Sherwood R-972 User Thread - Page 51

Guys:
DO i need to do anything special if I use the pre-outs? I'm getting no sound using pre-outs :-( Is this DOA? I tested 2 ch. earlier using direct speaker connection and it worked fine... what gives..

I had a similar issue once before with different pre-pro and at that time 12v trigger was disconnected. So, this time I made sure that it's connected between sherwood and outlaw 770.

No, you don't need to do anything special to use the pre outs. Maybe try hooking up one speaker to speaker outs to confirm you didn't do anything after your 2 ch test. If you only get sound from that one speaker (and assuming amp is fine) then sounds like you've got a problem.

Make sure HDMI output is set to off.

HDMI Audio output is off. Did a couple of hard resets. No cigar yet :-)

Finally got some sound using pre-outs :-)

I had to change the 12v trigger cable. The one that goes from receiver's switch output to the amp's 12v trigger input.
The 12v trigger output jack from Sherwood did not work.

I was going to get a stereo jack for the 12v trigger but now that you've mentioned that it does not work, I'll use the switched outlet instead. Besides, I don't know how they wire the 'stereo' trigger in the first place (you only need 2 pins for + and GND, and not 3 right?).

On the subject of video scaling, I have set my Roku output at 720p, an HDTV tuner at 1080i and an Oppo BDP at 1080p without any problem - whether video scaling is set to bypass or not. Of course, with bypass, I was not getting 1080/24p when playing such material so it is fixed to bypass now.

About the Roku boxes, maybe this year's units do something differently, but my 2-yr old model will only output 720p (ie, with Netflix) unless I was explicitly streaming 1080p material (ie, Amazon VOD) which I have never done.

A 3.5mm stereo cable works great. You can cut off one end and strip the wires if necessary The shield is the negative and red wire is positive. Just ignore the black wire.

I use the 12v trigger from the 972 to power up my amps and SMS-1.

Perfect, thanks. Same here, amp and SMS-1

Guys,

I have been a longtime user of the P965 and just took delivery of this R972. For the life of me I cannot get Trinnov to use the rear surround speakers in playback mode. In the calibration/computation modes the rear surround are evident and get good readings.
The rear surrounds show up if I select Dolby Digital or Dolby EXII modes but whenever I engage Trinnov the system drops to 5.1 and not 7.1

What could I be doing wrong?

Thanks

Hi guys,

Unlike most of the recent posters, I took delivery of my r-972 when it first came out.

I too have struggled through the issues, and continue to be annoyed by a couple of the unit's faults - in particular, that two second sound gap, a hdcp handshaking issue I think is aggravated by a 30 foot hdmi cable run and the fact and that I have to hit the video button twice to move up each input drives me nuts too.

These items don't make the r-972 a family favorite in the living room, but I think the unit makes up for it with sound quality that absolutely beats anything else I've ever had the privilege of using. I don't think I could live without Trinnov at this point.

And that's how I live with it. It'll annoy me (and you) as I set it up, but once an album is playing - pure bliss,

So - keep at the troubleshooting, enjoy your enviable price, and I hope you guys get to the bliss soon!

Scott

You might want to pose this question in 'Trinnov User notes' thread. Curt from Trinnov is very helpful in that thread.

If you look in the manual at the matrix of input/output signal formats it shows that there are a lot of cases where the back channels aren't used, which I also found dismaying.

Though I'd think that depending on the speaker locations, Trinnov might use the back channels to properly locate sound sources of the surrounds.

remember that 6 and 7 (speaker outputs) can be used for zone two or three. In Sherwood's set-up, you may need to check that those amps are being dedicated to the main room.

Since I only watch movies the sound dropouts are not an issue. The sound quality is great and it is unfortunate that these small issues cause some posters to discount the unit.

I am an audiophile in the sense that I will put up with a lot as long as it sounds better. for me, it clearly does in comparison with my sc-27/antimode or Onkyo SC-886P.

Does SMS-1 improves SQ on top of Trinnov EQ? Just curious.. I thought Trinnov did better job than Audyssey xt32 on overall sound for me.

I have two Velodynes with room EQ and Trinnov brought noticeable improvement in both cases (two separate rooms).

Audyssey XT did not have much of an effect on bass in either case and Trinnov was a marked improvement over it in my set up -- the overall sound is significantly more coherent and dialog is significantly clearer, even at low levels.

I still don't know yet.

I set the SMS-1 to preset 6 (Defeat) than ran Trinnov. Then I was just going to look at the curve on SMS-1 without doing a re-calibration to see what it would like but I couldn't find the mic

[rant] Last night I had a heck of a time with the R-972. To make a 45-min story short, to switch the Monitor output between HDMI/component/SCVID, you have to put the unit in stand-by AND power it off. Without completely powering it off, the switch would not take effect. [end rant]

My experience so far is only with 5.1. Yup, the speakers disappear and the sound just ... surrounds you. The good thing is, it is not at all artificial like when you run 2ch in some simulated surround mode (I hate these modes!). The bass (or maybe just mid-bass) is definitely tighter. Initially, the weak area was the subwoofer area. Last night, after installing the +6 curve, this area was certainly improved a lot. Still, I was tempting to up my sub amp another notch or 2, or maybe I had always been running it hot.

BTW, I like the combination of Flat, DLY+LVL, and Cinema with EQ off. In my experience, anything more than that will give the sound a 'slight hint' of being artificial, especially when sitting outside of that 1 sweet-spot position. YMMV.

You may want to take a look at where Trinnov calculates the crossover frequency to the sub. You can force Trinnov to calculate a lower crossover frequency by engaging the low pass filter on the sub eq and setting it low enough to effect a change. Then it is fairly easy to do a comparison by using 2 Trinnov settings and turning bypass on and off on the sub eq. My system sounded better with a lower crossover point than the initial Trinnov calculated crossover point but this is going to be very highly dependent on your speakers and sub.

I have been successfully using an SMS-1 with Trinnov EQ disabled( but with the +6db bass boost ) since getting my R-972 2 years ago. My speakers are 4X Paradigm Ref Sig S1's with a C1 center and Paradigm subw( 5.1 ). I did not like the sound of the Trinnov EQ even with the +6 dB applied and also think that the Audyssey EQ XT( in a Denon 2808CI ) degrades the sound in my setup. I have not tried Audyssey EQ XT32. But to me, the Trinnov remapping( even in 2-channel Stereo mode ) trumps all of the other problems with the R-972 and makes it the audio electronics component of choice for the audiophile or videophile. BTW, neither of the BDA decoders work in my R-972, so the BD player has to convert the lossless BDA formats to PCM for the R-972, tant pis.

I am hoping another consumer audio company implements Trinnov in a more robust, stable( but still affordable ) product than the R-972, which is no longer in production. Maybe someday I will put my money where my mouth is and spring for an ADA TEQ unit...but why should that be the only other commercial consumer audio implementation?

Once you go Trinnov, nothing else is innov( enuf ).

I had exactly the same problem and it completely went away when I put a Velodyne SMS-1 between the R-972 and my active subw. Using a line level cable that is well shielded( e.g., Blue Jeans ) between the R-972 and the subw also might help.

How do I know the calculated xover by Trinnov for each speaker? THe 'Xover' menu is for manual setting only, right?

-6db point for my mains are 59htz per Trinnov and surrounds are 120htz. If I change the low pass filter on my sub, I'm afraid what it will do to the crossover for my surrounds..

On my system, it dropped the crossover point for every speaker so it will probably reduce the crossover point for your surrounds as well. I believe it ended up dropping my rear surrounds down to 80hz but I think the side surrounds were still over 100hz.

I received my 972 this past Friday and finally had a chance to set it up this evening. No question about it; Trinnov is great...when it's working. What happened was that my center channel cut-out. I checked the interconnects. I also pushed the ''Test'' button and all channels were working including the center. This happens only with 3D mapping. With everything else the center works fine. Tomorrow I'm going to do a hard reset, let Trinnov do it's thing and then keep my fingers crossed. If any of you have any counsel, suggestions, words of wisdom, etc., it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm on the fence about buying the 972. I currently have a Denon 4306 in a 7.1 setup. The room is pretty good for a home theater - it is a rectangle and I have the projector firing the length of the room to the screen. The only bad part is that the rear speakers are RS750 Rockets, and they are behind the second row of seats.

1) Can the 972 'raise' the sound of those RS750s so that they approximate the standard position for rear surrounds?

2) How do the amp sections compare between the 4306 and the 972?

3) Can I have my HDMI video devices run through and be switched by the 972, but have the audio go out to my 4306 through the pre-outs?

4 and last) Are the HDMI video issues on the 972 resolved in the latest firmware?


I would appreciate any opinions. Thanks!


Kerry

I can answer a few of your questions but I do not have any experience with the 4306.

Questions 3: So do you want to have two receivers running at the same time? Using the amps in the Denon 4306 being fed the signal from the 972? I have my bluray player and ROKU box connected through HDMI and I use the RCA pre outs on the 972 to go to a 3 channel external amp which should be essentially the same thing as what you are wanting to do and it works fine for me.

Question 4: which video issues are you talking about? I am having problems with the video scaling but it is not isolated to HDMI devices.

It can only do so if there are other speakers it can use the compensate for the height. It can't have the speaker "throw" the sound higher on their own.

3 words: "Be veeery patient."
Plus, once the movie's started, don't touch the remote(s). Do not go in n out of Setup, do not fwd or rev, pause, skip to next, last, whatever. Only then can you really enjoy the show. My better half actually likes these restrictions If you miss a phrase and want to go back, hit REV 32x else you'll miss it again.


3) Yes, you can. But just for avoiding having 2 receivers in the chain (2 vol knobs) I would recommend using external amp(s) instead.

4) This may be a dead horse, but in my experience there are 1 general issue with HDMI and 1 specific issue with video scaling and they have not been fixed (I am pretty sure I've got the latest firmware and done the reset a couple of times). With HDMI, when you switches sources, fwd, rev on your disc player, etc, you'll lose the first 2 to 4 seconds of audio. On the video scaling, if engaged in any way, it would not pass thru 1080/24p from my Oppo 83SE to my Benq W5000. It would convert it to 1080/60 instead. Setting it to 'bypass' fixes the problem. I am surprised no one else has mentioned this issue of not passing through 1080/24p with settings other than bypass. Using a $20 HDMI switcher with audio sources going to my non-HDMI pre/pro by ways of optical or analog does not give me any of these problems but... it does not give me Trinnov, either

FWIW to R-972 owners who didn't get the glossy end caps free from A4L and want them, Beach Audio is closing them out for about $25 shipped.

I pause and skip all the time without problems. (I better knock wood now)

You should It's weird because the video is just fine.