***Official MERGED "Should I get 6.1 (or 7.1) - Is it worth it?" Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[scott>sau]

David, well, just two speakers in the surround is what Russ meant. Whether those two were at the sides, or they were in the rear. Russ and commercial theaters agree to have back and side surrounds both is more intense. I have sides and rears playing in my theater with my Lexicon pre-pro. In Lexicons "Logic 7" (L7) mode the side and rear speakers on either side may be playing the same material, or they may be not. In situations where you have a "hard panned" sound such as a door slamming, in the left surround channel this will be played back over both the left side and rear. However, if there is panning or movement of the sound from one surround speaker to the next, 5.1 L7 Film (and related effects/modes) can steer these sounds independently between all 4 surround speakers.
A little more on the person who quoted:" It's hard to be surrounded by sound with just 2 speakers" Russ Herschelmann:. He recently completed work as the project designer of Lutron/Disney's $4,000,000.00 "Ultimate Home Theater Experience", in Walt Disney World, FL. Along with being one of CEDIA's founding fathers, his work has been found in many HT magazines. He is beyond amateur.

 

[David Proud]

tbat is great. for small rooms and 1 row of seating I firmly stand by 4 speakers will provide 360degree sound field.
'
However in my situation with two rows and a dedicated room I am looking for a solution that will steer my effects better for my rear row. I currently have a denon avr 4800 ultra thx ex receiver and 2 monoblocks. What would be the most cost effecient method I could take to get this logic7 steering?

 

[scott>sau]

Dave, I cleared my cache, so I do not have your last post in front of me, but I do know you have a great receiver. Use that for your amplification and by-pass the processor you are using. Then get a Lexicon DC-2 V4 off Ebay, (figure $500). It has dual SPDIF (Coax and Toslink) Inputs. Wire a digital coax patch from your DVD player OUTput to the DC-2 Coax INput. Wire the 7.1 RCA OUTputs to your Denon. You will need a inexpensive receiver, or power amp for the "rears". Wire the DC-2 Rear RCA OUTputs to your AUX receiver, or amp INput. The secret to Logic 7 is the Lexicon processor, (chip). Although they have 5.1 DD, DTS, THX, and the newer pre-pro's extended surround, most Lexicon users like the L7 because the steering provides such spooky realism. I feel that is the cheapest route. I know a more expensive route also.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Well, Lexicon is now part of Harman international, so Harman Kardon recievers can feature Logic 7. Other than that, you'd need to buy a Lexicon processor.
Well, I WAS having problems viewing the manual for your AVR-4800, but i got it to work. OBviously, being a Denon, your reciever is not equipped with Logic 7, which is sort of it's own beast. And since your reciever is of a slightly older vintage, it doesn't have the THX Ultra 2 processing, or it's own proprietary processing to creat two *different* (albeit usually only slightly different) Surround Back channels. Your reciever can handle DD EX, and DTS-ES. I'm not clear whether it handles DTS-ES discrete, you'd know that better than I. It has the provision for using two extra amps for those back two speakers, but those are running in mono. I am sort of assuming that you are using your monoblocks for the front L/R, and then using the reciever's amps for the surround backs.
While moving to 6.1/7.1 speaker setup can be well worth it from a 5.1 setup, buying a whole new reciever, or processor to get newer processing to create 4 different signals in the back, rather than 3 distributed to 4 speakers as you have is getting really picky. I wouldn't spend anything to get that, you won't get much of a difference, unless you were upgrading to a really top-notch reciever, which you already have...
I'm not that familiar with how Logic 7 actually works, I was under the impression that it worked on both discrete sources AND stereo. But then LOTR had an L7 encoded stereo track I believe, so I'm confused as to what Logic 7 actually does. Moving to a Logic 7 system may or may not be worth it, but since i dun even know what the heck it is/does...I have no idea.

 

[David Proud]

ok if I do not upgrade to logic7 we all agree that I should not place my side speakers any closer than 1ft behind my primary listening position. B/c without the logic7 dsp I would loose directional rear side information.

 

[scott>sau]

I would agree, as would Dolby, DTS and even Lexicon that if you only use just two surrounds go for the sides. Funny though IMAX places their point source surrounds in the rear corner and they use no sides. Hard to beat IMAX sonics. Anyway, Logic 7 is basically Lexicon's Stereo Pro Logic, (stereo surround, not mono) and although DD and DTS surround formats offer discrete, stereo surround channels, the L7 added the enhanced stereo back channels. Now everybody is doing it. (Well, Dolby, DTS, and THX). Lexicon's CP-1 pre-pro was their older, pioneer processor and it had "Stereo Surround" and "Music Surround". If you contacted Stuart, from the SMR forum www.smr-forums.com he has a designated section on asking anything about Lexicon products and Lexicon theory.

 

[Steve Marsh]

I have not read any of the responnses in this thread but I would like to give MO.
GO 7.1 for sure. It is not a night and day diff but is certainly a sig improvement over 5.1 and the diff in price is really not that great depending on what type of sys you plan. Of course if you plan to use all full range speakers and mono block amps then the cost consideration is multiplied. As far as recievers stand alone or used as a pre-pro the price diff between 5.1 and 7.1 is not that great.
In some movies (even ones without discrete back soundtracks) the diff is real big and in others some even with the discrete channel the diff is small. It all depends on the audio mix of the disk and the directors or authors intentions or abilities.

 

[david*mt]

Is DTS-ES discrete a big improvement over DTS-ES matrix? My Yamaha HTR-5560 does perform DTS-ES matrix but not discrete. Even still, DTS-ES discrete dvds sound fantastic on my 6.1 system with the matrix mode. The rear channel is still very pronouned in LOTR, Gladiator, and Blade II in DTS ES. I just wondered if it would be worth upgrading my receiver for that one feature because all DTS-ES discrete tracks are matrix compatible.

 

[scott>sau]

Whatever surround format name you want to call it, a discrete format is more fun any day than a matrix one. With a discrete side/rear surround setup the side and rear speakers on either side may be playing the same material, or they may not. In situations where you have a "hard panned" sound such as a door slamming, in the left surround channel this will be played back over the left side from one surround speaker to the next! Discrete surround formats can steer these sounds independently between all 4 surround speakers. It is your call, but once you experience it you don't go back.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Whatever surround format name you want to call it, a discrete format is more fun any day than a matrix one.

But as has been pointed out on many prior occasions, DTS-ES Discrete isn't fully "discrete" in the usual sense. It has to perform some tricky processing on the left and right rears in order to filter out the redundant sound information that is contained in both those channels and the rear center, for backwards compatibility.

Opinions vary on the degree of improvement between the matrix and discrete variants of DTS-ES. I certainly wouldn't recommend upgrading a receiver just to add the discrete variety.

M.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I'm with Micheal.

The move to 6.1 versus 5.1 is, IMO worth it for a lot of people. But being nitpicky about DTS-ES matrix and discrete is really not worth it if you already have 6.1. First, the difference is ridiculously small, and theoretically, the results should be 100% identical. Lastly, while there are TONS of DTS movies in 5.1 that you can use matrix ES processing on, there are only a few in discrete. Keep in mind that the VAST majority of the time you'll be using DD anyway, and running EX processing on that to get matrixed 6.1. So buying a whole new reciever to watch a couple movies in true 6.1, which should sound 100% identical to the matrixed 6.1 is not worth it. Even with discrete 6.1, as pointed out, some processing must be done to strip the 6th channel information from the L/R surrounds. In reality, while I really think 6.1 is worth it, upgrading a reciever just for a little label that says "discrete" is not worth it.

 

[David Judah]

It has to perform some tricky processing on the left and right rears in order to filter out the redundant sound information that is contained in both those channels and the rear center, for backwards compatibility

I've heard others mention that before, but I don't understand what's so tricky about cancelling a known quantity; it seems like it would be fairly simple with less risk of deleterious effects than a straight matrix system. Having said that, I agree that a receiver upgrade wouldn't be worth it for that one feature because of the lack of software.

For those who have DTS demo disc #4 and a seperate release of Chicken Run you can compare the matrix and the discrete varities(the demo disc is discrete and the regular release reads as matrix even though it is listed as discrete). The scene is where Ginger is run through the chicken pie machine and Rocky goes in to save her. The particular moment when they are in the oven and the burners turn on with the sound panning around to the back provides the best basis for comparison.

DJ

 

[Michael Reuben]

I've heard others mention that before, but I don't understand what's so tricky about cancelling a known quantity

"Tricky" is my code word for anything that I've found hard to explain to a newbie. And I've had a lot of practice.
M.

 

[Josh~H]

I've read through these posts, and I've learned a few things. Now I have a question about my own 6.1 setup. I recently got a Yamaha HTR-5660 (DTS-ES discrete), and I have 6 Paradigm Atoms. At the moment I'm using 2 Atoms for front L/R, 2 for rear L/R, and one for rear center. I'm wondering whether it's worth it to go ahead and wire my second Atom as the second rear center channel.
Here's my room setup (not perfectly to scale unfortunately): http://apl.jhu.edu/~llama/ht/hometheater.pdf
The picture is no longer up to date: I exchanged the ADP-170's for 2 pairs of Atoms.
This might or might not help, but here's a view towards the rear of my room, with the lone center channel speaker appearing towards the left:

By looking at the .pdf above, you'll see that the back wall is not wide enough to put 2 rear center speakers very far apart (and still have them centered behind the seating position). Best case is I could put one at the edge of the wall ("right" rear center), and the other about 2 feet away -- and still be centered with the sofa. Could I angle these out slightly, and simulate the effect of having 2 rear centers spaced the recommended 4' apart?
Another consideration is that I would have to wire both rear centers together (probably in series). Will this just totally suck, or might it be worthwhile for an improved rear image?
By the way, I do enjoy the rear center 6.1 arrangement. If I already had a good 5.1 receiver, I wouldn't upgrade just to get 6.1 though (matrix OR discrete). It sounds pretty cool on FOTR:EE, but I don't perceive much of a benefit when matrixing DD 5.1 DVD's.

 

[Lewis Besze]

For those who have DTS demo disc #4 and a seperate release of Chicken Run you can compare the matrix and the discrete varities(the demo disc is discrete and the regular release reads as matrix even though it is listed as discrete). The scene is where Ginger is run through the chicken pie machine and Rocky goes in to save her. The particular moment when they are in the oven and the burners turn on with the sound panning around to the back provides the best basis for comparison.

It's Demo #5 and they're both[demo and actual movie disc]encoded as "Discrete". The backside on the label[movie] doesn't specify what type of "ES" same goes for the disc and menu.It does say 5.1 though.
Perhaps you confused this with the Haunting,which is on demo #4 and encoded in ES Matrix,the ES dvd is Discrete.

 

[David Judah]

You're right it is #5. My processor reads the regular release as matrix. It could be a glitch in the decoder, but I haven't had any problems with other titles.

DJ

 

[peter m. wilson]

Hi,
I equate the size of my HT as being a "very large car". Its mostly 15dx10w and opens to about 12w at the seating position.

I have a Denon 5800/03 and use up to 3pair of surrounds for film, but just 1 pair for music unless it's a dts-es disc.

The effects speakers which sit on the shelf of a doorless double closet behind the seating poition deffinitely add to the movie experience not to mention 7ch stereo that i use for sports.

Those speakers can be really inexpensive for what they do.
they just add that little umph to the HT IMO.

Peter m.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I was patiently running my old Sony 5.1 receiver for years while others around me upgraded to 6.1. I just recently made the step and upgraded to a Yamaha RX-V2300. I could have easily made the upgrade to 6.1 years ago by purchasing a much cheaper Sony 6.1 receiver but I wanted quality power to go along with it. Budget does have something to do with it, yes. But if that budget requires you get a 6.1 receiver that has lousy low current amps or a 5.1 receiver with quality amps then the choice would be the 5.1. Keep in mind though that you may be able to get a quality 6.1 receiver within your budget.

Do your research before buying.

 

[randyJ]

Be advised that @ the CEDIA show to be held in Indianapolis this week, Dolby will announce their new 7.1... :b

 

[Trevor_J]

You're joking right?
Edit*
Nope, you're not joking. Here's the Press Release