Smyth Realiser A8?

[Cheesehead]

Hi All,

Does anyone have any hands/ears on experience of this unit?

I've been doing some research into this box recently as it seems like it might have potential use in film mixing, particularly on lower budgets where access to a large stage is not available, or time in it limited.

I could also see it being used to send/ surround temp mixes to a Director, who can't get to the studio. You would have to make a PRIR for each Director, but that could be doable.

With a library of different Theatres you could check how your mix played in different venues.

Also, you could temp mix away from your mix room, but still in your mix room, although with hot ears.

I still haven't been able to get a demo though and the proof is in the pudding as they say. It seems to be aimed more at the Audiophile at the moment.

Anyone?

[evs]

i use it.
its really awesome, and very complex, but i have to say, i don´t think its really doable to do prirs for directors. the whole measurement is a time consuming thing.

and you should really get real good headphones.
i started with a akg701. nice headphone.
but the system really made sense when i got the sennheiser hd800.
so if you plan to buy it, also plan to spend at least 1000€ on a headphone..

at the moment i edit on it. i also have a editing room, where i can hear without headphones. so i can compare between those two, and i have to say it works pretty good.
also very interesting is, that you can work a whole day with the headphones without getting tired of wearing them..

my plan is to record some cinemas. should be awesome to switch to a cinema from time to time while editing ambiences for example.
although the whole recording process is something you need enough time for

[Cheesehead]

Hi There,

Thanks for the reply. I have bought it now, just waiting for delivery.

Its a tough piece of kit to make a decision on as its very hard to get a demo for your own ears.

As for directors: I thought you could do a fairly simple measurement, doesn't it only take 15 mins or so?

Anyway, I'm very excited to get it and try it out. I have several preview theatres and cinemas I want to sample.

Hey, maybe we have the same shape of ears.

Best

Martin

[Ale]

Hi
The realizer was one of the things that made me smiling when I listened it on my own. By the way, everyone did so.

If you work with it, you could forget that you work with a headphone.
Sometimes you want to turn your monitors off until you realise that you listen already to the headphones.

You have to be carefull when doing measurements.
You need time to do 2 or more measurements. Listen back some stuff you know and take time to do the measurements again.
There is some coloration going on that will require you to do so.

There are so many factors that could ruin your measurements.
Positioning the mic is most important. Has your director enough patience and does he hear then that the measurement went wrong? Has he a good headphone?


Ale

[Cheesehead]

I work mainly with a Director who loves sound and also crazy voodoo tech like this, so I think he will spend the time and we can get him some good headphones.
As for if he can tell the measurement went wrong, I suppose if it sounds good to him, then the measurement is OK.
It must be a very subjective thing?

At the moment I have Sennheiser HD650's that I love.
Will they be good enough for the Realiser, or is it a big improvement to use the 800's.

Also how are you guys getting the output of Pro Tools into the Realiser,
that's my next problem?

Thanks for the replies, I was starting to think no-one out there had come across this weird and wonderful piece of kit.

[paulo m]

Hi Cheesehead,

thanks for bringing this to discussion. A really interesting unit indeed, I was not aware of it´s existence.

Regarding your interface between PT and the unit unbalanced inputs, I can recommend a Sonifex unit:

http://www.sonifex.co.uk/redbox/rblu4_ld.shtml

It allows for 4 pairs of balanced to unbalanced (phono rca´s) channel matching in a 1U active unit. Is a set and forget box.. You connect the balanced outs of your AVID interface or whatever you are using and connect the phono outs to the Realiser.

I´ve been using another version that allows unbalanced to balanced in various studios, to connect unbalanced gear like multichannel players outputs such as OPPO etc. to multichannel console monitoring systems or hardware monitoring systems. Works great.

[Cheesehead]

Thanks Paulo,

It looks like that Sonifex will do the trick.

It'd probably be useful to have the unbalanced to balanced too, to make measurements. I can't imagine too many Studios or Theatres have Phono inputs.

It does look interesting. Apparently its been around since 2008, but I only discovered it recently.

[evs]

i just go from my audio interface into the smyth. with adaptor cables. the smyth is right aside the audio interface. no need to have ballanced connection.. but in this room i don´t have a normal monitoring solution, so i don´t need to let audio run through the smyth into monitors.. if i had, this would be a problem.

the hd650 is fine for the beginning i think. i never tried it, but the akg701 is handled as the competitor to the hd650.. and i had the akg701.
thus said, the hd800 was a very very big improvement. so i guess the hd800 will be a good improvement for you, too.
(when i say a big improvement, i mean really big improvement. such an improvement someone who is not interested in audio would hear it right away..)
maybe take the hd650 for the director and the hd800 for you..?
or best, try to borrow a hd800 first and listen to it..

[evs]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead

It'd probably be useful to have the unbalanced to balanced too, to make measurements. I can't imagine too many Studios or Theatres have Phono inputs.

but the sonifex will convert from ballanced to unballanced?

i use a simple DI box with 8 channels to convert the unballanced output to ballanced xlrs to lay long way with the cables..

[Cheesehead]

Thanks EVS.

Maybe I will treat myself to the HD800's

What 8 way Di box do you use?
It looks like that would be essential for making PRir's.

I'm now looking at outputting 5.1 or 7.1 straight from Pro Tools via a mini display port to HDMI adapter and into the Realiser.

Editors seem to have this working from post 2010 macs in Media Composer.
So I can't see why it won't work from Pro Tools.