Latest news on Lexicon MP-20 Processor

Rich, I completely understand. Your (beautiful) speakers take up a lot of real estate. My room is not much larger than yours. Remember, though, that in going from 7.x to 12.x you are picking up 5 height channels.

BTW, OT, but what do you think of the new Yes album?

Steve, it is not necessarily that you don't *need* video processing so much as it is that video processing updates seem to come at a fairly fast clip and given that fact it is best to leave it to companies such as Lumagen to do the video processing.

Now me, personally, I love the fact the MP20 has 8 HDMI 1.4a inputs and 2 HDMI outputs. This is an exact fit for my needs. If the video processing falls short in some respect such that going with an outboard video processor is preferred, one simply can switch the MP20 to straight video pass through.

Ron Party said:

Rich, I completely understand. Your (beautiful) speakers take up a lot of real estate. My room is not much larger than yours. Remember, though, that in going from 7.x to 12.x you are picking up 5 height channels.

BTW, OT, but what do you think of the new Yes album?

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Hi Ron,

Thanks. I understand about the speakers. But another amp for the additional speakers (would probably be Nola to go with the Lion's share) and what is it $12,000 to $15,000 or so for the Lexicon. The latest upgraded equipment with the reconfiguring of the system and the upgraded Onkyo 5508 is I think that I may be hearing a 15 to 20% improvement from what I had.

As to the new Yes album, I will have to listen a few more times. But as many have indicated, it is almost like the third Buggles album. Some songs pick up from the sound of Drama and I hear sounds that do go somewhat back to some older albums. But, the classic Yes sound of The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Going for the One, or Relayer it is not.

Rich

I hear you WRT cost. If I do go with all of the extra channels, I will go active and, mostly likely, go with Mark Seaton's Sparks at $1,400 per.

naturephoto1 said:

Hi Ron,

Thanks. I understand about the speakers. But another amp for the additional speakers (would probably be Nola to go with the Lion's share) and what is it $12,000 to $15,000 or so for the Lexicon. The latest upgraded equipment with the reconfiguring of the system and the upgraded Onkyo 5508 is I think that I may be hearing a 15 to 20% improvement from what I had.

As to the new Yes album, I will have to listen a few more times. But as many have indicated, it is almost like the third Buggles album. Some songs pick up from the sound of Drama and I hear sounds that do go somewhat back to some older albums. But, the classic Yes sound of The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Going for the One, or Relayer it is not.

Rich

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Hey Rich

I seem to remember you saying the same thing about R2R

Steve Williams said:

Hey Rich

I seem to remember you saying the same thing about R2R

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Hi Steve,

I know, but I only have so much space and like most of us only so much that I can and am willing to afford ($15,000 for the Lexicon plus additional speakers and possibly amps is getting a bit steep). By, the way, I can't wait for the R2R to arrive hopefully around September 29 or 30 after I return from our trip to Florida.

By the way, I still remember what happened with Proceed and my AVP which was supposed to be upgradable indefinitely, the loss of the Madrigal name, picking up of Madrigal/Levinson by Harman and the retirement of the Proceed name. This still doesn't sit that well with me.


Rich

Ron Party said:

If the video processing falls short in some respect such that going with an outboard video processor is preferred, one simply can switch the MP20 to straight video pass through.

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An OPPO Blueray player does a great job at up-converting DVD's and the JVC PJ's (my PJ of choice) do an amazing job on their own. I have never used any of the video processing offered by SSP manufacturers.

Ron Party said:

I hear you WRT cost. If I do go with all of the extra channels, I will go active and, mostly likely, go with Mark Seaton's Sparks at $1,400 per.

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I have looked at other possibilities for surrounds/heights/wides but by the time you find a reasonable speaker and add in the amp cost, the Spark is a good choice. My only concern is how to hide/conceal the power cord !!

Gotta make this quick, but what Quantum Logic laid bare for me was the limitations of 2 channel. I've included the block chart provided by Harman at the demo. In my understanding, their are two basic advancements:

1) The ability to ID and extract all the 'streams' in space. This was demoed by taking Sinatra's voice out of a recording, playing just his voice, and then playing just the reverb from his voice. Presumably this can be done w/individual instruments too. A recording is analyzed in 'slices' from left to right, IDing all the components of the whole. Note that extractions are constantly being compared to the original signal.

2) The analysis and reconstruction of the signal into a '3D' entity that incorporates and distributes to the 12 channels ( 5 at roughly ear level as we're used to, then center height, 2x side height, 2x rear height) and the subs.

With that array of speakers (they called it 7.5.2), and the ability to, say, ID, a back wall reflection, ceiling reflection etc., and then route that through the proper speakers, you can recreate the event in a much more convincing way. This figures in RC to take your room out of the picture somewhat, and the venue reverb is now being directly radiated at you from the right locations. The reverb/ambience of the venue is arriving before the reverb/ambience of your room. The height and locations of all these recreates a 3D space in a way stereo can't.

The Shawn Colvin 2 channel track (recorded in a live venue) that was expanded into QL3D sounded tonally just like the stereo playback, only it put you into the venue so much more. The sound wasn't radiating just left/right of her sitting on stage, but in all directions like she's an omnidirectional point source. It was uncanny and disarming in how organic it sounded.

I owned a Lex MC12B which I didn't like much for music, but more to the point, found Logic 7 expansion just kinda fun for trippy stuff like Pink Floyd. It was clearly an 'inorganic' presentation. QL3D is an entirely different thing. Different too from any existing surround format. If I was dubious about the worth of height channels before, not now.

They showed a clip from The Matrix for a soundtrack demo -- interesting, but not nearly the mind-blower music was. Obviously there are all kinds of questions, but if it can work well for a variety of two channel music, it's the only truly new thing I've seen in awhile.

Aren't many recordings made "dry" and reverb added? Wonder how well it handles that situation? Of course, if the audio effect desired is the same, as one would expect, then the end result of QuantumLogic should also be the same so it should work. Nevermind, answered my own question, I think...

Very tricky to add additional Reverbs (with DSP) on top of Music already recorded spaciousness.

Lexicon fans are a unique breed, and they are certainly not the last bastion in natural Surround Sound envelopment.

We'll see (hear), all of us, in a not so distant future, perhaps.

* Thanks Bob for the feedback (post #69)!

rblnr said:

The Shawn Colvin 2 channel track (recorded in a live venue) that was expanded into QL3D sounded tonally just like the stereo playback, only it put you into the venue so much more. The sound wasn't radiating just left/right of her sitting on stage, but in all directions like she's an omnidirectional point source. It was uncanny and disarming in how organic it sounded.

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I do agree with you about the vast improvement that QL wrought on this track but the tonal shift was disturbing. When I asked about this, the team admitted that the main JBL system was supplemented by tonally unmatched additional speakers for this almost ad hoc demonstration. For me, this greatly confused all of the A/B comparisons.

rblnr said:

Gotta make this quick, but what Quantum Logic laid bare for me was the limitations of 2 channel. I've included the block chart provided by Harman at the demo. In my understanding, their are two basic advancements:

1) The ability to ID and extract all the 'streams' in space. This was demoed by taking Sinatra's voice out of a recording, playing just his voice, and then playing just the reverb from his voice. Presumably this can be done w/individual instruments too. A recording is analyzed in 'slices' from left to right, IDing all the components of the whole. Note that extractions are constantly being compared to the original signal.

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So, as I mentioned earlier, it does do 2 track into 24 track. Of course, the next step is to do this offline to a higher level of quality, and make the multiple tracks available as a product. Forget hi-res downloads, go for full recording studio multi-track information and allow the user to play with the mixing to their heart's content, without bearing the cost of breaking it apart in the first place.

The fact that the recording can be pulled apart this way demonstrates yet again that all the information is there for a highly convincing audio illusion to be thrown. So now there are two ways of doing it: use something like this box of tricks and highlight the "streams" of detail with different speakers, or playback to a very high level of fidelity and let your ear/brain do a nice job of emulating the MP-20. Gosh, imagine your brain being as clever as a box of electronics, amazing stuff!

Frank

Amir, if Lexicon (Harman International Inc.) is not more vigilant, they will end up under their last Universal Blu-ray player.

Just sayin'.

Lol Luck is not what they need, but real world performance from their own intelligent design.

...Or a good bottle of wine.

Amir,

A while ago you explained me that the "perfect audiphile" DAC is not supposed to have HDMI inputs because of some disturbances that the video signal (even if zero, in the case of an audio-only digital stream) would have introduced.
What is your prediction with regards to this issue in the case of the MC20? Do you think the MC20 could be a control center for a music lover system?

Another question: is the volume control in the digital or analog domain? An analog signal is always converted to digital before going through the MC20?
Thanks a lot for your info