I'd like to set up some macros for my Onkyo. For example, I'd like to be able to turn off and on the center channel at will. This was relatively trivial with the H/K, but the only way I've found to do it on the Onk is to dig into the main menu, go down a few levels, and then adjust the crossover on the center until it's set to none. This is probably about 10 button clicks, and turning it back on would be as many. Anyone with a 709, 809, 1009, that sort of generation know a better way to do this? Video settings are quickly accessible, but not so much the audio.

Even better would be if I could set up a particular set of speakers (ie, fronts, sub, surround) for music, with a different set (fronts, sub, center, and surrounds) for video. Any tips?

Ken, I'm NO expert on receivers and have never owned an Onkyo... But could a "Direct" mode be modified with a subset of speaker configurations?

Probably not, because Direct will only take what is input--and I'd like to use DPL2 or DTS: Neo, unless I'm sitting down for a serious listening session, at which point I would just use stereo anyway.

I think my only hope is winning the amp contest and parlaying that into a new center.

My Dad is still in and out of hospitals in RI (currently "in") and I STILL haven't had time to finish my HT revision, but I can say with the very limited testing I've done that I like the tonality of the VP160 so much more than my 150 that any music that is put on in the living room is always in multi-channel mode now.

EDIT: Sorry I'm not much help. I WANT to be for all the help you've given me over the years!

I agree with you Mark regarding the use of multi channel for all of our music listening since having the VP180, as on old die-hard two channel stereo listener I can't tell you now how long it has been since I've listened to anything in stereo.

Best wishes for your dad Mark!

Edit: Ken sorry, that is about as much help as I can provide you with.

Ken, I don't don't do that, but my immediate impression is that you'd have to set the center speaker to none in the main menu or set it to the minimum in the "Home" menu. No one-step process comes to mind now.

It appears that what you want is no center speaker when playing music, so my thought would be to set the DPLII Center Width to the widest setting, which would send nothing to the center speaker. Since that applies only to 2-channel source material, this wouldn't have any effect on the center speaker for 5.1 movie material.

Hmm. The question then is will the wide stick to only the DPL2 Music, or will it also apply to DPL2 Movie, which I use for my TV watching. Will need to expirimentate!

I don't(I'll say it just once this time)use DPLII Movie, but I believe that the adjustable parameters are only for the Music mode.

JohnK is still waiting for the TechnoRave DPLII setting.

As am I!