Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 7.1 rear surounds no sound

Ahh I finally feel like I contributed even though I do not own axioms yet LOL. Yeah that site can eat huge amounts of time just running filters and looking up nothing in particular.

Also in reguards to the OP I wonder if that Denon has what Yamaha calls Front Presence. It is like a 8 and 9th channel but shares the rear effect amp in the AVR and you can only select one the front or the rear. I never use this on my receiver but I have tried it, I did not like it for movies and for 7ch music my rear effects speakers are a step up or two from my paradigm inwalls I have for the presence ch so it sounds better as well. It does however give a much larger front sound stage.

later
Phil

Dolby Prologic (of any flavor up until IIz) has only used two channels for processing. So for 5.1 content, it only uses the surround channel to create the rear surround. It will have no effect on the mains or center at all.

Of course when fed stereo the only two channels available for processing are the left and right. It'll create the surrounds and center from there. When Prologic IIx Movie is processing stereo it will take any mono content (most of the time, the vocals in music) and place it firmly in the center channel, Music mode has a setting for center Width. It's adjustable from total removal of mono to the center, to not touching the center at all and leaving the mono content in the left and right (while still still performing ambiance extraction for the surrounds). By default the Width setting is somewhere in the middle leaving half the mono content in the mains, while routing the other half to the center.

Chris,
Thanks for the more detailed explanation. My music sources are only 2 channel, so that's what I was referring to. Your explanation helps me better understand what my Pio receiver is doing.

For me when listening to music, I like surround vs straight stereo usually, so when flipping between the surround modes I have often found that the Neo6 just blends the front sound stage better than the ProLogic Music mode which often makes my center stand out. Keep in mind I am talking about the 'pure' surround modes and not the jazz/dancehall/underwater/outerspace crazy settings! That width setting is a bit buried in the menus so i haven't played with it as much as I could have.

Now I have a new experiment for the weekend - fine tuning Neo6 music and ProLogic Music modes to see which I prefer/can make sound better to my ears!

On the Pioneer, the Center Width (along with Panorama and Dimension) settings are only avail when in PLIIx Music. But when playing in that mode, just hit the settings button and scroll down the list. NEO:6 has similar settings when it's mode is engaged.

The Panorama setting is the opposite of Center Width. It takes the stereo content which is in the left and right, and copies it to the left and right surround to create more of a wrap-around effect. I believe its turned all the way down by default.

I'm not exactly sure how the Dimension setting makes it's change. But you can hear it as it is adjusted. It's like the front sound stage moves toward you. It's probably like Panorama, but instead of copying the stereo signal from the LR, it removes it to the surround. What ever it does, I don't like anything but the default. Setting it smaller crushes the front width, and larger sounds odd. But then again, all my speakers are within a half foot of the being exactly the same distance from my listening position. People who are nearer to farther from the mains vs. surrounds may get more from this.

Yeah, I'm gonna play with those some more. I did a bit of experimentation when I first hooked up my system. Need to go back. Part of the reason I haven't fiddled with it is that I did not program my Harmony remote to go in to the settings so easily. I'll break out the original remote or add some programming to the Harmony.

Cheers,

Chris, the Dimension setting affects only the amount of out-of-phase surround material mixed into the front channels which is sent to the surrounds, not the front channel material in its entirety.

For music I used DPLIIx with for 2 channel and 5.1. The music made me misty. Very happy with my new room and setup. Mmore work to do...

Not sure if anyone out there has purchased an Oppo BDP-83 OR has used the AIX Audio Calibration HD Music Sampler that ships with it. When I try to run the Channel Identification test at (96KHz/24-bit/7.1 Dolby True HD) It does not work; the audio voice over tells me that it's receiving Dolby Digital (Not Dolby True HD) and to hook up HDMI to my AV receiver. Now, the only connection from my BDP to Receiver is HDMI..? Denon 3310CI is True HD compatible, and I tried setting the Oppo to output Bitstream...same incorrect result from the calibration. So all that make me think I am not running Dolby TrueHD?

Denon 3310CI
Oppo BDP83
M22s
VP150
EP350
4xQS8

make sure you are using PLIIx M (music) mode, and not C (Cinema) or G (games).

Turn off secondary audio in the 83. It can't mix the lossless quality with a secondary stream, so it falls back to the lossy track. AIX played some tricks with that disc to make it obvious when you're using software mixing.

Though keep in mind, if you want to use the BluTV or commentaries/games on some BDs you'll have to re-enable the secondary in order to hear them.

That did it. Now THD is working.