Help a new guy out!? (1 Viewer)

cleanfreak · Jan 19, 2015

Greetings my fellow audioholics-

I am new to this world of home theater and I need some help.

I have upgraded from a samsung soundbar with wireless sub to a 5.2 surround system. My system is powered by a Denon S500BT. I am pretty satisfied with the initial set up using the 'auto setup' feature in the Denon, but I have a few questions.

1.I have read that it is best to do a manual set up with all the speakers set to 'small' and set the subwoofers to 'LFE'. When I do this, I get NO sound from the subwoofers. They act like they are not receiving a signal at all. I have all the 'small' speakers set at 80 and the subwoofer set at 120. Thoughts?

2. I am also somewhat confused on what mode I actually need to be watching movies on. When I play a blu ray disc my only real choice that gets surround is multi channel stereo. When I stream a movie from Amazon prime, I get Dolby Digital and multi channel stereo. I read somewhere that the best sound is produced via PCM. How can I make sure I using PCM? What 'mode' on the Denon will provide PCM as none of the options display this setting?

Thanks for your help and thanks for a nice forum.

Jason Charlton · Jan 19, 2015

Welcome to the forum!

What source devices do you have and how are they connected? I have a feeling you may still have all of your sources connected to the TV and are using the TVs optical output to feed the receiver (this is likely the way the sound bar was connected).

If this is the case, this could well be your problem - since your TV will only output 2.0 stereo.

If in fact, you have your devices connected to the receiver via HDMI cables, then it becomes a matter of making sure that the source(s) are set up to output digital 5.1 and the receiver is configured to receive it correctly.

First, verify that your sources are connected via HDMI to the receiver.

cleanfreak · Jan 19, 2015

Jason Charlton said:
Welcome to the forum!

What source devices do you have and how are they connected? I have a feeling you may still have all of your sources connected to the TV and are using the TVs optical output to feed the receiver (this is likely the way the sound bar was connected).

If this is the case, this could well be your problem - since your TV will only output 2.0 stereo.

If in fact, you have your devices connected to the receiver via HDMI cables, then it becomes a matter of making sure that the source(s) are set up to output digital 5.1 and the receiver is configured to receive it correctly.

First, verify that your sources are connected via HDMI to the receiver.

Thanks for your reply.

I have all my sources connected to the receiver via HDMI and then the single HDMI from the receiver out to the TV. All devices are set to output digital 5.1.

Sources:

Directv

Samsung blu ray player

ROKU

All are connected correctly and they work as long as I do an 'auto setup' from the receiver. As soon as I change the settings manually, I lose the subwoofer signal.

Perhaps it is a crossover setting? Volume setting?

Any thoughts on my 2nd question?

Jason Charlton · Jan 19, 2015

I'm not familiar with the Denon nomenclature for listening modes and such, but generally speaking if you're listening to a DD or DTS soundtrack from Blu-ray, you should not be using any sort of listening mode. It should be left on "Direct" or some such similar setting. There's no need for extra processing. You should have your Blu-ray player set to output "bitstream" and just let the receiver do the decoding.

A lot of this comes down to really poring over your manual to fully understand what the listening modes do and how they are supposed to be used.

If any sort of manual setting is resulting in no subwoofer output, but auto setup IS producing subwoofer, then there's something you're missing in the manual setup.

Make sure the volume dial on the subwoofer is at 50% and the crossover dial on the subwoofer is set to maximum. Phase has no real bearing for basic calibration.

In the receiver, setting the mains to "small" and subwoofer to "yes" should allow you to set a crossover for the subwoofer. Choose a value based on the capabilities of your mains.

That should be all there is to it - provided your BR player input on the receiver is set up to handle DD/DTS soundtracks.

cleanfreak · Jan 19, 2015

Jason Charlton said:
I'm not familiar with the Denon nomenclature for listening modes and such, but generally speaking if you're listening to a DD or DTS soundtrack from Blu-ray, you should not be using any sort of listening mode. It should be left on "Direct" or some such similar setting. There's no need for extra processing. You should have your Blu-ray player set to output "bitstream" and just let the receiver do the decoding.

A lot of this comes down to really poring over your manual to fully understand what the listening modes do and how they are supposed to be used.

If any sort of manual setting is resulting in no subwoofer output, but auto setup IS producing subwoofer, then there's something you're missing in the manual setup.

Make sure the volume dial on the subwoofer is at 50% and the crossover dial on the subwoofer is set to maximum. Phase has no real bearing for basic calibration.

In the receiver, setting the mains to "small" and subwoofer to "yes" should allow you to set a crossover for the subwoofer. Choose a value based on the capabilities of your mains.

That should be all there is to it - provided your BR player input on the receiver is set up to handle DD/DTS soundtracks.

Thanks.

I will try again this evening and set the crossover to full and try again.

The Denon does have a 'direct' setting.

The blue ray player can do the following audio out:

Dolby Digital
LPCM
AAC
HE-AAC
WMA
DD+
MP3
DTS
However,The blue ray player states the following:
"audio decoder does not support lossless audio if the number of channels is more than 2"

I am assuming setting the audio out on on the blu ray to bitstream will allow the receiver to to output the correct signal?

David Willow · Jan 19, 2015

First thing I suggest is read this: http://batpigworld.com/wp/

It will translate much of the nonsense in the Denon manual.

FYI - Direct means bypass all processing in the receiver. You probably want to match the input to the output (i.e, if the source is Dolby True HD, the surround setting should be Dolby True HD).

Sam Posten · Jan 19, 2015

Agreed, Batpig is a fantastic Denon resource! Denon to english!

Robert_J · Jan 19, 2015

cleanfreak said:
I am assuming setting the audio out on on the blu ray to bitstream will allow the receiver to to output the correct signal?

Correct. I have a Samsung Blu-ray player, a pair of DirecTV receivers and a Roku all connected to my receiver. To get digital audio to the receiver I must go into each one and set them to bitstream or whatever name they use.

cleanfreak · Jan 20, 2015

Thank you all for your help.

Last night I was able to get things working correctly. It seems my issue was the set up of the Samsung blu ray player. Once I set it to bitstream, along with several other changes, everything started working correctly with great sound.

ArmSC · Jan 20, 2015

cleanfreak said:
Thank you all for your help.

Last night I was able to get things working correctly. It seems my issue was the set up of the Samsung blu ray player. Once I set it to bitstream, along with several other changes, everything started working correctly with great sound.

Glad to hear that you go everything working. When setup properly the Denon should default to DD if available if you have it on any of the movie soundfields.

cleanfreak · Jan 20, 2015

Yes. The Denon is now defaulting correctly IF the source produces DD, etc......

I also have a Darbee 5000 to be deilivered today. Amazon Prime had it for $199 so I jumped on it. I read there were some who had handshake issues when it was first introduced.

Are these issues still present?

Robert_J · Jan 20, 2015

Most of us here are purists with both audio and video. Something like the Darbee 5000 that adds to the signal is not very popular. In fact, the first thing most of us do is turn down the sharpness on our new TVs because it adds something to the signal that was not there on the original source.

schan1269 · Jan 20, 2015

Robert_J said:
Most of us here are purists with both audio and video. Something like the Darbee 5000 that adds to the signal is not very popular. In fact, the first thing most of us do is turn down the sharpness on our new TVs because it adds something to the signal that was not there on the original source.

Now Robert...Darbee isn't a sharpening tool...

(Sarcasm)

cleanfreak · Jan 20, 2015

ooops. I did not mean to press the any buttons concerning the Darbee. I was unaware of the purists members.

cheers

David Willow · Jan 20, 2015

Never heard of it so I looked it up. Don't give a rats behind about purist BS, but how do you 'enhance' images? You want better picture, get a better source. Otherwise, don't waste your money.

Next my stereo will include a button to enhance mp3's (oh, wait, it already does)... SMH

Al.Anderson · Jan 21, 2015

... set to 'small' and set the subwoofers to 'LFE'

Not sure where you ended up, but small/LFE might not be a good idea. Small sends the main channel low end to the sub and LFE says to only play the LFE channel on the sub; the end result of those two setting is the main channel low frequencies are thrown away. I said "might" be a bad idea because you receiver may not be using the settings literally, but I've never used Denon so am not sure.

David Willow · Jan 21, 2015

Al.Anderson said:
Not sure where you ended up, but small/LFE might not be a good idea. Small sends the main channel low end to the sub and LFE says to only play the LFE channel on the sub; the end result of those two setting is the main channel low frequencies are thrown away. I said "might" be a bad idea because you receiver may not be using the settings literally, but I've never used Denon so am not sure.

As long as your speakers are set to small, the LFE setting is meaningless. Leave it at LFE. If you have the speakers set to large, then LFE means "only send the LFE channel to the sub". LFE+Mains means "double bass" (again, assuming mains set to large).

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