Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions SACD and Receiver Sound Settings

What should the receiver sound setting be to listen to SACD's? All of the different possibilities are somewhat confusing. I am planning on doing some research and experimenting but thought I would ask the question.

I suppose the terminology is different for different brands of receiver's, but my Onkyo needs to be set to "multichannel" in order to get the hi rez audio from a DVD-A or SACD disc.

In order to set this up, I had to set the receiver on the input to which I wished to assign the multichannel inputs (in my case, Video 2. Use the input that you have your other connections from you universal player plugged into. It might be "DVD" or "CD" or a Video input)). Then, I had to go into my receiver's "input setup" menu for Video 2, and in the multichannel menu, select "yes," effectively assigning the multichannel inputs to Video 2. Now whenever I'm on Video 2, I have the choice of selecting the left/right analog 2 channel inputs, the digital input, or the multichannel input.

This process may be quite different for you receiver. But the principal is the same. You have to assign the multichannel inputs to the input label (i.e. "DVD," or "CD," or one of the video inputs) to which your universal player is connected.

If you'll tell us what receiver you have, one of the members may have the same one, and be able to give you the specific procedure for your receiver.

I have a Yamaha HTR5760 receiver and Yamaha DVD-C750 DVD/SACD changer. I recently purchased and installed Axiom M22ti fronts, VP100 and QS8's. Sounds great, but want to make sure I don't miss something in the setup.

Hmm? Not an easy manual to understand, at least online anyway. If you go to page 60 of the manual, under "Control Area," "Controlling this unit," it appears there is a "multichannel button on the remote.

On page 30, "Basic Operation," item 4 - "Select the input source.," it seems to suggest that all you need do is push the "Multi CH In" button, and the multichannel inputs are selected, and you should be getting your hi rez audio.

All this, of course, presupposes that you, indeed,have a universal player, have it's 5.1 or 7.1 outputs properly connected to the receiver as shown on page 17, and are playing a DVD-A or SACD disc.

Runner, welcome. Since Jack looked at the 5760 manual, I took a look at the 750. Nothing especially unusual. Note that for SACDs or DVD-As you have to use the player to set speaker sizes, levels and delays since this is done digitally and has to take place before the player converts DVD-As/SACDs to analog. It's described beginning on p.10. Set speakers "small"(unfortunately only 120Hz crossover available, but not too bad),and calibrate the speakers for level and delay(on the center and surrounds). Follow the rest of the disc operation instructions and bring up any problem.

One thing that I did notice which is pure hogwash is the "upsampling" feature for CDs on the analog outputs(p.25). It neither"converts Music CDs to a higher sampling rate" nor does it result in "better sound quality". This is just another way of accomplishing oversampling which all players have done for about 20 years. My view would be to disregard the "feature" and use the digital output for the usual oversampling and conversion in the 5760's DACs.

Thanks. I hooked everything up last night and listened to Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La SACD. Pretty amazing. I still need to do some setup on the player but I'm on my way. Thanks for the help.

My pleasure! I don't know if you are a Diana Krall fan, but if you are, you must get her "When I Look In Your Eyes" SACD. By far the best mixed and mastered SACD I've heard yet.