|   What to do... What to do... What to do... | ht_newbie
Nov 7, 2003 1:12 PM | | Hi,
I have a HK225 and Paradigm Titans as fronts and Paradigm CC-170 as center. I presently do not have rears and the sub. These are awesome but I have a small issue. When wathcing VHS movies, I use the DPro II or VMax Far and it works good. When I use VMax though, the center channel is dead. DPII works better in this case. The issue is when watching DVD's. I use the digitial audio out of my DVD player. If I use the DD, then the volume is kinda low and HK doesn't allow me to shift to any other mode except VMax(which kills of my center). Is there any way to fake it to use DPro II in this case too..Or should I use the analog audio out of my DVD player and the set HK to use Dpro II.
What to do... What to do... What to do...
Regards,
RnM |
| Your answer is right there in your post ... | woodman
Nov 7, 2003 2:14 PM | | ... when you say:
b "Or should I use the analog audio out of my DVD player and the set HK to use Dpro II."
Yes, that is exactly what you must do in order to use ProLogicII. If your receiver will decode DolbyDigital and/or DTS, you can use the digital output from the DVD player and get approximately the same result. You say that when using this option, the volume is "kinda low" ... can't you bring it up to the level you want with the receiver's volume control? If not, there may be a defect in the receiver. If this is what's happening, you have two options - either get the receiver checked out, or simply use the analog output from the DVD player and use the receiver in DPL2 mode.
woodman |
| re: What to do... What to do... What to do... | poneal
Nov 7, 2003 2:28 PM | | I got 6 minutes so here goes. Yes you must use the analog outputs if you want to use dpl II. As far as doing this because the volume is to low doesn't make sense. Most HK receivers allow you to go in a adjust the channel for each channel. Plus they send out pink noise to get you somewhere in the ballpark. I have the HK-325 and it set my channels automatically us the EZ-Set option. On HK receivers if you have done this and the receivers volume is at -15 you should be hearing lots of sound. If this is not the case something is wrong and needs to be looked into. Hope this helps. Time to go home :-). |
| re: What to do... What to do... What to do... | Quagmire
Nov 8, 2003 8:09 AM | | You may be able to activate the Dpro II with the digital connection by changing the DVD player's audio out from "bitrate" to "PCM". I know this works with standard Pro Logic so it may work with Dpro II too.
As far as the volume issues, I suspect two things:
1. The discrete formats (DD, DTS) offer far more dynamic range than older formats such as Pro Logic. This means that the seperation between quiet sounds and loud sounds is more pronounced. Sonically, this is a good thing but it can also take some time to get used to it. It's not uncommon for people who have recently upgraded to these discrete formats to complain that they have to turn the volume way up in order to hear dialog and then when some loud event happens on screen, such as an explosion, the volume is way too loud. You may be able to compensate for this by engaging the "dynamic compression" mode which may be available on your receiver. This compression setting is sometimes called "midnight movie" or "night-time movie" or some other clever name. Whatever they are call it, its purpose is to reduce the relative volume differences between the quiet and loud sounds. If you're not familar with this setting you should refer to the owners manual for the receiver. You can find this mode on some DVD players too.
2. Dolby's "Dialog Normalization" can also be responsible for reduced volume for DD sources compared to non-DD sources. Unfortunately your pretty much out of luck with this issue unless you own a receiver or pre/pro which allows you to turn off this function like my pre/pro does. Unless this has changed in the last few years, I don't think you'll find many that do.
One other point that should be made is the importance of properly calibrating your system so that each speaker is reproducing its sounds at the correct level. In particular, having the center channel speaker set to the right level can increase dialog intelligibility which in turn reduces your tendancy to turn the volume up just to hear what the people on the screen are saying.
Good luck with this issue... hope you find something in this post which is helpful. ;-)
Q |
| re: What to do... What to do... What to do... | poneal
Nov 9, 2003 1:34 AM | | This is a correction to my previous post. I went home and tried dpl II with my DVD(using an optical connection) and it let me switch to dpl II on pcm sources. You just have to select the avr button after you have selected your DVD and then press the dolby button repeatedly until dplII-music appears. Sorry for the previous misinformation. |
| re: What to do... What to do... What to do... | ht_newbie
Nov 10, 2003 8:34 AM | | Thanks all for the excellent advice.. I didn't know abt. the "midnight mode".. Thats a cool trick...
Thanks again. |
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