Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Speaker review + questions

Del,

I have 2910 also and have been through the same setup quandries. First you need to set bass enhancer to ON to make the LFE channel active for the discrete analog out for the sub to work. I also found that I needed to engage the +10dB boost to get my sub channel into the correct ballpark for output (then fine tune with the speaker levels screen) if I didn't do this then I did not even get enough sub power to trigger the auto on circuit of my sub.

Hope this helps and I remembered everything correctly as I am not near my system at the moment. Congrats on a great system by the way.

Stuart

>>if I didn't do this then I did not even get enough sub power to trigger the auto on circuit of my sub

Interesting...

JohnK,

Would it be better to set all speakers to small or will only setting one set of them to small be sufficient?

Stuart,

Thank you for the info. I have about an hour to play with the system before we have to leave for the office Xmas party. I will let you know how it works out.

Del, in my view all speakers should be set small, regardless of their size or even bass capability, if the sub is good enough to do an even better job in the lowest bass. Your EP350 can certainly do that and relieve the M60s and the 3805 amps of part of the low bass burden.

John, no, not all DVD-As/SACDs have an LFE channel for high level bass effects. You see many of them with designations such as 4.0 or 5.0, and in that case the sub will have nothing to do if low bass from the speakers isn't directed to it. For example, I did get one 2 SACD set a couple of months ago even though none of my players do SACD, and it's hybrid with CD as well as 2.0 and 5.0 SACD
tracks(incidentally it's a terrific bargain which I first suspected was a
pricing error and has all of the gorgeous music for Swan Lake).

I'm not familiar with the Joni Mitchell disc, but if you're certain that it's SACD, not DVD-A, then there's a bit of a mystery as to where the extra channels came from. SACDs don't have the DD/DTS tracks which a DVD-A has, and besides the SACD track(which has no output on a digital connection)if it's a "hybrid" it'll have a regular two-channel CD track. That would only give sound in multiple speakers if you applied DPLIIx to steer ambience from the two channels to them or used all channel stereo to duplicate the left and right fronts into the left and right surrounds(not likely, since you didn't mention it).

Thanks, JohnK. I think I solved the mystery...

A lot of the reviews of my player (DVP-NS315) say it can play DVD-A, but I now think that is a mistake. The manual clearly says "does NOT play DVD-Audio".

Oh well...

The Joni Mitchell disk is DVD-A, not SACD, as it turns out... but it has THREE modes recorded on it -- DVD-A, Dolby Surround (2.1) and Dolby Digital 5.1. When I look at the receiver status while playing it is definitely Dolby Digital 5.1.

bridgman- if your in the maket for a new player, give the pioneer 578a a look. i just got mine a couple of weeks ago and so far it sounds great and my wife even made the comment that the dvd picture looks better than my old player. plus its only $130, not bad for a univeral player