Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners QS8 Surround setup for Movies & DVD-A

As a new member to the board, I thought I’d contribute my experiences in partial repayment for all the great information I’ve received while anonymously prowling the board. The quality of the Axiom speaker sound inspires me to spread it around some more.

Ok, so, I’m feeling pleased with myself even if this is probably a well known tip. I just haven’t seen it clearly mentioned anywhere. Last night I optimized my movie 7.1 surround system for DVD-Audio by using the surround BACK speakers as my left and right surrounds when playing in DVD-Audio mode instead of the side mounted surround speakers. This now happens automatically when I switch modes and made a big sonic improvement. It should be possible for anyone who uses a digital cable connection for their movie signals and the analog connection to their 7.1 amp for multi channel audio. Read on for the details in my case.


7.1 MOVIE SETUP:
Typically my Denon 2910 DVD player is connected to my Denon 3805 receiver with the digital optical link. I optimized my 7.1 speaker placement for movie playback using this connection setup. Two of my QS8 surrounds are located to the sides of the listening area and the other two surround BACK channel speakers are mounted to the back wall with the same spacing as the left and right main speakers.

OPTIMIZED DVD-AUDIO SETUP:
For DVD-Audio, the 2910 only sends the signals out through the 5.1 channel analog connection. I used this fact and the separate speaker settings and bass management on the 2910 to make the 3805 surround BACK channels function as the left and right surrounds when playing DVD-Audio. All I did was plug the surround channel cables from the 2910 into the surround BACK channel inputs on the 3805. This gave me the “box” layout that is preferred for DVD-Audio. The speaker change between movie mode (digital connection) and DVD-Audio mode (5.1 analog connection) happens automatically now when I select the 3805 “external in” for the analog multi-channel input. This change made a big difference in sound quality over using the movie surround speakers located to the side of my listening area. Using the surround BACK speakers, the sound merged into a single sound field and the noticeable presence of the surround speakers mostly disappeared. Now I know why people like multi-channel audio. Wow! Maybe I’ll purchase more then the single “Seal” disk I now own.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I’m forced to sit near the back wall of my room so that may be part of why this works so well for me, but I realized there are quite a few options using this method if you had more room in the back for full range direct speakers and could optimize the bass management on the DVD player, you might be able to have virtually the best of both worlds with only a 7.1 speaker setup.

A final word to those new to the 2910 and using the HDMI connection to the TV like I do, you’re going to be pushing a lot of buttons to get the system set for DVD-Audio. A programmable remote macro really helps to both enter and exit this mode. The DVD-Audio video signals don’t go out the HDMI cable so you have to change your video selection (and add cables) as well as turn off the HDMI output (4 pushes of the same button), and then of course select the 7.1 external analog input on the 3805.