01-Oct-2024, 10:36
So, I have the Arvus H1-D up and running as part of the beta program. Happy to take any questions.
Firstly the bad news. The company is pretty bad at managing expectations. I’ve lost count of the amount of times they’ve promised comms tomorrow or early next week, which just never gets delivered on. The device itself was delayed over and over, and finally arrived months later than promised. I understand that this happens with hardware development, it’s just the lack of communication and broken promises I struggled with. It was a significant investment for me - it got to the point where my partner thought I was just being scammed. But - for those willing to wait, they have offered a free Dirac license and USB microphone when the functionality is added. So pragmatically they’ve done a good job, I just wish they would communicate more.
This applied as well to the firmware, where I was told a new version was coming early the following week. A week later I was told the next day. A week later it came.
So I want to be clear, the delivery is acceptable to me and I understand things take time. I just wish they’d be more open and transparent.
The next bit of bad news - the first version of the firmware is severely limited. I can’t change the speaker layout (9.1.2 is preselected), the volume of independent channels, there’s no eARC. So there’s no volume control at all. You basically get one configuration and that’s it for now. In the second firmware you can now have a static IP, but you need to run a windows app to set it, and I have no windows machines in this house.
Okay, now onto the good news.
The device itself is very neat, and tidy. You have HDMI in and out on the back (so if you’ve turned it off there will be no pass through). It’s roughly the size of my Apple TV and hides away easily in a cupboard. There’s a single Ethernet port, and digital coax out on the back. There’s a single blue LED on the front, and an infinite rotary volume control and headphone jack. I’m only using the HDMI and Ethernet ports right now. I believe the rest are not currently functional.
The LED just has an on and off state for now, though I’ve requested it blink or something when booting up and applying new firmware. When new firmware is found it applied automatically, something I’ve requested more control over. If you factory reset the device it applies its original shipping firmware so future firmware shouldn’t be able to brick it.
It includes an HDMI cable, power plug, and a pretty cheap looking remote - though I don’t care about that because long term I want to be able to control it with eARC.
The UI is controlled via HTTP over its IP, with no security. The UI is visible pretty much non functional right now, apart from the reboot button I believe. The UI is also inaccessible for anyone using keyboard or a screen reader. I leave the device on pretty much all the time, and it does get hot to the touch.
I had a lot of issues with the original shipping firmware. I would need to reboot the device if I left it alone too long, and sometimes the audio would have horrible screeching glitches that only went away if I rebooted it again which takes a couple of minutes. The distorted glitches were even worse since there’s no volume control!
Some of the issues were definitely user error, but even with those resolved it was just as bad, and the wife was very unimpressed.
Now the really good news. Although still severely restricted in functionality, the latest firmware appears to have resolved the stability issues. No more audio glitches and I haven’t rebooted it in a few days. 48KHz appears to be the only setting that works, and I have Dante set to 10ms delay which feels solid and I can’t perceive any lag. I’m driving three golds via Devialet’s Dante optical adapters for fronts and centre, and 2 customs for the rears. Everything is connected to an optimised dedicated Cisco PoE switch. I’m planning to add two front height customs too (we have high walls but curved ceilings so I can’t ceiling mount them).
Sometimes when switching sources the centre drops out for a second but this is not really an issue.
With the latest firmware, the thing now is solid. No audio glitches or cut outs. And it sounds AMAZING. And this is with no room correction, and not being able to set the proper speaker set up. So it’s only going to get better. Movies and Spatial Audio music all sound great. I’ve requested being able to default to Aura 3D for stereo signals in the future so I’m always making the most of the speakers even for non Spatial Audio. I’m sure some purists will find this offensive.
I’ve written an iOS shortcut to change the volume for the speakers, and currently set the rears to 15 above whatever I set the fronts to. This is probably a bit too high but I’m enjoying more prominent sound from the rears for now. So this is an okay workaround for the volume control, but not being able to control the volume with the Apple TV remote is the remaining item that makes this setup a dealbreaker for my wife.
I have confidence Arvus will get there, it’s just taking a while. But in the meantime, this remains the most domestically friendly Dante surround setup and I’m enjoying it. And every future firmware update will feel like another gift to myself!
Read more about the device here: https://shop.arvus.com/view-product/h1-d
Firstly the bad news. The company is pretty bad at managing expectations. I’ve lost count of the amount of times they’ve promised comms tomorrow or early next week, which just never gets delivered on. The device itself was delayed over and over, and finally arrived months later than promised. I understand that this happens with hardware development, it’s just the lack of communication and broken promises I struggled with. It was a significant investment for me - it got to the point where my partner thought I was just being scammed. But - for those willing to wait, they have offered a free Dirac license and USB microphone when the functionality is added. So pragmatically they’ve done a good job, I just wish they would communicate more.
This applied as well to the firmware, where I was told a new version was coming early the following week. A week later I was told the next day. A week later it came.
So I want to be clear, the delivery is acceptable to me and I understand things take time. I just wish they’d be more open and transparent.
The next bit of bad news - the first version of the firmware is severely limited. I can’t change the speaker layout (9.1.2 is preselected), the volume of independent channels, there’s no eARC. So there’s no volume control at all. You basically get one configuration and that’s it for now. In the second firmware you can now have a static IP, but you need to run a windows app to set it, and I have no windows machines in this house.
Okay, now onto the good news.
The device itself is very neat, and tidy. You have HDMI in and out on the back (so if you’ve turned it off there will be no pass through). It’s roughly the size of my Apple TV and hides away easily in a cupboard. There’s a single Ethernet port, and digital coax out on the back. There’s a single blue LED on the front, and an infinite rotary volume control and headphone jack. I’m only using the HDMI and Ethernet ports right now. I believe the rest are not currently functional.
The LED just has an on and off state for now, though I’ve requested it blink or something when booting up and applying new firmware. When new firmware is found it applied automatically, something I’ve requested more control over. If you factory reset the device it applies its original shipping firmware so future firmware shouldn’t be able to brick it.
It includes an HDMI cable, power plug, and a pretty cheap looking remote - though I don’t care about that because long term I want to be able to control it with eARC.
The UI is controlled via HTTP over its IP, with no security. The UI is visible pretty much non functional right now, apart from the reboot button I believe. The UI is also inaccessible for anyone using keyboard or a screen reader. I leave the device on pretty much all the time, and it does get hot to the touch.
I had a lot of issues with the original shipping firmware. I would need to reboot the device if I left it alone too long, and sometimes the audio would have horrible screeching glitches that only went away if I rebooted it again which takes a couple of minutes. The distorted glitches were even worse since there’s no volume control!
Some of the issues were definitely user error, but even with those resolved it was just as bad, and the wife was very unimpressed.
Now the really good news. Although still severely restricted in functionality, the latest firmware appears to have resolved the stability issues. No more audio glitches and I haven’t rebooted it in a few days. 48KHz appears to be the only setting that works, and I have Dante set to 10ms delay which feels solid and I can’t perceive any lag. I’m driving three golds via Devialet’s Dante optical adapters for fronts and centre, and 2 customs for the rears. Everything is connected to an optimised dedicated Cisco PoE switch. I’m planning to add two front height customs too (we have high walls but curved ceilings so I can’t ceiling mount them).
Sometimes when switching sources the centre drops out for a second but this is not really an issue.
With the latest firmware, the thing now is solid. No audio glitches or cut outs. And it sounds AMAZING. And this is with no room correction, and not being able to set the proper speaker set up. So it’s only going to get better. Movies and Spatial Audio music all sound great. I’ve requested being able to default to Aura 3D for stereo signals in the future so I’m always making the most of the speakers even for non Spatial Audio. I’m sure some purists will find this offensive.
I’ve written an iOS shortcut to change the volume for the speakers, and currently set the rears to 15 above whatever I set the fronts to. This is probably a bit too high but I’m enjoying more prominent sound from the rears for now. So this is an okay workaround for the volume control, but not being able to control the volume with the Apple TV remote is the remaining item that makes this setup a dealbreaker for my wife.
I have confidence Arvus will get there, it’s just taking a while. But in the meantime, this remains the most domestically friendly Dante surround setup and I’m enjoying it. And every future firmware update will feel like another gift to myself!
Read more about the device here: https://shop.arvus.com/view-product/h1-d
