Home Theater Forum and Systems banner

Emotiva UMC-1 Official Thread : User Reviews and Discussion

38K views 74 replies 23 participants last post by  Jeff Aguilar 
#1 ·
UMC-1 preorders are apparently shipping. I hope to buy one as soon as they have them in stock in their shopping cart. As a casual movie watcher it makes no sense to spend twice as much as the UMC-1, it's going to replace a Sony receiver in my pre-amp's HT Bypass loop.
 
#60 ·
I'm a newbie here so first off a quick 'Hello' to everyone!
I have a question to Sonnie since in an earlier comment he mentioned that he owned a NAD T785 at one point.
I wonder if also had first hand experience with the Emotiva UMC-1 and if he could briefly compare the sound quality of the two.

Thanks,

Steve
 
#64 ·
Hi Steve and welcome to the Shack... and sorry for the delayed response.

Unfortunately I have not heard the UMC-1, but hope to soon... I am about ready to trade up for a processor over my current Onkyo 906. The UMC-1 seems admirable and a reasonable pairing to my XPA-1 monoblocks.

As far as comparing it to the NAD, that might be hard to do because it has been so long since I have heard the NAD. I am not sure I could really be objective unless they were side by side and setup identically. I have never been one to be able to hear a lot of differences in "good" components as long as they have had ample power to drive my speakers (currently MartinLogan). Where I have heard the biggest improvement for me was going from dynamic to electrostatic speakers... and I can testify that a typical receiver will compress at louder volumes trying to push my ML Prodigy speakers. The newer powered model ML's (I owned the Spire's previously) are typically fine with just about any quality receiver. Otherwise... I can not claim to have ever heard much difference between processors, amps and/or receivers from Sony, Denon, Sunfire, McIntosh, Adcom, NAD, Onkyo, Earthquake, Anthem, Lexicon and I am sure some others I am forgetting. They all seem to sound about the same to me... the speakers is where I noticed a real difference. This is not to say there is not a noticeable difference for some people... just that I have never experienced any.
 
#63 ·
Having used a variety of midrange receivers from H/K and NAD, I thought it was time for me to go separates so I can get my Dynaudios to "sing" properly. I did a lot of reading here and got a lot of positive reviews from Emotiva so I got their UMC-1 and XPA-5 last week.

I played a few hi-end CDs and initially really hated the sound (I was using a cheap Pioneer DVD player) and thought what's the fuss about them? I then used my NAD T532 player (and later a Pioneer Elite BDP-23FD with upgraded firmware) and boy I was amazed of how that opened up the soundstage. Way, way, better than what midrange (and maybe even higher end) receivers can give you. To get separates sound for the price of a hi-end receiver, I'm very happy with my purchase.

The UMC-1 though has some bugs that they need to sort out (I have the latest 7.2 firmware I believe). Nothing really serious but I hope gets fixed in the next release(s).
 
#67 ·
loupy31, there are a couple of FW issues left that Lonnie is working on. Off the top of my head I don't remember what they are, but they should be eliminated soon according to Lonnie.

If you haven't found the Emotiva forum yet, you should be able to get a better idea there.

http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/index.cgi?

I just took delivery of my UMC-1/XPA-5 yesterday and watched my first movie last night. I can't compare it with anything yet as I was upgrading from a 5.1 80wpc receiver and there is little to compare with something that old. The difference in my upgrade was significant.

The only issue I personally encountered is one where if I pause the movie, when I restart it, there is about a 3 or 4 second delay before it locks in on the sound. I'm hopeful this is one of the issues they are working on.

I'm impressed with the broad range of adjustments and features available on the UMC-1.

Bottom line is that there are still a couple of issues to be worked out according to Emotiva.

Deane
 
#68 ·
Well I was asked if I wanted to evaluate the umc from a co-worker/forum member and I will be throwing into my system now. I have previous experience with processors from lexicon, anthem, rotel, Crestron, parasound and marantz. I have previously just been using software on my htpc as the processor for my current setup with a 5x200 sunfire cinema grand as my amp. Will post some impressions later today. Build quality looks good so far and packaging is solid.
 
#70 ·
I absolutely agree and should quantify a few things, I work in the industry and most of my experience with the processors I listed was thru installing them for other people. I've had the Crestron dap8 and a lexicon dc1 in my system previously as well as multiple different denon and hk receivers.

I am actually very hopeful the umc will meet my needs as I would rather save the money by going with it versus the marantz av-7005 which is the nearest processor I have seen with features I want.


Lol edit for my iPhone autocorrecting denon to demon, fixed.
 
#71 ·
Ok so initial experiences are mostly positive with the exception of the EmoQ, I couldn't get it to provide anything close to correct settings on distance or phase. The ambient test would really have annoyed me if I hadn't already read about the finger trick.

Anyways, I simply bypassed the EmoQ setup and performed a basic setup of the unit, hooked up a denon BD-1800 blu-ray via HDMI and my htpc via analog 5.1 connections. Sound quality is excellent, sound stage was greatly improved and channel separation was more than adequate. Video quality seemed impressive though I haven't hooked up any test patterns to the unit to see how well it tracks. I did play a few scenes from iron man 2 and was pleased with the picture.

Build quality was excellent, layout is good and the on screen is nice and simple which is a concern if the unit is to be remotely located in a closet or cabinet. I will have to break out the crestron system as well as I would like to see how well the control works but all in all I am impressed with the initial run through with it.

Finally the remote is good for a weapon but I would get annoyed with it quickly if I had to use it every day, so I would definitely recommend a good universal remote to go with it. It does have a few nice features such as direct channel level and the discrete inputs and power commands, but the ergonomics would prevent me from using it regularly.

Hope to have more detailed information soon as I start to recover from the minor concussion I received yesterday.

Cheers!
 
#72 ·
I hope it wasn't one of Emotiva's power amps falling on your head that caused the concussion. I swear, they probably can only load one of those on a 747 to get it over here.

Your observations on the UMC-1 looks pretty objective to me, based on my experience.

I both like and dislike the remote. Nothing cheesy about it's construction, but there are a lot of buttons to find. I programmed the basics I need into my Pronto TSU-2000 and it works significantly better than the Emotiva remote. That is usually the case with the Pronto and any manufacturers remote.

Right now, my big issue is that I can't get the IR to work with my USB-UIRT and my PC controlled Elve software. The UMC-1 just doesn't know it exists. I haven't been able to isolate where the breakdown might be. I've used both the OEM and my Pronto to teach Elve the code, and I've cut and pasted the hex code from the Emotiva site and it's no go any way I do it.

I had fairly decent luck with Emo-Q being accurate on distance. Mic placement might have something to do with that. I also remember something about early microphones not being right and having to be replaced, but I don't know the exact status of that.

I, for one, will certainly be interested in hearing more on your experiences with the UMC-1. My initial feeling is that the price point is so favorable for a full featured and quality sounding unit, that I'm willing to work through the issues since Emotiva is working hard to resolve them.

Deane
 
#73 ·
Well my experience with emoq was definitely not the best but that's not entirely unexpected with a first gen product. When audessy was first released in denon avrs there were problems with regards to phase, crossovers and activation. However when it showed my fronts and center at 1.4ft and the surrounds at 30ft I kind of figured it wasn't going to work so well. That said I haven't updated the firmware which is supposed to improve the emoq. I also experienced and issue with a bluray being pauses for a while, upon restarting having a corrupted audio stream, switching inputs did resolve the issue which would point to a handshake loss.

Now even with these issues the value of the unit is hard to beat and I could see putting one in use in my system permanently, or the new pro version with built in control4. More details later.
 
#74 ·
Just an update, I did all the current firmware updates last night and will get a chance to test it tonight and tomorrow and will give more opinions then.
 
#75 ·
I am really curious as to your findings with the UMC-1. I had one for quite a while but ended up giving up on it. I would really like to see it succeed. Even though I really liked it, I had a hard time living with it's issues.

I am glad I had it to test it out, but it is really nice to know that now I have a unit that just works in my system. It's been nice to not have to worry about what problem is going to creep up when I watch a movie.

Jeff
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top