputs, which are supposed to be sweet, right?
I still listen to good old 2 channel stereo a lot. CD & high res files.

The 978 has no balanced inputs
How much of a disadvantage is this?
Is HDMI as good, better, worse then balanced for 2 channel stereo?

Thought it would be nice to take advantage of the Oppo's balanced outputs.

Welcome Barry

Firstly, we don't know exactly what the finished model of the 978 will turn out to be. I myself am looking to get an Oppo 95 and running it 7.1 analog but that unit has only regular connectors for analog output. I do own an Outlaw 7500 multichannel amp with balanced connectors and plan to take advantage of my amp with that connection but that is only with the 978's balanced preouts to the 7500's balanced inputs.

I do not think that the balanced stereo 2 channel outputs of the Oppo will have any noticable sound quality over the rca outputs but I could be wrong. A balance output from Oppo to a two channel balanced input on the pre/pro still would be the ideal connection.

I have followed Emotiva for a few years and own 3 of their components, though not any of their pre-pros. Two of their previous models that I know of, including their current one, have had major issues, so it may be a bit early to presume bugless operation right off the bat. As well, they have had to deal with QC issues on several of their amps and other products.

The forthcoming XMC has some issues for me. No video processing whatsoever. Only one HDMI out. An obscure room correction brand never attempted in a unit at this price point, unlike Audyysey. The XLR inputs are a very small part of an uncertain picture at this point.

Actually, Tact Audio's RCS (Room Correction System) has been on the market since 1999, three years earlier than Audyssey MultEQ. The R&D work goes back to the mid 90's. It was one of the first consumer digital room correction systems on the market along with the likes of Australia's DEQX. So it's not that obscure and has had a very active user community on Yahoo!'s newsgroups since its beginnings.

However, you're correct in stating that it has never been been ported to a unit at this price point. Tact's TCS MKIII surround sound processor sells for a whopping $15K and guess what, no video processing either! Come to think of it, I don't remember it ever having been licensed to any other brand other than Tact's own in-house implementations. It's only a matter of having enough DSP power and memory for the algorithms to run properly and the lower prices in the last few years have made it feasible.

Yep, Tact is the elder statesman in this room correction business.

As far as the cpu grunt goes, those processor chips are getting faster and cheaper all the time and the same can be said for memory. It makes sense that this is filtering down to less expensive platforms. I kinda like the Linux on the ARM processor approach. Development on the ARM hardware implementations is blazing ahead thanks to its popularity on mobile phones and tablets, driving the speed up and the prices down. One would hope that this would speed development for future upgrades and new products since the code *ought* to be highly portable.

I haven't yet heard MultEQ XT32, but the Tact systems have just blown me away time and again. If the Emo guys can pull this off, it will sell like hotcakes.

Best,

I never claimed that Audyysey was older than Tact. I said that Tact was an obscure brand and hadn't been attempted at this price point. Certainly compared to Audyysey it is obscure.

And I'm not so sure that the XMC could sell like hotcakes. I'm not sure if members of this forum are aware of the disaster that was the UMC. People were actually talking legal action. In some cases it blew drivers. It lost the center channel signal. It's LFE implementation is legendary for being a complete joke. The room correction made things so bad most simply didn't use it. It had handshake issues and couldn't play well with some brands of cable boxes. And upon its introduction Emotiva promised the moon. Lonnie and Dan were actually giddy. They claimed that this perfect unit was the victim of some kind of installation glitch, that the programming was actually fine. But if so, why didn't a simple re-install not solve everything and give the customers sonic bliss for their hard earned dollars? For 2 years customers have had promise after promise thrown at them. Firmware after firmware and nothing panned out. I don't know how they could do that to their customers, but many are not coming back. Of course, many were kicked out of their forum anyway.

They've had quite a mixed bag of results. Amps whose LED lights that went hayware. The customer would return it only to have the bug show up in the replacement model. Amps whose channels blew up. Hissing amps. Their UPA multi channel amps had such poor crosstalk numbers that people would be woken up in another room on speakers fed from the same amp. Their ultra line of cables had a high rate of failure and was quietly retired.

They've had other issues. CD players that eat cds and miss the first few seconds of the first song played. Their DAC was released with an improperly implemented volume function which made it near useless as a pre-amp, one of its main selling features.

Out of the three products I purchased from them 2 had issues. The cd player front panel weeped an oily greasy substance. Upon removing the front right chrome piece I found that the screw hole had been badly stripped at the chinese factory using some kind of compound which accounted for the greasy film. They were disinclined to do anything about it. I had the DAC volume issue and had to pay to send it back for the volume fix so I could use it as a pre-amp.

Emotiva has a very long way to go, in my opinion, to get back some of the abused customers. A properly functioning pre-pro will not do it.

I realize you you didn't claim that Audyssey was older than Tact's digital room correction, I was simply putting things into some historical context just to illustrate that Tact's technology isn't that obscure. It's been reviewed in many major audio magazines like Stereophile (1999 & 2001) and The Absolute Sound (2000 & 2007) and has won many awards, as has Audyssey's MulEQ XT & SEQ to be fair.

However, compared to Audyssey's MultEQ notoriety, I agree with your assessment that Tact can be qualified as obscure. Tact digital room correction has only been used on their own gear whereas Audyssey has scored many wins with very well known major brands and a couple of lesser known brands too, literally selling into the hundreds of thousands if not millions in terms of an installed user base. Tact on the other, being more of a boutique audio brand selling to a mid to high end market segment is nowhere near a hundred thousand units.

I had read that there where some issues with some of the Emotiva gear but I didn't realize that it had reached the level you describe. Tact has also had some issues over the years and being a small outfit, some of the issues have taken quite a bit of time to resolve and service on units has being very slow at times. All things to ponder over when making a buying decision.

Wow.

That's depends very much on whether you plan to be using features like Audyssey's MultEQ XT32 and/or bass management. Many and arguably most A/V processors and receivers don't come equipped with analog-to-digital converters (ADC) to convert the analog signal inputs into digital signals. Therefore, if you plan to use MultEQ XT32, bass management, etc. on an A/V processor without ADC, then you have to either use the S/PDIF connectors for stereo (coax or optical) or HDMI for multi-channel so that the processor receives a digital signal in order to be able to apply the MultEQ or bass management algorithms in the digital domain.

We don't yet have a complete picture of the 978's features but up to now, I've seen nothing indicating that it had ADC capabilities.

Furthermore, when you use analog interconnects - unless you have very transparent ones which are usually very expensive and high-end - well your average analog interconnects tend to work as tone controls and you're almost always "tampering" with the signal loosing some nuances (information). The conversion processes, either ADC or DAC almost always incur slight penalties unless using very high-end gear and interconnects. OK, I can already hear signs of protests about jitter in the digital domain over S/PDIF or HDMI but IMHO those have less of an impact than using analog interconnects. The basic rule I would follow is, if you're source material is digital, then keep the signal in the digital domain throughout the whole digital processing chain and then convert the signal to analog at the very end in the DACs. It's also generally much cheaper as good S/PDIF and HDMI interconnects have much lower costs than high-end interconnects.

I think everyone is aware and I've mentioned it a few times myself. I definitely wouldn't want to be an early adopter for EITHER the 978 or the XMC-1. I still remember having issues with my 990 early in 2005 that weren't rectified until there were firmware updates made available, but that was a walk in the park compared to what I've heard about early UMC-1 purchasers.

Best,