Need help with SH-AC500D (1 Viewer)

[pitchman]

I have a Technics SH-AC500D digital surround processor I bought three or four years ago and have been very pleased with its peformance, except for one thing. The unit "auto-detects" source material (DD,DTS, etc), which results in a one-second or so delay when the processor kicks in. Normally, this is not an issue with DVDs since they usually start with an FBI warning screen or some such. But, since I have begun gaming in 5.1 surround sound (PS2 & Xbox), this delay is driving me batty... especially on the PS2 when it switches from DD to ProLogic in some games.

So, my question is this. Does anyone know of a way to bypass this auto-detect function or shut it off? Since the remote allows you to manually select various inputs, I'm wondering if there is a way to do this.

Aside from this one nagging issue, the SH-AC500D has performed like a champ, so I really have no other reason to replace it. Any help with this is very much appreciated!

Gary

 

[Gregg Loewen]

Gary, I cant answer your question but hope you dont mind if I ask another as I just purchased one myself (still waiting on delivery).

The the unit offer 5.1 channel input, or is it just 5.1 channel pass through?

Gregg

 

[pitchman]

Gregg, I'm not entirely sure I understand the question, but the unit has three types of inputs: 2 optical in, 2 coaxial in and a line in (for 6 separate RCA cables). If you press "line" on the remote, the processor goes into pass-through mode. Is that what you mean?

Gary

 

[Gregg Loewen]

when you do this, does it just pass the 5.1 input signal or can you adjust the volume with the 5.1 signal?

 

[pitchman]

D'oh! Now I understand what you are asking.

Yes, you have control over speaker size, delay, distance, etc and a separate 100-watt volume control for your sub (in case it is passive, like mine.) I know quite some time ago (maybe two years back?) there was a thread here about where the default crossover is set on this thing, but since I didn't really understand the technical nature of some of the discussion, I simply set all my speakers to 'small' and selected 'yes' for sub and have had no problems. Your mileage may vary.

Gary

 

[Gregg Loewen]

thank you Gary!!!!

Now for somebody to answer your question...

 

[Jeremy Allin]

Gary:
While this may not be overly helpful, I also have the SH-AC500D and know exactly what you're talking about. That 'delay' doesn't seem to affect DVDs that much (for some reason it keeps the signal active).
I have my DVD player hooked up via the optical input (and my PS2 hooked up through the other one). If I listen to an MP3 CD with my DVD player, if it has received a signal for about 1 second it seems to take about 1 - 1.5 seconds to recognize the signal and beginning tranmitting. This results in the loss of the first 1 - 1.5 seconds of a song. As you said it also happens with PS2 games. Very unpleasant indeed.
I'm sorry but I've read the manual over and over and tweaked settings endlessly but I think we're stuck with the problem. :frowning:

 

[pitchman]

Since I posted this over the holiday weekend, I wanted to run this back up the flag pole to see if any of you regular week-dayers could shed any light on this. Thanks!

Gary