Wow, what a day. Long, exciting, informative but wholeheartedly great fun.
Where to start.....
Well I must give a massive thanks to Neil and Andy Bone for arranging the event / day. Also thanks to Neil for showing us his experience centre.
But massive thanks go out to Phil, Stephen, Dan and Ben of Datasat for their amazing hospitality. All so friendly and approachable.
I will not go over company history etc as this has already been covered by a few here now. But the day started with Phil giving us his story, ie, the story of Datasat and how it got to where it is today. One thing that comes over pretty quickly is the enthusiasm that ALL the staff of Datasat posses. Not just for that of their products but for the industry as a whole. Increadibly knowledgable.
Which leads me on to Stephen Field. He gave us the more technical info around the RS20i and its commercial counterpart the AP20. What this chap does not know simply is not worth knowing. We probably spent a good hour going thru the RS20i menus etc. it's actually a very simple device but multi talented. Again, what this processor doesn't do, well, is not worth doing. And what the RS20i does do is so much more than ANY of their competitors. The whole automation of the product is immense. It will litterally run your home theatre. Lights, screens, masking etc, all can be triggered with various macros and events.
From here Daniel showed us around their facility. Which was fascinating. First we met Ben in his QC room. This is the chap who mixes down all incoming films onto the 5.1 cd standard for 35mm films. Again, another lovely chap who seriously knows his stuff. From here we went on to see the 35mm projection room and test screen. This is just a small room with screen to ensure all the work Ben has done is all correctly aligned to the dts time code on the reel.
From here we went to the main cinema. Powered by the amazing ap20. This was pretty impressive. No, very impressive. The Datasat trailer so deep in bass but delivered with perfect balancing. It all sounded just right.
After this is was a quick swizz around the rest of the facility to see the cd burning room which, if I remember correctly, can burn 1800 discs a day! Then on to the archive. Just about every film soundtrack under the sun was contained in here and was a little humbling to be around so many works of fine art.
A stop for what was now a late lunch and a breather and then it was on to Genesis.
Neil is an increadibly helpful fellow, again, what he doesnt know is just not worth knowing.
We managed to get a breif course in home theatre design, baffle walls, subwoofer placements and arrangements. Unfortunatly the big screen was missing as was being upgraded but this did not stop us from getting treated to an hours worth of RS20i demos and indeed didn't even stop their projector from displaying a viewable image. Dispite being projected onto a thick black foam. The blacks certainly looked black. Lol.
But what we heard was impressive, emmersive and bloody loud! All perfectly delivered with no distortion easily upto 120-140db! Yikes!
The RS20i delivered each demo clip to the best that I believe that clip could ever be processed and performed in the home. From Adele in concert with great vocal subtleties to the rapturous cheering and clapping onto the full assault that is The Book of Eli. I have never experienced such volumes with no distortion. Gun shots perfectly reproduced not only by the rs20i but also Genesis's pro audio horn loaded speakers.
Watch a clip of Driver and wow, I thought the bass was going to lift me out of my very comfortable cinema chair. I must get me some of them.
Then onto The Art of Flight blu ray. I know this disc well and have never heard it sound so impressive. The steering and dynamics were out of this world.
So do I like the RS20i. I certainly do. And it's future is looking pretty amazing. The upgrade paths are very real and pretty mind blowing.
I will let some others tell their views of the day / processor.
I will do my indepth report on the rs20i in a few weeks when I get some time.
Any questions please feel free to ask. It's the end of a long day and I am sure that I have forgotten a load of pertinent info.
Again, huge thanks to our hosts at Datasat and to Neil and Andy for making today possible. And it was great to finally get to meet Adam and some other like minded folk.