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"Home Brew" EX/ES Question (1 Viewer)

Christopher Cheadle

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Through a pleasent twist of fate, I have found myself in posession of a nice Onkyo DPL receiver. I have hooked it up to my Pioneer Elite 24tx and have a question. I have run stereo cables from the surround l&r preouts to the stereo inputs on the Onkyo. I have a center channel speaker hooked to the center channel outs on the Onkyo. My question is as follows: Is it possible to still get the "proper" center surround activity (with the Onkyo in DPL mode) if I only hook the center surround speaker to the DPL receiver and continue to use the amps in the Elite to drive the L&R surround speakers? The reason why I ask is that the amps in the Pioneer are cleaner and I want to minimize any extra noise coming from the rear.

Not sure if this makes sense, but any help would be appreciated (I did a search and really did not find anything that helped with my specific problem).

One other thing. Does anyone have a good suggestion on how to set the center channel level to correspond with the calibration of the other 5 speakers?
 

John H

Second Unit
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Is it possible to still get the "proper" center surround activity (with the Onkyo in DPL mode) if I only hook the center surround speaker to the DPL receiver and continue to use the amps in the Elite to drive the L&R surround speakers?
You will create a rear center channel with that configuration.
You will not experience an EX/ES rear stage unless you use the Main L/R outputs on the DPL unit to feed/drive the side surrounds.
John
 

Rachael B

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Christopher, you can use your Elite to do everything but the rear centre. Take the L & R surround pre-outs and take them to 'Y' splitters. Take one set back into the Elite and you have your L & R S's. Take the duplicate pre-outs over to Onkyo to make the rear centre. This works great. I hooked up this way with an old Sony DPL pre to test drive EX about 2 years ago. I bought a Smart Jr. EX Proccessor soon thereafter though.
From a purist viewpoint, some may argue that this hook-up is not perfect because the R centre info is in both the sides and rear centre. This is true. I say so what if it sounds good to you. I'd suggest that you set the rear centre a bit louder than the sides to bring it out, so to speak. Once you hook it all up, go straight to the pod race on DVD or LD. Nothing beats it IMHO! Best wishes!
 

Christopher Cheadle

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OK. So if I take the preouts to a splitter, how do I get them back to the Elite? Would that require that my receiver have inputs for each channel as well (the 24tx does not)?
 

Wes

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If you want EX then let the Onkyo process all the rear speakers off its front stage. Other wise when a Mono/EX sound is played that should be only in the EX channel will also be in the Surround Left and Right! This is exactly what Lucas was trying to fix with the creation of EX.
I have a Pioneer VSXd709s DD/DTS and an Onkyo TSX455 DPL set to "Dolby Prologic Normal" for EX and then simply switch it to "Stereo" for 5.1. I tested the Pioneer and the Onkyo amps against each other and found the 75W of the Onkyo to be a bit better sounding and more powerful than the Pioneer Mosfet 100W.
I do love the EX processing for most all 5.1 and EX encoded discs and would not be with out it in my theater.
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Wes
 

Rachael B

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Christopher, that's a cheap trick that Pioneer pulled! No main-in's, bummer! I didn't know they had taken that shortcut. That's really crappy! One of the other reasons for having pre-out's and main-in's besides going to outboard amps is the ability to send the sound out to an Equalizer or other processor. The main-in's let you then return the sound back to the reciever's amp. I didn't know they had scimped like that. I've always done seperates for HT to avoid these kinds of roadblocks. That settles that! Best wishes!
 

Kevin C Brown

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Chris- There's actually another reason to let the Onkyo do all the processing *and* amplification for the rears: you're taking the "strain" of supplying that power off of the Pioneer, which may actually get you a gain in the front soundstage, which *is* more important than the rear soundstage.

And, depending on the vintage of Onkyo DPL receiver you have, you probably won't notice the difference in the rears anyway.

Congrats!
 

Jim Thompson

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May 18, 1999
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43
Rachael B,Christopher should be able to do exactly what

you described,but without the Y connectors.Simply hooking

some interconnects to the pre outs should't interupt the

internal signal path to the internal amps of the Pioneer receiver.In other words,Christopher doesn't need the Y conectors to achieve the results you're recommending.Just connect two interconnects to the L & R surround preouts.Then connect those to the L & R main in on any of the Onkyo's stereo inputs ,like video 1,2 ,CD,VCR etc...The L & R surrounds will still get their signal and power from the Pioneer and th Onkyo can derive the center channel.

Of course,this will still allow center channel imformation to be played through the L&Rsurrounds as Wes was saying,but this will achieve the objective that Rachael was talking about.

Rachael,many receivers have Pre-outs and main ins for the L & R mains,but not for the other speakers.It actually isn't that uncommon to only have pre-outs for the surrounds.
 

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