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Acurus ACT3 and phantom center channel

276 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by wclark, Nov 9, 2000

wclark

Discussion Starter · Sep 24, 2000

I dont know how many of you ACT3 owners out there want or need to operate with a phantom center channel, but I do.

If you do and have tried to use dts you may have noticed there is no provision for phantom center channel or LFE rerouting like is available in Dolby modes.

I contacted Mondial a week or so ago about this and they are working with Crystal Semiconductor (the maker of the dts decoder) to try to come up with a solution. It seems early on dts was not allowing such things but more recently relented and such features are appearing in processors.

Great folks those people at Mondial. Ltd.

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Dave928

· #2 · Sep 24, 2000

it's dts's fault, not Mondials. if dts has eased up on their policy, i'd be fairly confident that Mondial will come up with a change. they always treated me good when i had my ACT 3...

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dave

Widescreen DVD - Because a superior format requires superior formatting.

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avdoc

· #3 · Sep 25, 2000

David is correct, DTS did not allow for a phantom center when the processors came out. This is the main reason I have given up on DTS. I was a big DTS supporter when it came out on LD but their non-provision of a phantom center option left me very disappointed. I wrote them a nasty letter pointing out that many high-end system owners used the phantom center mode but they were unimpressed. I recently purchased a new processor without DTS for this very reason. I have been very impressed with DD performance, however. My suggestion would be to forget about DTS as I have and enjoy DD.

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wclark

Discussion Starter · #4 · Nov 9, 2000

I have been in contact with Mondial over the past few weeks on this subject. They have indicated that the CS DSP will not be able to be easily modified to provide phantom center or mix LFE in modes other than DD/DPL.

I asked for and received a bit of tech support allowing me to design and implement my own analog level method within the preamp to allow phantom center channel in all modes as well as to route LFE to my front L/R outputs. I presently operate in the L/C/R/Surround/Subwoofer mode in the ACT3 and utilize my mod to route the center and LFE to my front speakers. This works extremely well in my setup. It resolves a few other issues I had as well. For instance most of the OTA digital TV and the Direct TV HD channels seem to broadcast in a DD/PL mode that resulted in the ACT3 going into DD but assuming I was in a LCR speaker mode - making me manually switch to stereo to be able to hear. This is resolved as well as the dts.

The modification requires a bit of soldering skill and care plus the insertion of 4 resistors. If you are interested, E-mail me. You may also want to contact Mondial designs, in particular if you are concerned about them supporting such a modification. They were supportive of me but I cant speak for them supporting others doing this.

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