Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Speakers fading in and out

I assume you're using some kind of matrixing mode to generate a signal for the center channel ? If you're running "pure stereo" then the center channel would be silent. It sounds like you are just hearing typical quirks of the algorithms which synthesize center and surround signals from stereo inputs.

AFAIK these algorithms work fine with "simple" recordings but for the last 20 years there have been a number of processing tools which increase the 3 dimensional effect you get with stereo playback (I remember the Aphex Aural Exciter or sth like that), and audio that has gone through those tools tends to drive the matrixing algorithms batty.

Your receiver probably offers a variety of matrixing modes - definitely try them all. I never found one that sounded good with all my songs, but I found one that sounded good for most and another that sounded good for the rest. I don't remember what those two modes were, unfortunately, since...

... I eventually got fed up having to pick a different mode for each album and went back to stereo playback.

EDIT - apparently the Aphex Aural Exciter came out 34 years ago. I feel very old.