beowulf: setup is surprisingly straightforward. Although the Emotive OSD is not exactly like working on a Mac, once you understand the interface, assigning inputs and modes is easy.
I have updated and altered my listening impressions a bit. The Emotiva is good, surprisingly good, and at its price is quite the bargain. What they have packed into this device for $600 is very, very impressive; it does indeed define "bang for the buck." But it is not on a par with Decware, and while that may not be obvious on casual listening or during home theater, it is apparent during high quality audio such as BluRay. Its Direct Mode is also good, but it appears to control gain in Direct Mode digitally, and leaving it set at 0 is not pragmatic. So, I plan to insert a Zektor switch in between the Emotiva and the Oppo, so I can run 5.1 from each into the Ultra. This way, the Oppo, the AppleTV, and the Comcast DVR can all benefit from the Emotiva's DSP, but for serious listening out of the Oppo, I can bypass the Emotiva.
Still, as a home theater pre/pro, I am actually very impressed with the Emotiva; I may yet upgrade to a more mid-level processor, but I might not. If Emotiva manages to incorporate TacT processing, with PC/Mac integration, into the $1499 XMC-1 pre/pro, they will sell a ton of those, and I will be one of the buyers. TacT in a 7.2 system at that price would be killer, and it would be a direct corollary to the DEQX on the 2.0 side. The UMC-200's room/sub management is pretty good, but I have focused that use on 5.1, am happy with its outcome, and do not intend to muck with it on the 2.0 side. So, I cannot say really how it compares with the DSPeaker 2.0; as compared between home theater and 2.0, I would say the Emo is effective, and manages to improve room/bass interaction in a way that is comparable in significance.
The
Baetis Revolution arrives today. I have officially run out of room on my ZRACKs :-/ But I am looking forward to adding it to the system.The Baetis will have three definite uses in the system, and maybe a fourth:
1. BluRay server [this one I am pretty psyched about], and depending on how well it does this and storage allocation on the network, as well as parental controls in the JRiver MC the Baetis uses, I may integrate BluRay & DVD into the one device;
2. As a direct play into the PWD;
3. As a network stream for the Lumin and the PWD [this will be a work in progress].
4. The Baetis may also become the hub of whole-house service. We shall see. I like the designer's philosophy, no-BS approach to high quality audio, and the value he is building into his machines. Funny, my first PC in years, and it's an HTPC. A lot of this may depend on just how flexible the Baetis is as a home theater processor.