Hello,

I have a Kenwood VR 8070 receiver and Aperion Audio 533T front l/r, 533VAC center, S-10 Sub and 532 bookshelf surround speakers.

The fronts are set to large and all other speakers set to normal.

When I am watching a movie in Dolby Digital, the surround speakers will sometimes cut off during a very loud part (explosions in Casino Royale and the opening sequence of Lord of The Rings: Two Towers in particular). The tuner display still indicates that it is in 5.1 and the rear speakers are on. If I pause the movie, rewind, etc. or switch the tuner to stereo and back to dolby digital, they come back on and sound fine. I'm not sure what is going on. Any ideas?

thanks,

John

Seems like you are overloading the rear channel amps. Have you properly set up the individual channel levels? What is "normal?" Large or small?

There are three settings:

Large
Normal/THX
off

Aperion suggests normal for their bookshelf speakers so that is where they are set. The speakers are rated at 150 watts and the receiver is rated at 100 watts (and I doubt it's really pushing 100 watts).

When I was calibrating the speakers I increased the surround speakers by 1 db according to the spl meter.

I have put them back at 0 and I will see if they shut off again.

What I don't understand is that if they are overloading, why do they only overload when watching movies in dolby digital mode and not when I'm listening to music (loud at that)?

thanks for the help.

John

I doubt if the 1dB change will make much difference but it is interesting that your fronts differ from the rears by only 1dB. Even with matched speakers, room acoustics and positioning often make a bigger difference than that. Also, I cannot think of any reason why it happens in DD but not in music; what music format/dsp do you use?

When I listen to music I listen mostly to pro logic II music. It seems a little beefier than the Neo:6 music.

I set the surround speakers back to 0 and I am watching LOTR Two Towers and it made it through the first scene without shutting off. I don't know if it makes any difference, but I did have THX on and have turned it off as well.

John

As an aside, I'd set your front speakers up as "normal" (as opposed to "large") as well.

Well,

I watched most of Casino Royale and the speakers didn't cut off (It's a very loud movie and it had cut out several times before). I'm hoping this worked. I guess the amp just isn't that good and couldn't handle the extra 1 db to the rear speakers. (I think I'll consider a higher quality amp when my savings account is back to normal.)

Is there a particular reason you would suggest I switch the front speakers to normal? Both Aperion and Kenwood suggest setting them to large as they are bigger tower speakers. The speakers all seem to blend well and it is a fairly even soundstage.

Thanks for all the input and help.

kindest regards,

John

Is there a particular reason you would suggest I switch the front speakers to normal? Both Aperion and Kenwood suggest setting them to large as they are bigger tower speakers.The Large setting sends a full range signal to the speakers, which the 533-T isn't capable of reproducing properly (they start rolling off around 70Hz). Frequencies below that point should be filtered off and sent to a subwoofer, which will do a better job of reproducing the bass. In order to apply a crossover to your front speakers, you need to switch them to the Small or Normal setting (never use Large).

Best,
Sanjay

Thanks,

I'll give it a try tonight. I really appreciate all the advice. I'm a complete newbie at this.

John

I guess the amp just isn't that good and couldn't handle the extra 1 db to the rear speakers.
Very, very, very doubtful that the 1dB was the problem.