Emotiva - UMC-1 processor

[AlienTech]

I've never been afraid to take risks on some equipment and purchased this unit sight unseen and most importantly unheard. It's currently on sale for $499 us plus shipping and brokerage, etc I paid $616 US

I ordered it Friday Nov 25 and received it Friday Dec 2. No problem there.

I set it up Friday evening and it went into an endless loop loading it's firmware. I decided to re-flash the eprom, following the Emotiva instructions and their latest firmware and it took me 5 hours of farting around (including an overnight rest) before I got it to work. One of the steps in the flashing process is to turn the mains switch off and on.

While doing that I noticed the switch was making an arcing sound and the "on" was not that positive. I figure the switch is defective and not providing a clean path for all the little electrons

I got it running Saturday morning and had it all set up with cable and my HTPC. The sound was excellent and it up-converted the s-video out of the cable box perfectly. Cable never looked so good on my LG 50" plasma

I was a happy camper and enjoyed some of my fav surround sound clips, the explosion scene in Swordfish with the ball bearings flying around your head, the launch scene in Space Family Robinson and a few more.

There are some HDMI hand shake issues with my HTPC and I'm having a hard time with getting the HDMI to work with Winamp for listening to music.

Soooooo........ today the wife calls me at work and says the TV only has colour in a stripe down one side and the rest is black and white!! She turns everything off and the UMC-1 goes back into it's endless reboot loop.

I'm not very happy but keep my cool and don't smash it with a hammer when I get home.

I call tech support, tell them what I think is wrong and as a old time solder monkey would do, I ask them to send me a new power switch and I'll replace it myself. They are shipping it tomorrow.

So my review/test is on hold until I do the "warranty" work on it.

[pharsyde]

It will work out in the end. I understand that Emotiva support their products well. Sounds like you have matters well in-hand. Another positive is that .. well, it sounds pretty sweet and process video well (ie: your cable) ..

as I say .. so much we enjoy about this hobby sometimes does come with a side of BS.

[AlienTech]

I'm sure it will work out, I was going to wait for Outlaw Audio to finish their new processor but for the money I thought I'd give Emotive a chance. My biggest beef is that they have been shipping prototype software. I can understand an upgrade maybe once every year or couple years but they have been cranking out updates quite regularly. Frankly I'm surprised the litigious American customers haven't gotten a class action going on this LOL!

Good thing I'm a highly skilled solder monkey

[Suave]

Sorry to hear about your trouble with the Emotiva UMC-1 processor AlienTech.

This is very similar to what my buddy told me when researching Emotiva products, which prevented him from pulling the trigger on these. I wouldn't be very happy to have to go through all this trouble when purchasing a new component.

Hopefully it all works out for you in the end AlienTech Please keep us posted.

[rleeh11]

I just recieved one for Christmas, I installed the latest firmware (No problem after doing it in windows safe mode) and I must say I am very very happy with it. I hope they took care of it for you. I myself was waiting for the outlaw due to the balanced outputs but decided I would give this a shot. Besides, one night I was listening to my ERC 1 and decided to look inside, made quite well. Sorry to hear about the defective switch..

Cheers, Rick

[AlienTech]

I swapped out the switch and found a loose wire in the process. That did not fix the problem so I talked to Joe (tech support at emotiva) and he is sending me a new HDMI board. Hopefully I get it this week. I'm not too bent out of shape because I really liked it when it worked and the good folks at emotiva are being very helpful.

I too was trying to wait for the Outlaw as I purchased an Outlaw receiver for my son 10 years ago and it's been bullet proof, he even used in his restaurant (more like abused but still...) and it took the abuse like a champ and is still working fine today,

[Suave]

Welcome to the forum Rick and congrats on the new toy

Would you be kind enough to introduce yourself and your gear in this thread?
http://canadahifi.com/forum/forumdis...ideo-interests

[AlienTech]

Received the new HDMI board yesterday and swapped it out in about 15 minutes. Hooked it back up in my system and all is well in HT land here at the AT household

Excellent service considering the problem. Only thing is, if you're not handy or don't know someone who is, you would have to ship the unit back to Tenn for service. Other than that I have no complaints. It's nice to work with a company that will allow user repairs and still provide a warranty after that

If anyone in Canada has a problem and need some tech help, drop me a line and I'll do what I can.

For about $ 625 all in ($499 US plus shipping, brokerage and duty) , it's a pretty amazing piece of gear

[pharsyde]

Excellant AlienTech

What is it replacing ?

[AlienTech]

it replaced my Anthem AVM2 which I've had for close to 12 years. I'm using my Anthem MC5 amp with the Emo now. I paid $4,100 for it back then and I'm more happy with the Emo that I ever was with the Anthem. The Anthem replaced a Kenwood THX certified pre/pro and 5 channel amp which I really liked and just last year gave to a friend, along with a pair of Klipsches.