I wonder, if you find the wide channels distracting, did you try to lower their trim a bit and see if that makes them less distracting?
No I haven’t tweaked any of the trim settings yet. Each time I’ve run Auto setup and Audyssey for 7.1 it’s been perfect so I haven’t wanted to start second guessing it this time around. I’m enjoying that the auto setup is getting it right and I don’t find the need to change setting every time I change inputs like I did with my previous equipment.
For movies the distracting thing about the wide channels isn’t the loudness but the sometimes the position queues. For example at the opening of Star Wars III as the fighters fly around with the wides turned off the sound follows the fighters perfectly as my L/R mains are exactly at the edge of my screen. With the wides engaged the fighters while on the screen sound like they are 5 feet to the left or right of the screen when they approach the edge. When this happens it’s like the mains are pushed out several feet from the screen.
OTOH, in the scene when the destroyer bots come rolling down the hall from off screen left, as the Jedi get on the elevator, the effect is very cool because I hear them rolling up from off screen (front left) and then onto the screen as the camera pans left and all the audio is perfectly in sync with the action. Another scene where it works is in the Mines of Moria as Gandalf walks off screen right while talking and the audio follows him, again very nice effect. There is also to a lesser degree a nice ambient effect where the whole front soundstage expands out wider. While this doesn’t surround you it does make things more expansive.
Also the effect from the wide channels while best in the sweet spot doesn’t seem to loose much when sitting off to the sides. The soundstage does not collapse to the nearest wide speaker even when it was only 5’ away vs 11’ from the corresponding main.
I really want to like this feature however, unless they can matrix the effect I just don’t see how the algorithm can reliably discern which sounds should be coming from the screen and which ones from off screen. I still haven’t looked to see if there are any adjustments besides trim to alter the wide effect.
Since my Onkyo only does height or wide not both at the same time I would choose the height first, and the Dolby PLIIz over Audyssey DSX. The enhanced ambiance when the bucket falls down the well in Balin’s Tomb is subtle but awesome. By subtle what I should say is that it makes the echo sound so real you don’t even notice it unless you deselect the height channels and then everything then sounds all wrong. I haven’t tried height with games yet.
In a nutshell both DSX modes have noticeable directional queues that are distracting (25%) as well as enhancing (75%). OTOH Dolby’s PLIIz is more understated and while effective only calls attention to itself in it’s absence.
