Hyperion v1.2.0 Pre-Release Notes

Hyperion v1.2.0 releases on September 1, 2026. These notes describe what the release contains and what changes in the field, so installers, support, and partners know what to expect before it reaches a unit. The full release notes replace this page at launch.

At a Glance

v1.2.0 is built around one promise: whatever happens during an update, the unit comes back healthy. That protection arrives alongside improved speaker time alignment, a 20-channel output expansion on APR-16, speaker profiles and layouts, a test signal router built for commissioning, and a deep pass of reliability fixes.

The release applies to APR-16 and DPR-16 and ships as one bundle:

Component	Version
Atlas system software	1.2.0
MCU	1.0.3.0
FPGA	1.0.9.0 (APR-16) / 1.0.9.1 (DPR-16)
DSP1	1.0.3.0
DSP2	1.0.4.5
Front-panel display	1.0.5.0

The unit selects the correct firmware for its model automatically. The last digit of a component version may still advance between now and release; DSP2 1.0.4.5, for example, could ship as 1.0.4.7. The release notes published at launch carry the final numbers.

What's New in v1.2.0

Safer System Software Updates

v1.2.0 rebuilds how a unit updates its own system software. What that means in practice:

• A failed update can no longer strand a unit. If the new version cannot start, the unit returns itself to the previous version. No site visit is needed.
• A unit that cannot start its software at all now serves a recovery page at its normal web address, showing its state and the available actions, instead of appearing dead on the network.
• Losing power partway through an update is safe. The unit comes back on a complete, working copy.
• Update results reach the cloud service even when a unit was offline at the time, so support can see what happened.
• The normal update path only moves forward. A downgrade is a deliberate support operation, never something a customer triggers by accident.

Updates Never Interrupt a System in Use

Hyperion has always avoided disruptive work while a system is playing; v1.2.0 turns that habit into a guarantee. An automatic or pushed update never reboots or reflashes a unit while it is powered on. The unit treats standby as the only safe window, waits for it, and no priority flag from the cloud service can override that. An update started in person from the web interface can still proceed while the unit is on, after a warning and a confirmation, because that decision belongs to the person at the unit.

Firmware Delivered and Verified Per Model

Firmware delivery is now tailored to the exact hardware model. Each unit receives images published for its own model, every image is identified by its contents rather than its file name, and the unit verifies each one before it flashes. Firmware built for a different product can no longer reach a unit, even with a renamed file.

Partial failures recover better, too. When a multi-component update fails partway, the components that succeeded stay on their new versions, and a retry covers only the one that failed instead of the whole set.

Improved Speaker Time Alignment

v1.2.0 improves the time alignment that entered speaker distances produce. Channels arrive together at the listening position with greater accuracy, and overall processing latency drops, because the system now applies only the delay each layout needs. Distances are entered, stored, and displayed exactly as before.

Systems calibrated with Dirac Live are unaffected: Dirac applies its own measured alignment, and the unit leaves it in place. The improvement is audible on systems with measured distances; see the field notes below.

APR-16 Expands to 20 Processed Output Channels

The APR-16 grows from 16 to 20 processed channels on its RCA outputs. The four additional channels carry the same crossover, parametric EQ, delay, and level control as the original sixteen, and each is individually assignable in Output Assignment.

The added channels are headroom for the systems integrators actually build: additional subwoofers, added height pairs, or a wider speaker bed without giving up processed channels elsewhere in the layout. Existing 16-channel configurations carry over unchanged.

Speaker Profiles and Layouts

Speaker setup becomes faster and more repeatable:

• Speaker profiles. A profile is a tuned parametric EQ set for a specific speaker brand and model. Select the speaker on an output and the channel is voiced for it, a proper starting point before any room correction.
• Pre-configured layouts and zones. Common room configurations are available as ready-made layouts and zones, applied in one step instead of channel by channel.
• User layouts. Installers can save their own layouts and reuse them across the systems they build repeatedly.

Clip Warnings Now Match What You Hear

Installers and sales reported clip warnings on systems that were not audibly clipping. v1.2.0 puts that confusion to rest. On APR-16 the detection threshold sat exactly at the analog clip point, so brief program transients touching it raised warnings on material that was not clipping. The threshold now sits 4 dB above the clip point; a warning means the signal genuinely drove the output into clipping. The DPR-16 threshold was already correct and is unchanged.

The warning is also now off by default and is enabled from settings where it is wanted. Clip detection remains informational and never mutes or alters audio.

Test Signal Routing

Commissioning gets a dedicated test signal router. Choose an analog input as the test source and fan its left and right channels out to every speaker output, or to any subset:

• A routing matrix in the web interface lays outputs against inputs, so selecting a fan-out is a click per output.
• Each routed output can be muted individually.
• The API exposes the same mapping and mute controls for control-system drivers.
• The routed signal travels the full DSP2 processing chain, including each output's crossover, EQ, and delay, so every speaker plays exactly what it would play with program material.

HDMI Standby, TV Audio, and Standby Video

Two plainly named switches now sit at the top of the HDMI output settings, both off from the factory:

• TV Audio controls whether the HDMI output carries audio to the connected television.
• Standby Video controls whether the unit keeps passing video while it is in standby.

Beneath them, new engineering-level controls select exactly what the HDMI subsystem does in standby. The output can stay fully active, blank the picture while keeping the link up so CEC and eARC keep working, or drop the link entirely. Inputs can keep hot-plug and EDID presented to sources, drop termination so a source wakes without rescanning EDID, or disconnect fully. The unit stores these settings and reapplies them after every MCU restart.

Output Configuration Improvements

• Separate XLR and RCA trims (APR-16). A channel's RCA line-out level can be set independently of its XLR level through a Both / XLR / RCA selector. Previously one trim drove both.
• Per-output mute. Every output channel gets a mute control beside the test tone control.
• "Limited" is now "Crossover Enabled". The per-output toggle formerly labeled Limited is renamed to say what it does. Behavior is unchanged.
• Milliseconds as a distance unit. Speaker distance can be entered and displayed in milliseconds alongside feet and meters.
• Chassis jack labels in Grid View. The Output Assignment grid shows the physical jack label beside the output number, and outputs that do not reach a connector on the model are no longer listed.

Reliability Improvements

Reliability work continues in every release; v1.2.0's sweep reaches across the whole platform. The short version, area by area:

Video and HDMI

• Surround audio formats hold; a source no longer silently falls back to 2-channel stereo after a missed handshake.
• A bad read of a display's EDID can no longer overwrite a known-good one.
• EDID state recovers after a software restart.

Network

• Static network addresses survive restarts, however they were configured.
• Network changes made over RS-232 or telnet are saved and survive a restart.
• Applying a network change no longer cancels itself partway through.

Audio and DSP

• Filter loads and follow-up settings apply in order, so a setting always lands on the filter it was meant for.
• Replies from the DSP are matched to the right command, an interrupted sync clears itself, and an interrupted measurement sweep no longer blocks the next one.
• The displayed master volume stays in step with the hardware.

Stability

• The unit protects its own processor speed. A stock power-saving service could hold the processor at its lowest speed from boot, leaving the unit far below capacity; that service is now disabled and the unit keeps its speed policy correct on its own.
• Boot is tougher: one failing subsystem no longer stalls or blocks startup.
• Control-system connections over telnet and RS-232 are sturdier. A slow controller is no longer dropped, closed sessions release their resources, and state updates keep flowing to every connected controller.
• A configuration backup is never left half-written.

Web interface

• Display brightness holds its saved value instead of jumping when a hardware read fails.
• Update status shown in the browser reflects the unit's real state, including the count of available updates.
• Output tiles, keyboard focus, and loading states render as they should, with smaller corrections across the interface, from support-code copying to honest feedback on failed requests.

Front panel

• Smoother screensaver and slideshow rendering, with steadier frame pacing and lower memory use.
• Idle display blanking no longer saves itself as a stored preference.

The full list ships with the release notes at launch.

What Support and Installers Need to Know

Further field notes:

• Clip warning defaults changed. The warning is off by default after the update. Customers who relied on it need it re-enabled in settings.
• New factory defaults for HDMI. New units leave the factory with TV Audio and Standby Video switched off. If an installation expects the television to play audio from the unit's HDMI output, switch TV Audio on during setup.
• Force reinstall is the recovery tool for a bad flash. The firmware installer adds a "Force reinstall (same version)" option that rewrites an image the unit already reports as installed, for the case where a previous flash left a component in a bad state.
• Wrong-model firmware refusals are final. A refusal naming a model mismatch means the image was published for a different product. There is no override; recovery uses the correct image for the model.

Questions

The full v1.2.0 release notes publish alongside the release and replace this page. Questions go to AVPro Global support.