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SAM 2
#11
As posted elsewhere, It appears there may be an issue with the transition of some SAM V1 profiles to SAM V2.

Rufus mentioned an issue with the Raidho C-1.1s and I'm certainly not happy with the KEF Blade profile, essentially the "more sophisticated" SAM V2 does not sound as good as V1.

Anyone else?
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#12
I find it about 50:50 though I don't really like 100% SAM any more. I do find it seems to be more effective with some tracks than others. With firmware 7.x I found the artificial bass boost was a little too much but the coherence was good. Now with f/w 8.x I find the bass boost seems less prevalent but I'm not really sensing any better coherence at all with SAM on. I tend to find myself switching between SAM on or off, and perhaps up to 50% SAM at most, usually 0 or 25%. I actually find the higher frequencies airier and easier to make out with SAM off (vocals are easier to follow for instance), though it can be a little on the harsh side.
I guess if the profile data for various speakers is wrong then we're all going to have different impressions. I also presume that if they have made errors migrating the SAM v1 profiles to the v2 data format for firmware 8.x then any speaker with incorrect data is going to sound worse than without SAM. A SAM profile is unique for that speaker type so the probability of the incorrect profile sounding better than with no SAM is almost infinitely low I'd have thought?

I've still never understood whether SAM applies 100% phase correction all the time (from all settings of 0 to 100% SAM) or whether it's variable across the range? That would imply 0% SAM phase correction is degraded in comparison with 100% and that sounds a bit pointless and more difficult to achieve than just 100% phase correction all the time.
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#13
(23-Aug-2015, 18:15)Rufus McDufus Wrote: I find it about 50:50 though I don't really like 100% SAM any more. I do find it seems to be more effective with some tracks than others.  With firmware 7.x I found the artificial bass boost was a little too much but the coherence was good. Now with f/w 8.x I find the bass boost seems less prevalent but I'm not really sensing any better coherence at all with SAM on. I tend to find myself switching between SAM on or off, and perhaps up to 50% SAM at most, usually 0 or 25%. I actually find the higher frequencies airier and easier to make out with SAM off (vocals are easier to follow for instance), though it can be a little on the harsh side.
I guess if the profile data for various speakers is wrong then we're all going to have different impressions.  I also presume that if they have made errors migrating the SAM v1 profiles to the v2 data format for firmware 8.x then any speaker with incorrect data is going to sound worse than without SAM. A SAM profile is unique for that speaker type so the probability of the incorrect profile sounding better than with no SAM is almost infinitely low I'd have thought?

I've still never understood whether SAM applies 100% phase correction all the time (from all settings of 0 to 100% SAM) or whether it's variable across the range? That would imply 0% SAM phase correction is degraded in comparison with 100% and that sounds a bit pointless and more difficult to achieve than just 100% phase correction all the time.

My guess is that the original measurements were probably correct however it's the migration of the data to SAM2 which is causing some problems with some makes of speakers. 

We should put together a list of SAM related questions with a view to forwarding these to Devialet, I'm sure they would be only to happy to answer them. 

Guillaume
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#14
(23-Aug-2015, 18:15)Rufus McDufus Wrote: I find it about 50:50 though I don't really like 100% SAM any more. I do find it seems to be more effective with some tracks than others.  With firmware 7.x I found the artificial bass boost was a little too much but the coherence was good. Now with f/w 8.x I find the bass boost seems less prevalent but I'm not really sensing any better coherence at all with SAM on. I tend to find myself switching between SAM on or off, and perhaps up to 50% SAM at most, usually 0 or 25%. I actually find the higher frequencies airier and easier to make out with SAM off (vocals are easier to follow for instance), though it can be a little on the harsh side.
I guess if the profile data for various speakers is wrong then we're all going to have different impressions.  I also presume that if they have made errors migrating the SAM v1 profiles to the v2 data format for firmware 8.x then any speaker with incorrect data is going to sound worse than without SAM. A SAM profile is unique for that speaker type so the probability of the incorrect profile sounding better than with no SAM is almost infinitely low I'd have thought?

I've still never understood whether SAM applies 100% phase correction all the time (from all settings of 0 to 100% SAM) or whether it's variable across the range? That would imply 0% SAM phase correction is degraded in comparison with 100% and that sounds a bit pointless and more difficult to achieve than just 100% phase correction all the time.

My understanding is that once SAM is enabled, phase correction is on. The user adjustment between 0-100% only effects the level of bottom end extension. At 100% your speakers will extend all the way down to the lowest ha measurement stated by devialet. At 0% phase is correct but the speakers won't extend any further down than they do with SAM off.
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#15
As posted elsewhere, I have struggled a bit with REW.  After a bit of effort and hassle and frustration this morning, I have finally got it to run without the various error messages I obtained previously.  As my main issue at the moment is with SAM 2, I thought I'd try a few checks at different SAM % and SAM off.  I wouldn't read too much into these curves, I couldn't get the mic into the correct listening position.  (I have lent someone my USB extension cable that I would need for this), plus these are the first runs I've obtained with REW, and I think I still need to do a bit of fine tuning with REW.  Anyway, see the screen grab attached, it does show something interesting.  (I've just shown the bass end of the response curve, the rest is very dull, but nicely flat) The purple line at the top is with SAM 100%, the lower green line is SAM off, the reddish purple and vomit coloured lines in the middle are SAM 50% and 40% respectively.

I need to spend some more time fine tuning REW and experimenting a bit, however, what this graph appears to show is that with SAM 100% the level of the very lowest bass is actually increasing significantly exactly where you would expect it to be tailing off to nothing.  Assuming these graphs are reasonably indicative of reality, it's no wonder I am preferring SAM% wound down to at least 40%.  I need to spend some more time with this.  (but not today, about to start wasting many hours watching F1 at Monza)

Another conclusion I have reached is that I should perhaps spend a little time looking into room treatments, I think I need it!  (my room does have a nice carpet, sofa and other soft things, but it is rectangular, has walls, a ceiling, corners and other awkward things)


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#16
you will not be successful with a passive roomtreatment. Between 100hz and 50hz you have a 30db difference.
You should try to define some EQ's with REW and feed the values into the jRiver DSP. The parametric EQ accepts the values you get from REW if you select the generic EQ.
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#17
(06-Sep-2015, 12:09)Confused Wrote: As posted elsewhere, I have struggled a bit with REW.  After a bit of effort and hassle and frustration this morning, I have finally got it to run without the various error messages I obtained previously.  As my main issue at the moment is with SAM 2, I thought I'd try a few checks at different SAM % and SAM off.  I wouldn't read too much into these curves, I couldn't get the mic into the correct listening position.  (I have lent someone my USB extension cable that I would need for this), plus these are the first runs I've obtained with REW, and I think I still need to do a bit of fine tuning with REW.  Anyway, see the screen grab attached, it does show something interesting.  (I've just shown the bass end of the response curve, the rest is very dull, but nicely flat) The purple line at the top is with SAM 100%, the lower green line is SAM off, the reddish purple and vomit coloured lines in the middle are SAM 50% and 40% respectively.

I need to spend some more time fine tuning REW and experimenting a bit, however, what this graph appears to show is that with SAM 100% the level of the very lowest bass is actually increasing significantly exactly where you would expect it to be tailing off to nothing.  Assuming these graphs are reasonably indicative of reality, it's no wonder I am preferring SAM% wound down to at least 40%.  I need to spend some more time with this.  (but not today, about to start wasting many hours watching F1 at Monza)

Another conclusion I have reached is that I should perhaps spend a little time looking into room treatments, I think I need it!  (my room does have a nice carpet, sofa and other soft things, but it is rectangular, has walls, a ceiling, corners and other awkward things)

Hi Confused

interesting measurements there! I can well understand you prefer 40-50%
I do not use any room treatment, but I use room correction. With 7.1.3 and SAM for the Atohm GT1 enabled at 100% (this will be the old SAM). I guess 100% is a little too much here too, but Audiolense creates a very nice correction on top of this. The result is very very good. I've got a prominent standing wave in my room at 47Hz which is nicely controlled by Audiolense.
I plan to test 8.1.3. As SAM will be v2 with 8.1.3 I'll have to do a new measurement with Audiolense. I am in no hurry to do this as SQ is so good at the moment.
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#18
(07-Sep-2015, 08:26)Vivialet Wrote: you will not be successful with a passive roomtreatment. Between 100hz and 50hz you have a 30db difference.
You should try to define some EQ's with REW and feed the values into the jRiver DSP. The parametric EQ accepts the values you get from REW if you select the generic EQ.

As mentioned in my earlier post, these graphs were not taken in the actual listening position, although I suspect the basic hump / null scenario will remain once this is done.  I'll produce some "proper" curves when I have some time.  (and get my USB extension cable back!)

To clarify, surely it is worth spending some time with passive room treatment?  I understand that room correction can be used to smooth out or eliminate the  "humps", however, nulls will remain.   Are you saying that room treatment will have no effect on nulls?  Or even room layout changes, speaker positioning etc.  I'm sure for example buying a 9 foot tall room divider and filling it with soft things might change something!  (maybe not for the better, but it would change)

To be clear, I am not an expert on this subject, far from it.  I suspect you have far more experience in this area than myself, I guess I'm just fishing for clues at the moment.
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#19
Back in the late spring / early summer I was having very many issues with 8.x.x firmware and SAM V2. Once I finally got a system that worked OK, I vowed that I would not mess around with anything for a couple of months at least. This is a vow I kept, with respect to firmware swaps and similar. (and stayed in back to "just enjoy the music" mode, to use the cliché) I have reported on this elsewhere, but this was after many firmware updates, correspondence to Devialet re SAM V2, and Devialet updating the KEF Blade SAM profile, following the introduction of 8.0.0 and SAM V2.

Anyway, last weekend I decided that I would try running 7.1.3 / SAM V1 again. This was just out of interest, I have got very used to how everything sounds with 8.1.3 SAM V2, and with SAM set to about 40% this appears to sound OK. So what was it like back on 7.1.3beta SAM V2? Well using the notoriously unreliable method of aural memory, my view was that SAM V1 had a better bass impact. Running SAM V1 for a short while, I can in fact confirm this is true, but perhaps not to the extent I thought. But here is the thing, going backward is quite interesting sometimes. Maybe there is a touch more bass impact with the old SAM, but overall the bass sounded a little crude in comparison to what I have become used to with 8.1.3 / SAM 2. Plus, it didn't really stop there, with some tracks, 7.1.3 was maybe a touch harsh in comparison to what I now used to with 8.1.3. I perhaps hadn't noticed some improvements going forwards to 8.1.3 SAM 2, but going backwards it seems much easier to spot what has gone. These differences are relatively minor of course, and the language I have used in this post will exaggerate things a touch in my efforts to explain, but these things are difficult to describe accurately in words. But in conclusion, I would say in my system 8.1.3 SAM 2, with SAM wound down below 50% is the best yet. I did try some SAM 1 vs SAM 2 REW curves, there were some differences between them but to be honest, the conclusions from just listening provided far more affirmation than looking at the graphs. As an example, moving the microphone 2 feet to try the effect of an alternative listening position provides far more differences in the curves that switching between SAM V1 and V2.

In fact looking at the curves leads to a different conclusion, in that I need to forget all about SAM 2 and start doing a bit of research into room treatments etc, or perhaps fine tuning speaker positioning to best suit SAM 2. But for now, I'm going back to "just enjoy the music" mode, I've had enough already!
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#20
(27-Sep-2015, 13:01)Confused Wrote: In fact looking at the curves leads to a different conclusion, in that I need to forget all about SAM 2 and start doing a bit of research into room treatments etc, or perhaps fine tuning speaker positioning to best suit SAM 2.  But for now, I'm going back to "just enjoy the music" mode, I've had enough already!

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