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03-23-07, 10:32 PM
This discussion was started in this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=818624) but I thought i'd post it in maybe a more appropriate forum and maybe get an idea of whats going on or if there is a fix.
Basically the problem is that when multichannel input is used on a receiver, the bass, when compared to optical, is noticeably lower and requires the gain on the sub to be turned up to get the same bass as optical. I, and others in that thread, have acknowledged that the problem exits and is present no matter what the source (PC Soundcard/HD-DVD player, etc).
Another thing I noticed is that on my receiver (HK 340) when using 6CH DIRECT connected from my PC Soundcard, the speaker icons all turn to "LARGE". In my soundcard properties I am controlling LFE as well as speaker size (set to small) and the receiver should do no processing at all when using multichannel, it should all be bypassed and sent directly to the volume control only. I don't know if the receiver icon changing to large has anything to do w/ the lower bass, but it's just something i've noticed.
Anyone have any ideas/fixes/reasons as to why this happens?
after doing a little search I came across this:
"DVD-Audio/HD DVD/Blu-ray's bass is too quiet"
No. They're mixed exactly the same way as Dolby Digital or DTS on DVD-Video. The LFE track is recorded 10dB low. People are only noticing a problem because they've switched from a DD/DTS bitstream link which works to a multichannel interconnect lacking the necessary 10dB-15dB boost. If they had been listening to DD or DTS decoded in the player through the multichannel interconnect they'd have seen the same problem. And the problem is that their receiver isn't boosting its SW/LFE input sufficiently.
It is not really an option for the player to boost its analogue SW output, as it would be in danger of overloading a receiver's input circuitry when a maximum volume LFE signal appeared - feeding a 6 volt signal into a nominally 2 volt input. You might get away with it if the amplifier was purely doing an analogue passthrough, but it would overload any receiver with multichannel ADCs.
And similarly the player absolutely cannot boost its digital LFE output. There's no headroom to do this.
Analogue multichannel
* Player should perform bass management
* Player's SW output should be LFE (if no bass management), or Lower5dB(LFE) + Lower15dB(Redirected bass).
* Player MUST take 10dB difference into account when redirecting bass. If wrong, the error is uncorrectable in the receiver.
* Player's SW output will be 10dB or 15dB low (possibly 0dB or 5dB for some awkward SACD players).
* Receiver should offer options to boost SW input by 0-15dB (a dedicated configurable setting for multichannel input).
my receiver is able to have seperate levels for each input, so does this mean I should set the receiver to +10db for the SW Level?
Thank You
Basically the problem is that when multichannel input is used on a receiver, the bass, when compared to optical, is noticeably lower and requires the gain on the sub to be turned up to get the same bass as optical. I, and others in that thread, have acknowledged that the problem exits and is present no matter what the source (PC Soundcard/HD-DVD player, etc).
Another thing I noticed is that on my receiver (HK 340) when using 6CH DIRECT connected from my PC Soundcard, the speaker icons all turn to "LARGE". In my soundcard properties I am controlling LFE as well as speaker size (set to small) and the receiver should do no processing at all when using multichannel, it should all be bypassed and sent directly to the volume control only. I don't know if the receiver icon changing to large has anything to do w/ the lower bass, but it's just something i've noticed.
Anyone have any ideas/fixes/reasons as to why this happens?
after doing a little search I came across this:
"DVD-Audio/HD DVD/Blu-ray's bass is too quiet"
No. They're mixed exactly the same way as Dolby Digital or DTS on DVD-Video. The LFE track is recorded 10dB low. People are only noticing a problem because they've switched from a DD/DTS bitstream link which works to a multichannel interconnect lacking the necessary 10dB-15dB boost. If they had been listening to DD or DTS decoded in the player through the multichannel interconnect they'd have seen the same problem. And the problem is that their receiver isn't boosting its SW/LFE input sufficiently.
It is not really an option for the player to boost its analogue SW output, as it would be in danger of overloading a receiver's input circuitry when a maximum volume LFE signal appeared - feeding a 6 volt signal into a nominally 2 volt input. You might get away with it if the amplifier was purely doing an analogue passthrough, but it would overload any receiver with multichannel ADCs.
And similarly the player absolutely cannot boost its digital LFE output. There's no headroom to do this.
Analogue multichannel
* Player should perform bass management
* Player's SW output should be LFE (if no bass management), or Lower5dB(LFE) + Lower15dB(Redirected bass).
* Player MUST take 10dB difference into account when redirecting bass. If wrong, the error is uncorrectable in the receiver.
* Player's SW output will be 10dB or 15dB low (possibly 0dB or 5dB for some awkward SACD players).
* Receiver should offer options to boost SW input by 0-15dB (a dedicated configurable setting for multichannel input).
my receiver is able to have seperate levels for each input, so does this mean I should set the receiver to +10db for the SW Level?
Thank You