Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater WHAT Completion - Step 1 of 4...

The driver installation worked, but it cannot talk to the D2.
I'll go hunting for a good USB-serial (we have some at the office that I know works).
I did part of the config by hand (except for the names).
I have a HUGE amount of work ahead of me to make my Harmony 890 working properly with the D2 (mostly because the Harmony database contains about 10% of the commands required).
BTW, the D2 has the WORSE remote control ever devised. Mislabelling, "holding buttons 2 seconds" or "rapid double-click"..

Anyway, I could not really test much noise-wise as I wasted so much time trying to get the RS232 to work that the neigbors came back home.

Tonight I'll do testing for video scaling.

Quick first report as I watch the end of the hockey game in my office and my audiobytes (one of the new application my setup now supports). I focussed on two things tonight: 1. Support for my applications 2. Upscaling and 3. Headphones.

1. APPLICATION OFFICE
Everything that was supposed to work, works (non-HDCP video and everything as stereo). Sound is very good, althought I cannot say if there is an improvement (was not a goal). Strange issue: when my LittleDot Mk V (which I now use a gain for the audiobytes and switch between PC and soundsystem) is off, there is a ground loop in my audiobytes! I will eventually investigate.

1. APPLICATION BACKROOM
Video is not working, but I have not investigated. Possible culprits are a) 50' HDMI cable is not working, b) the secondary output of the d2 is not working or c) the d2 and my old tv don't like each other.

Audio is using the "digital out". It appears that for certain source (blu-ray, HD-DVD, notably), the audio is forbidden (works fine in my office). So I will have to also use a stereo output... Wait a minute! I already have 2 extra cables passed!

2. UPSCALING
My BD-30 is setup so that I have both an source-upscaled HDMI connection and a 480i component. It is not intented for testing, but it is very convenient! Tried with Shrek, LOTR and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. That was a bit of a disapointment, at least at first. If there was a difference, it was superficial and not justifying a big processor like that.

BUT, that thing has a truck-load of parameters to control the upscaler... and each source can be configured differently. What I quickly discovered is that all the features are either disabled or set to minimum by default. I played with a few (I will need to read A LOT to go much further) settings and got noticeable improvements. The fun thing is that the settings are adjusted while the video is playing. That's pretty cool. Once I had an image I was liking better, I went back to compare and AH! the difference was much better. I then went to my media streamer and applied the same parameters (with some differences) and Star Wars, LOTR, Babylon V and even sitcoms started to look more natural.

The video processor does not repair crappy video and transfers (it may actually make them a bit worse by contrast), but it does remove "dancing pixels", edges around objects and makes all movement (camera panning, characters turning their heads) much crisper.

So far, so good. I was expecting more, but I am not done trying to understand each paramter and see if I can get even better. But there is already a welcome improvement.

3. HEADPHONE
Well, on that point, I can use strong statements. For the past 22 days, my HD650 headphones with my LittleDot Mk V were one of the few consolations I had. Well... I don't know what they have put in that processor, but it beat the crap out of my previous setup! Honestly, I was expecting something very good (based on comments on head-fi and some other Anthem product owner). Well, it is sensational.

It started bad. My SqzBOX was playing and the sound was not that good. It was frankly not just disapointing, it was bordering lame. BUT, it was not that good a CD. So I selected another CD that I know very well recorded. EVEN WORSE! Uh uh... Not good. Not good at all... Then I got up, pushed on the headphone plug and it clicked properly into place. I put then back on, POW! What dynamics! Anyway, I could talk a long longer about this, but I have to go back listening now that the Habs have been humuliated 3-0 by the Leafs.

Sounds more like they're the Hab-nots.

That's probably a common joke in Canada, so came off pretty lame, eh?

Believe it or not, but at 5AM I started to try and fix the problems between the 890 and the D2v (or rather, try to make the 890 comply with the peculiarities of the D2v). It is now 8 o'clock and I have about 2 more hours of work just to get back where I was.
I never really liked Harmony's config software, especially the part where simple devices change can cause it to "reset" its parameters and loose all your changes... without backup! It happened 3 times this mornings. It turned the D2v into a power amp and then... Too many stupid loss of config for me to continue. Let's just say that, when one of the weirdest remote meets a mediocre remote configurator, it is not entirely pleasant.

And I still have to go hunt for a good USB/serial adapter!

Bar that! I thought I had at least gotten them to talk. Nada. The remote cannot even power on!

EFalardeau, I think you may need an upgrade in the remote department... doesn't the Anthem deserve a little more then a Harmony? At least a Pronto or URC Crestron or AMX if you're feeling really adventerous, it would be great to leverage the RS232 and get some feedback to your remote.

Yeah, but my budget is now dedicated to other stuff for quite a while. I will have to tough it up for now. But it's worth it! Just spent an hour after the neighbors were gone. I just planned to skip through 2 dozens of test material... I did only 4 tracks as each time it was too good to stop there.
Well, now I go hunt for the darn USB/serial.

Connected! Another hour of effort, purchase of 80$ of USB/serial + serial cables and I managed to get a combination without silly pins on male connectors and that worked.
The funny this is that it shuts down the unit. For a second I was wondering what was going on!
Now for some serious business!

Done with Joan of Arc!

This is not going to be TOO long as I am emotionally tired.
After doing quite a bit of listening without ARC, I managed to make the serial port work and try it. The equipment is very nice. Every piece is of high quality (the least they can do for that kind of money!), including the microphone coming with a CD of calibration data.

Detailed information on ARC can be found on Anthem's site, but the things that are nice is that you once you measure, the data can be used to tweak a lot. For example, the default algo put my QS8 and centers to 125 and 135Hz and it sounded a bit weird (which prompted me to look at what it had done). But then, all I had to do is to go back to the software and just say nah! recompute everything with a x-over max 100hz. You can also pick the range of frequency to play with (it can be used for <200hz bass only) for someone wanting to minimize the impact.

You can also configure room gain and some other stuff that I did not even bother to look at. And then you can see (and by "you" I mean "I" and only "I") the graph for each speaker (old, ideal, final).

So far, so good. I watched Star Trek and listened to about two hours of music and I have not turned it off... but I did change the initial xover as it sounded hollow. But after changed twice the room gain (to check how much it affected), it might actually be better. The good thing with the d2 is that each source can be set to room eq on/off so I can program two sources with the same info and just room eq off.

But this is for much later!

Pictures...
1. The ARC comes in a nice separate box
2. The pieces on the couch
3. The microphone mounted (the base is under the pillows to make it at ear level). There's a nice clip to make it easy to have a straight-up mic

FINALLY!!! Figured out what was not working with my 890 and the circumvoluted way to make it work. After 4 more hours of work, I FINALLY have it working as I hoped!