Transformers LFE lacking...what is your disc number? - Page 26

This disc has some of the strongest and most impressive LFE/bass I have heard in my theater. If you are not getting this, there is some sort of setup/epuip issue. I dont see how this can be a disc issue.

It's been repeated many times in the thread, but for the new people, check whether Dynamic Compression (or whatever it's called) is turned on in the HD player settings. For some reason, it appears to get turned on after a firmware update, killing the bass.

You mean Dynamic turned off. When you turnit on, it drops the extreme high and low frequencies.

No, it cuts off extreme peak levels, bumps up softer passages like dialog to make it a more "even" sounding. Much like radio and broadcast TV does.

didn't know that, will double check.
thanks!

Fixed my subwoofer issue with a new Sub...

http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/rw-12d.aspx

Now my room shakes and the places where I expect alot of LFE have them!

old, glad to hear about the rw-12d. Its a mid price sub and I am looking at that one myself. What other speakers do you have it set up with?

Yup, the movie has fine bass. Its not the most bass intensive movie I have heard, but he bass is there when they intend it to be.

I just watched it again with my 5 yr. old son, I forgot how powerful the bass was when Ironhide did the flip and launched himself up with the missle in slow motion, My wife looked at me when the bass started rumbling the pictures in the house, that was great!

If this were the problem, there wouldn't be posters talking about the room shaking, life altering, incredible bass on their systems. It would be just meh for everyone. Please see quote 2 down.


Glad you have good base with this movie. Others don't. Again, if you don't have the problem, you can't understand just how poor the bass is for those with the problem. I have 4 pro II buttshakers under my seats. Harry Potter OOTP had 20 different moments that lifted us in the freakin air. Transformers doesn't even make us feel like the buttshakers are on unless I increase the bass by 6 db. IT IS ONLY THIS MOVIE. I HAVE DYNAMIC TURNED OFF. MY SYSTEM DOESN'T NEED TWEAKING. I'VE TRIED 2 DISCS. This is a firmware issue. Others have said 2.7 fixed their bass and their 2-channel light for SD DVD's, but it didn't fix either for my A2. Yes i've initialized the player. Please see quote 1 down.



Only if I turn the sub out channel way further up than any other movie. Same setting for Harry Potter would have blown up my system.
Something is wrong. Period.

See above quote. Maybe it was "proven" on someone's system who doesn't have the bass problem, but how do you explain the above quote?

I love that Ironhide scene....I use it as a demo for when people come over!!

They want to chew on it because they have an unresolved audio problem only experienced on Transformers. This issue is not resolved. I agree that it is highly unlikely that it is a disc issue. I think it's an encoding issue that manifests itself with certain combinations of equipment.

I have the issue. As I stated before, I change to bitstream over optical with my system, and the walls shake. Let me say that again -- over optical and bitstream, the movie sounds completely different -- huge bass. Playing PCM over HDMI, I can't even tell the subwoofer is on. In fact, it sounds very strange as all of the bass, what there is of it, is coming from my fronts and center. Since these speakers are of the bookshelf variety, it is very noticable.

The question we should be asking is how is this movie encoded that is different than other movies? Why are we only experiencing this LFE issue on this particular movie while others play fine.

Here is my equipment, which has all been calibrated with DVE and a sound meter. It's not high end, but it has performed just fine with all other movies.


Panasonic XR-57 (subwoofer set to +10)
Toshiba HD-A3 Firmware 1.3 (range and dialog both set to OFF)
Velodyne Front Row Surround Speakers
BIC H100 Subwoofer

Now, someone may point out correctly that the Panasonic has the LFE issue, but even pushing the subwoofer to +20 (Max) doesn't solve the issue with the lack of bass on Transformers.

ECH, are you saying that the issue doesn't exist, or are you saying that the culprit is simply not the disc? If it's the latter, I agree. If it's the former, I can assure you the issue exists and is very real.

Possibly it is an issue with how 5.1 LPCM input via HDMI is handled in your Pany AVR. Aside from the subwoofer level control on the AVR, are you using the bass control to get a mid-bass boost on Toslink? Perhaps that bass control will not operate with a LPCM via HDMI input. Does the Pany even do bass management with a HDMI audio input? From what you describe the subwoofer is not operating at all. I seem to recall that that Pany also will not allow Dolby PLIIx to be forced on to get 7.1 with a HDMI 5.1 audio input.

Have you setup the A3 audio in its SETUP Audio menu to 5.1 and gone further into it to set the sub to USE? Once again does the Panasonic XR-57 do bass management with PCM input via HDMI? Curious.

No. I really think it has something to do with the PCM vs Bitstream over Toslink. Maybe it's time for a new receiver.



I believe that's correct on the 7.1 issue. I have a 5.1 setup, so that isn't a problem for me. I'll have to go back and research the bass management issueover HDMI on the Panny. I can't recall the specifics. It does have some issues with LPCM.



If the A3 has this audio menu, I am totally unaware of it. Can someone else confirm this?

Thanks for the help!

No. It seems not. The level adjustment does still function, though, which if set to MAX is +20 db. I'm making that assumption since the next highest level is +15.


Surely that would be enough to compensate? With other movies with PCM over HDMI, I bump the level on the sub, and all seems well with the world. With Transformers, it just seems that no amount of level adjustment brings it into the normal range of bass output.

+1


The problem exists for HDMI and Toslink (bitstream). My receiver is an Onkyo. Player A2. Also, it is in the signal, not the sub woofer because I have the same anemic response from my buttshakers as my sub.

Many others have posted that they recall the bass at the theater blowing them away, as do the people on here who don't have the bass problem with their setup.

I have a A2, Onkyo 605, and CSX-12 subwoofer, and the movie has bass, but definitely not the most bass intensive movie I have ever seen. I just rewatched Jurrassic park and that movie is BASS INTENSIVE, even casino royale is more bass intensive then transformers.

The end of transformers is the only part of the movie that can be identified as bass intensive. Theres little bass parts here and there in between, but its only the end that gets good.

Annie has more bass than transformers.

Hahah, The one real dissapointment in bass is where the helicopter (blackout) is shooting everyone up at the beginning of the movie, those blue bombs he was shooting with sonic waves should at least have had the same impact as when Sauron exploded at the beginning of LOTR FOTR. But it was very weak.

I think as others have investigated, the bass from the sonic wave could be lower than many subs go, hence weakening its effect. But Although it still feels a little light when I turn up my lfe about 6db, the ironhide jump does have a lot of bass. That bass should be there without having to change the lfe setting, maybe just a volume increase. To get the right bass with a volume increase I would blow up my center.

Yes, I am guessing about the A3's SETUP menu. I only have a XA1 and a XA2.

But I do have an old Panasonic HE70 connected to a XA1 via both 5.1 analog and Toslink. The HE70 AVR does nothing to the 5.1 analog input - just a pass thru. I am happy with the bass out of Transformers (esp the later final fight scenes) on either 5.1 analog or optical (same on both for me after my audio calibration). My 15" DIY sub is tuned to 14 Hz.

No it's not. Encoding is pretty much an automated process. Prior to that the mixing engenieer will check the tracks to be sure all is good. Rather using BM or not.
I've been to plenty theaters in my life, and they lack the bottom 2 octaves[below 35hz] especially the THX ones since they're call for a rolloff below that FR. I wouldn't use any reference to commercial cinema experience regarding bass be it a good experience, or bad.
JP has no bass below 30hz, and most of it resides in the 50-80hz range.Which for many people is what bass is. For some like me it's midrange. JP is long in the tooth and it shows.
It was rather tremendous at my house.
I agree on this one. That scene registered very little on my Beringher EQ which has LEDs for level input/output.

Transformers did show inconsistency problems with certain scenes, but it was overall a very bassy movie, and that inlcudes the score too.

I have the A1 and HD Transformers and it was rocking my HT room! For one I do not trust the bass management of the A1, therefore in the A1's 5.1 (analog-out) setup I have all speakers set to Large and set the correct speaker distance and all dB levels are at zero. So setting the A1's 5 speaker size to all Large disables any Bass Management crossover doesn't matter at this point and set Sub to "USE". My Yamaha HTR-5960 has 7.1 Discrete inputs. With the Yamaha volume at -3.5dB and using the HD DVD DVE and my SPL meter I set my pair of Paradigm Monitor 11's, Paradigm CC-390 and pair of Paradigm Mini-Monitors to 75dB; my 12" Paradigm PW-2200 sub is calibrated to 90dB.

Having my audio system totally discrete with a sub that can handle the very low frequencies and disabling any A1 bass management is key to getting all the LFE out of the HD DVD Transformers movie.

...Angelo

From this Ironhide part to the end of the movie is one big demo piece IMO for HT sound! Just Awesome.

Wow, that's low. I'm curious, do you get something on the blue shockwave that most others don't? On my system, it seems like I hear the tone going down, but just before the windows blow, I don't get anything. I've wondered if it was lower than my sub could handle. Odd, though, you'd think they would adjust that for the vast majority of sub owners. Very few would have a sub like yours. Most cutoff in the low 20's.

It's hard to judge the relative impressions of this movie by different people - I didn't see this movie in a theater so I don't have that frame of reference...

I can compare it with my benchmarks for bass....so my relative rating (putting WOTW at the top) based on recent viewings of all:

WOTW (DTS) = 10
Haunting (DTS) = 9
Incredibles = 8-9

Transformers = 4

I'd be interested in others' relative impression of Transformers compared to these other movies....

Honestly overall I would put Transformers above all the movies you listed and atleast an 8 as far as the way you are judging, but WOTW has stronger single LFE moments than Trans. The reason Trans is better IMO is because while not quite the strength of the WOTW LFE, there is so much more of it and it is still very strong at times.

However going by your scale and by the way you are judging I would put Trans in the Incredibles category, while at the same time putting the Haunting below the Incredibles and Trans. Just for reference I watched Trans on the A35 bitstreaming the DD+ to the Onkyo 885 which may have something to do with it.

Or, the level when the two tanks are dropping. I get nothing.

Wow, almost 800 posts and this is still not settled.

IMO, what's on the disc is what they put there - not as good as it should be. 30 - 50 foot tall robots should provide an overwhelming sonic experience. It's not. They should have done better.

I'm not going to say that my sound system is the best. It's pretty good

My personal favorite low bass demo is chapter 3 of Serenity. You're in a spaceship that's in trouble. You have no doubt about that, you can feel it. Transformers at it's best moments barely approaches that.

But there's an incredibly easy bass test that's over 30 years old and still is valid - it nearly instantly shows that HTIB and many other systems are crap. It's "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd - the heartbeat on the first track is very revealing. It fades up to it's peak volume at about 30 seconds in. It's deep and tight, and any 'breathing' or odd sounds shows that your system isn't up to the task. I don't know that it goes particularly low, but it's nearly foolproof - if it doesn't sound like a heartbeat, it's not right.

Try this - you might be surprised.