Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Speaker Volume

As others said, if you hit simu, you'll be entering simulation modes and 5ch stereo is as the others mentioned. If you want to listen to 2ch music in surround, you should hit the music button. By keeping on pressing, you'll be alternating between PLIIx and NEO6, pick whichever sounds more natural to you (I usually prefer PLIIx)

Hi Ortho

Just to chime in as a fellow 3311 owner, I had an identical problem after running Audyssey. As others mention, the issue was specific to music played in multi channel stereo. I don't think I ever fixed the problem in that mode. Instead, I just started using PLIIx music. After that, I slightly adjusted the Audyssey volume assignments, but not very much. For the PLIIx music setting, I set center width to 7, in order to avoid using the center channel for music. I set dimension to 4 and panorama off. Not sure how this will work in your room, but now I really, really like how the 3311 integrates. These settings seem to provide an enveloping sound that I like, while primarily placing the M80s on center stage. I'm using M80s for my mains, QS4s for surrounds, and M3s for rears. I also found that dynamic EQ added a great deal of warmth to my music.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Brian

Brian, welcome. We've all been wondering when we'd get your first post! Seriously though, your thoughts certainly should be helpful. All channel(5/7)stereo isn't intended for general use with 2-channel music sources. As was pointed out, it simply duplicates the mains at equal loudness in the surrounds and is sometimes suggested for a "party" situation to give a more nearly equal listening experience to listeners scattered about the room. A more "natural" surround experience is provided by a mode such as DPLII, which doesn't duplicate the fronts in the surrounds, but instead extracts surround ambience from the fronts which is slightly lower in level, delayed in time and lower in treble, and directs it to the surrounds where it belongs, providing a bit more realistic listening experience. I use essentially the same settings that you do, except that on most material I set Dimension on 3.

Ortho, the calibration appears to be correct, and the problem may well be the mode(which you don't specify)which you're using for music. As indicated above, 5-channel stereo(or any simulated modes such as Jazz Club, Beer Garden, Sportin' House, etc.)shouldn't be used for general music listening. Instead use DPLII to send surround ambience to your side surrounds(not "rears").

Thanks for the warm greetings, John. Yeah, 5 years to get started is about consistent with other elements of my life. As always, looking forward to the unbelievable volume of useful advice on this forum.

B

Experiment with your receiver and see what you like the best. Don’t assume any one setting is “best” for everything. Try out all the different simulated modes available and you might be surprised at how much better some things sound. Likewise don’t assume because you have 5 speakers and a subwoofer that plain old 2ch stereo won’t sound best for some things. I’ve found what sounds best to me is very source specific. I’ll mention some things I’ve found as a reference, however they are not absolutes.

For well mastered music, 2 or multi-channel especially studio recordings I usually find that “direct” mode sounds the best. For poorly mastered music, usually 2ch, or “live,” well mic‘d recordings I find something like PLIIx or z can sound the best.

For certain TV shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best example I find that multi-channel stereo sounds great. Although, each speaker is playing the same information as their counterparts the facing of the drivers on the QS8s seem to prioritize ambient sound, like the drone of the ships engines coming from all around while the front speaker’s drivers facing directly at me seem to prioritize dialogue.

My point is that if you want to get the most out of your system experiment. You’ll never know what you might be missing if you don’t try things out. After all you paid for all those features might as well give them a shot if you have the time. If your Denon is anything like my Onkyo you should have a huge number of presets to use with various sources so that if you find something you really like you can set it up to automatically default to that setting for a particular source.