Thanks everyone for the feedback, sorry for the delinquency in my replies, serious time constraints nowadays, wish you all well.

Thanks for the observation, NeoE46 that helps, now I realize there is little point in testing the left speaker as on that particular passage I observed the same across approximately four listens, mostly left speaker with a moderate amount of center involvement.

Thanks Jason for the concept, when/if I get time to do formal testing I will plug my notebook in and “get real,” i.e., engage in formal observation. It’s nice to know how that would be accomplished.

Thanks Jay, I share the same conviction/plan re: the 663, steps would be: 1) obtain subwoofer, 2) hire electrician as/if necessary, 3) upgrade processor once I have some clue re: what features I desire beyond stability/HD audio.

I’m reluctant to admit, Jay given that I have such limited experience with HT and the ability to EQ systems by ear in general seems so deficient; however, the “wind/applause” issue I suspect is related to the lack of thunderousness in the LFs. To be more specific, the problem seemed to be that when the crossover was set to 80 HZ, the surrounds were way too shrill/prominent in the sense that they did not mesh with the M80s/VP150, which always merge together to an amazing degree regardless of crossover setting. At 40 hz crossover setting the qs8s seem to provide ambient sound without being obtrusive.

In the absence of a sub most of this seems silly conjecture, I’m trying to reproduce HT sound with just the M80s doing double duty, i.e., Mains/LFE, so I am waiting to “fix” my set up until the sub arrives; however, since this thread is still active, I submit the following observations for your review:

1) I noticed the bogus crackling sound again that I sincerely doubt is due to sloppy audio engineering in the last (?) episode of the Matrix, at the end before the swarm/baby face appears, the defect did not appear until then which made me suspect that newer videos (Iron Man, Hulk, Dark Knight) might emphasize heavy LFEs more (?) and make the problem more prominent.

2) My reference scene remains LOTR first episode where they are destroying the forest, that’s when I first became convinced there was just no way that the engineers were that lame, to use a distinctly electrical popping sound to represent trees falling.

3) On every occasion of hearing the sonic defect I have experimented briefly and was unable to clearly reproduce the crackling sound at low volumes, at least in any way that was obvious to me as the same sonic representation at a lower level of amplification (i.e., no distinct crackling sounds).

4) The 663 actually shut down during loud experimentation with one of the defective sounding passages (Iron Man?), yes my hand was on the middle of the remote but nowhere near the power off button (which is at the top of the Harmony One as well as the 663 remote).

5) Problem does not seem to exist when I do NOT send the LFEs to the M80s.

For the above reasons I:
1) Continue to suspect faulty LFE processing or reproduction, especially given that cheesy HF crackling sounds should not emerge when LFEs are engaged unless there is a processing/reproduction defect.

2) Find it difficult to plausibly attribute the crackling sounds to faulty recording or intrinsically faulty speaker design.

3) Am waiting for sub before any attempt to correct since if I do not send LFEs to M80s I most likely will no longer have a problem.

Well perhaps this has been less than a waste of time since others have experienced transient issues with same and perhaps we might learn something, on the other hand it remains a ghost in the machine until someone can explain at least the Dark Knight passage, is it a defect in the recording, processing, or reproduction?

Best all,
SK



"If you try to turn toward it, you go against it."