Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions M22S + Emotiva LMC1/LPA-1: something isn't right.

Hi, folks,

My ht room is not finished yet, but I couldn't wait. The only things connected are my brand new M22s, and something is not right. My favorite Jewel or Chris Isaak CDs sound terrible. Voices are muffled, the sound overall fades in and out...

I set the Toshiba HD-A1's digital-out to PCM, connected the digital coaxial out to the digital coaxial "CD in" of the Emotiva LMC-1. Connected the analog RCA outs from the LMC-1 to the analog RCA ins of the LPA-1 amplifier. Triple checked the speaker wire at both ends.

I also tried 2-channel white and red analog out from the HD-A1 into the analog CD white and red of the LMC-1 with the same results.

I turned the center, surrounds and backs to "no" and set the mains to "large" in the LMC-1. No subwoofer connected. Even though there was no subwoofer connected, I also set the M22s to "small" and left the crossover at the default of 80.

What am I doing wrong? I know these M22s aren't fed correctly. No speaker can sound that bad.

Thanks a lot,
Rodney

I doubt it's the speakers. If the vocals are dropping in and out, it would make me think the pre is trying to output to a center, but you said you turned it off. Yes, leave the mains set to large (crossover dis-engaged) if you have no sub. Otherwise lower vocals (Bary White) would drop out of the mains and be directed to a sub. But if you have told the system you have no sub this also shouldn't be an issue. Just make sure your Emotiva is set to 2.0 output mode for stereo only.

My one other thought is that the Toshiba HD-A1 player also has bass management settings in it. You may want to run through the speaker setup in the Toshiba and make sure your settings are all large, to disable any bass mgmt it may be doing.

Good luck.

Well, you're going to have to start narrowing down where the problem is. Try hooking up the QS8's instead of the M22's and see what they sound like. If they sound the same, then it's not the speakers and it's something in the PreAmp/Amp path.

I don't know much about the LMC-1, but I agree with the other poster - it sounds like you have a surround-sound mode activated without all of the surround sound speakers. From your description, it almost sounds like you accidentally are tapping into the surround sound speaker outputs instead of the front mains. Double check that your RCA outputs from LMC to LPA are hooked up correctly - that is, make sure that your mains are hooked up to the amp that is receiving the FRONT L/R outputs.

Something else you could try would be to bypass the LPA-1 completely. The LMC-1 has a small built-in "zone B" amp, and you could hook the m22's up to this directly and see what the sound quality is like. If those outputs sound the same, then the problem isn't the LPA-1 either, it's something in the LMC-1 or probably in your output from the CD player.

Thank you, guys.

"From your description, it almost sounds like you accidentally are tapping into the surround sound speaker outputs instead of the front mains." You are correct!

I had connected the LMC-1's L + R of the "7.1 CH OUTPUT." Turns out there is a "LINE OUT" and the manual says "The “LINE OUT” jacks are for a 2 channel connection to an
additional amplifier or for tape recording." Not sure what I'm gonna do when I have the 5.1 system up. Am I going to have to use the "7.1 CH OUTPUT" for movies and the "LINE OUT" for 2-channel music?

Anyway, it was late when I got it working, so I couldn't even turn the LMC-1 up above 35, since family members were asleep, but it sounded great. I can't wait for the morning...

Thanks again,
Rodney

Great! Glad you got it figured out.

Nice job Peter on suggesting a mixed up interconnect to the surround channels.

Glad you got it working!

When you get your whole system set up, you will probably want to connect your DVD/CD player to the LMC-1 via a digital connection. Then make sure the DVD/CD player is set to ouput DolbyDigital/PCM via the ditial output (or something like that). Then your LMC-1 will do the decoding into 2 channel, 5 channel, or whatever you want based on the sound mode you set on the LMC-1. Modes such as Direct, Stereo, Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Pro Logic Music, DTS Neo, Hall, Jazz, etc, etc, etc.

You're going to want to have all of your speakers set to 'Small', since you have that awesome HSU sub. I would do a crossover of 80hz for all of your speakers, but that's personal preference. Make sure the HSU's crossover is set to bypass. The LMC-1 will then be doing all of the crossovers and directing sound where it should go, which is probably what you want.

I bet that by using that 'Line-out' jack, you bypassed the LMC-1's processing. I still think your LMC-1 is stuck in a surround sound mode. Do you have it hooked up to a TV so you can play with the menus? I bet you'll find that it's trying to do some sort of movie surround mode to 2 channel audio. An easy fix with a couple of button presses. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but it'll send lots of audio to the center channel and would sound crummy if you just had the 2 speakers setup. You will want to use the LMC-1's 7.1 outputs to the LPA-1. I doubt you'll really have a need for the 'Line Out' jack once you get the LMC-1 configured correctly.

The 7.1 channel inputs on the LMC-1 should really only be used in 2 cases: 1) If you have a DVD-A or SACD player. These can't output the high-res audio signal digitally, so they require analog (unless you get into some really expensive gear) or 2) if you have a really nice CD/DVD player that has a superior D/A converter than your preamp.

One word of caution. There are a few threads over on av123.com regarding some slightly strange behavior by the LMC-1 when it comes to surround sound modes. They don't really seem to be problems, just 'quirks'. I would suggest that you take a look at this thread for information.

Thanks, guys.

I still can't get the 7.1 L and R outs from the LMC-1 to work right, whether using coaxial digital from HD-A1 or analog. "Bypass" was selected always in the LMC-1. PCM is selected in the HD-A1 audio out menu. The other choice is "Bitstream", which I haven't tried today, but yesterday wasn't working.

When I use the "Line Out," all is ok. What's weird is I take out the L from the L of "Line Out" and stick it in the L of the 7.1 out, do the same with the R. When using the 7.1 outs from the LMC-1 to the LPA-1, the L channel moves to the right speaker, an the R channel doesn't come in at all. I used the test feature of the LMC-1 to check that...

Stil playing with it.

Thanks again,
Rodney

I switched between "input modes." It was on CD-digital-coaxial. I pressed it, it went to CD-digital-optical, then CD-analog, then when it got back on CD-digital-coaxial, all was good through the 7.1 outs of the LMC-1. I guess it was just a glitch or quirk...

So far, the M22s sound good. In a few days after placing them in the ht room and doing basic calibration, I will post more.

Thanks, guys,
Rodney

How are you liking the new sub?