Surround Sound - Volume goes up and down (1 Viewer)

[BrianTran]

I just intstalled my HK AVR-7000. I set up 2 front and 2 surround speakers. When put into surround mode, I want all 4 speakers to play. Only the "theater" setting works. As for the other settings, (hall, vmax, dolby logic 7 . . . ) either only 2 front speakers works or when all 4 speaker is working, the volume goes up and down.

What is this? Why does the volume do this?
(I'm playing CD's setting on my DVD player)

I would like to use my reciever up to its full advantage.

 

[Rick_Brown]

Brian, you should keep in mind that as CD's are stereo you can get unpredictable results when you use one of the surround soundfields. Certain kinds of sounds get picked up by the surrounds more aggresively than others depending on the CD. This could explain whay you are getting varying levels from the rears. Do you have Dolby PL-II on your receiver? You may find this works best for CD's if you wish to listen in surround.

But first of all, make sure that you have set up your receiver correctly. You have to use the setup menus to "tell" your receiver that you do not have a center channel. You may have to repeat this for every soundfield. Have a really good look at your user manual.

Also, how are you connected to the receiver? Via digital coax or optical? You may want to connect up analog L/R cables to the CD input on your receiver.

 

[BrianTran]

Thanks Rick for your Reply . . .

I will try this tonight. I will hook up the analog to the cd inputs and digital coaxal to dvd.
I never thought of that.

Yes, I did tell the reciever no center channel.

NO, I do not have Dolby PL-II

I have Dolby Digital, Logic 7, and VMax.

 

[Lee Carbray]

Does the volume fluctuate on the 2 main speakers or just the surrounds?

 

[BrianTran]

Lee . .

It fluctuate on the two rear surrounds.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Yep- you're applying "surround" processing to a source not designed to be surround. It is attempting to extract surround info from a signal NOT designed to be extracted- and so it's failing.

What it sound like you're looking for is a 5 channel stereo mode (which basicially takes a copy of what is in the front and puts it in the surround channels)--- this seems to be popular among people who think "if I'm not using all the speakers all the time, I wasted my money"-- I personally think it sounds like dog poo- but to each his own.

Products like DENON offer a 5 channel stereo mode- I don't know about your AVR-7000.

 

[Lee Carbray]

Vince, you took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[JamesHl]

I always thought NAD's EARS sounds alright compared to a lot of other options, but I too prefer stereo.

 

[Jason GT]

It doesn't look like this AVR has multichannel stereo.

Usually, using DPL (/DPL II) Logic7 etc is supposed to preserve the front soundstage/image while giving you a bit of surround reverb for additional ambience. Multichannel stereo simply sends the left stereo signal to the left front and left surround, right stereo signal to the right front and surround, and a composite to the center channel (if indedd you have one.).

I can't speak for "Hall" or "Theatre", but Vmax is a simulated surround mode which attempts to give surround sound with two speakers (ie, Vmax is a 2-channel mode).

 

[BrianTran]

Thanks for all the reply guys.

It seems like what I was looking for was a 5 channel stereo mode. No, the AVR-7000 does not have this feature. Looks like I will sell this.

I should have done some more researching before buying such an expensive amp. I was just mainly looking at the watts per channel.

Any of you guys know of a good 5 channel stero reciever for around $1000?

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Ignore this entirely- it's a non standard measurement which means nothing across brands-- read how it sounds, and LISTEN, ignore that number, it's useless.

 

[BrianTran]

Thanks Vince for your helpful information.

Yes, I will consider my amp before selling. You were right about how I just want all speakers to play at once because I just got the amp and reciever and I want to play it all. But, I bet that I will later understand that surround is the way to go. I'll try it out for a month before I reconsider.

I have b&w LM1's for my surround and love to blast these suckers away! YOU catch ME?

But, I certainly understand perfectly where you are coming from.

Thanks again for the info.!

 

[JohnnyG]

I'm almost certain that the AVR7000 has a 5-channel stereo mode.

 

[Yee-Ming]

As a workaround, perhaps you could "create" your own multichannel stereo by hooking up the left analog output of the DVD player to a splitter, and feed these into the analog inputs of both the left front and left surround, and do the same for the right? You can see that this would result in both left front and left surround playing back the left channel information, and the same for the right side.

You would continue using the digital output of the DVD player + digital input on the receiver for regular DD/DTS, or even for plain stereo with only your front pair, but when you want so-called multichannel stereo, you'd switch to analog inputs on your receiver.

Not sure if this is workable, there may be reduced signal issues, perhaps more expert members can comment?

And of course this wouldn't work if you were using the analog inputs of the receiver for SACD or DVD-A already.