I recently purchased a Yamaha 665 receiver, and a 5.1 Paradigm surround sound set. The floor standing speakers, center channel AC powered Sub, and the two speakers on the back/wall. I apologize but I don't know the model numbers of the speakers off hand. It cost me around $1600. Hope I didn't get ripped - everything looks and sounds good for the most part.

Now my question is....When watching movies on my Samsung Blu-Ray Player, i always switch between two entirely different modes on my receiver : The Movie setting (which you can pick between Adventure, RPG Game, Sports, Sci-Fi, etc. etc) and the 7ch Enhanced.

Now when I put it on the movie setting and on "Adventure" or "Drama" which is what i usually have it on for the type of movies I watch, I have to turn the receiver up pretty loud to get the "movie theater" effect as far as loudness goes. It just does not get that loud until I turn it up to either 2-5db.

But when I put it on the 7ch Enhanced setting, it seems as it gets louder than all hell - at around 30% or more it sounds like. Around -2db to 0db is a good volume for this setting.

So what I am asking is...anyone that has this particular receiver and/or a similar setup as mine, what setting(s) do you use on your receiever to watch movies and really get that huge BOOM or loudness? Would you just use the movie function and pick what type of sound you think you need, the 7ch Enhanced, or something completely different?

I apologize for sounding like a beginner in all of this, I mainly am. I am pretty good when it comes to listening to music on my computer, video, resolutions, computers all of that - but when it comes to surround sound I'm kind of in the haze.

Thanks in advance,

-Me

subscribed - so I can view it in my CP

I've done a little research, and I'm pretty sure I should be using "Straight".

But what is the difference between "Straight" and "Straight Enhanced" ???

You should be running your receiver in Straight mode or Standard Decoder mode. All of Yamaha's surround 'enhancing' modes suck and do weird things to the sound. (I can say that because I own one.) Let the audio come through as the artist intended in Straight mode. You should also try and change the audio out on your Blu-Ray from LPCM to Bitstream (or vice versa) just to see if that makes a difference with your volume issues.

I've done a little research, and I'm pretty sure I should be using "Straight".

But what is the difference between "Straight" and "Straight Enhanced" ???
Straight Enhanced is for if you are listening to a compressed music format...like for listening to music through your IPOD. I still just use straight though as the enhancer just seems to add artificial loudness.

7 channel enhanced is not for movies.

Have you run the YPAO to set up your system? Also, make sure any Dynamic Range Compression is set to off or that Dynamic Range is set to full. Any other setting would take away some of the boom you're looking for.

IMO, the movie modes are not all bad, but some of them alter the dialog too much for me to enjoy them. I find that Movie Standard does create a more ambient surround stage without destroying the sound. Once you're sure you have things set up well, try some different modes and see what you like.