Installers are saying Pro-Logic II better than DD or DTS! (1 Viewer)

[Eric Harrison]

What company in Toledo? I live about an hour away from Toledo.... This is absurd that this would happen. Lazy installers, you have to wonder what else they decided not to worry about or do......

 

[Chester II]

Dudes,

LOL...THAT is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while.

Dudes,

Chester

 

[Todd Smigelski]

Funny if it isnt your setup

Here's an excerpt from my conversation with the installers...

Installer: "see it's digital"

Me: "no its prologic II - its analog" "show me DD or the DTS light up on the reciever"

Installer: maybe this Fast & Furious dvd isnt DD or DTS....

Me: "uhh, it's actually both"

Actually his statement that a newer movie such as The Fast & the Furious maybe wasn't either format show's huge incompetence.

 

[DaveF]

What do you mean? Was there not physical digital input in the receiver? Or no unused digital input? That seems odd? Or just that the receiver didn't register the digital input and the installer didn't properly setup the receiver inputs through its menu system?

It's scary that installers are this careless and ignorant. While I know about stereos, I don't know anything about cars or construction. I could find myself in similar bind getting auto work done or when I buy a house. :frowning:

 

[Todd Smigelski]

Sorry, I meant No interconnect between the two

 

[LiorM]

Well, I guess they are stupid or has nothing to do with HT.
Sorry !

 

[Lewis Besze]

Bulldinky!
You need to get your money back or at least some of it! I hope it wasn't expensive.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Very true. Then again, I've seen some installers do the following:

- 100" viewable screen w/projector.
- 8" JM Labs "cub" subwoofer with a 75 watt amp. :frowning:
- Crossover set to 120 Hz or so on the sub - not sure what they programmed the receiver to crossover at - if they did at all.

Granted, this theater could have a lot of potential. However, the way the configured it, I'm not so sure. Also, I'm not sure what the "cub" runs, but I'd be willing to bet there would be so many other choices out there at the same price point that performed so much better.

I really hate to see when people are steered in the wrong direction when it comes to their money and how people recommend things. Granted, I may not have all the best options for people all the time, but I don't think I'd be able to steer them wrong and be able to sleep at night.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Fire them, they obviously have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what they are doing. Any installer worth letting in my home would be able to handle this. I mean good LORD best buy guys would know this! Radio shack guys would know this. God only knows what they put together as the system. I'll bet they don't even know what "calibration" is.

Whatever they are, they are NOT HT installers.

 

[RolandM]

No kidding these guys should be banned from doing installs in the state of Ohio! And any other state they install in!

I'm scared to ask what he's paying these losers... After that I wouldn't even let them touch the equipment anymore and send them packing.

Was this installer provided by or recommended by the store he purchased the stuff in? (Unless he purchased online?). If it had something to do with the store(s) he purchased the gear in I'd go back there and return everything bought (if possible) and tell them you're taking your business elsewhere...

 

[GregoriusM]

I've always laughed at people who throw around the idea that they are "professionals". All that means is that whatever they are doing is their "profession" at the time.

Now, "expert" is another word altogether. I prefer the latter.

If you can get an "expert professional" to do your job, you're one of the lucky ones.

Too many out there, in virtually any line of work, are "professionals", but not "experts" in their "profession"!!! :star:

 

[Cary P]

I agree that these installers are incompetent.

But in some cases, I do feel DPLII is superior to Dolby Digital or DTS.

If a DVD is encoded with full bitrate 2ch PCM sound, the non-compressed PCM track decoded into DPLII will likely sound better than any accompanying 5.1 DD or DTS track. The Beatles Anthology DVD's with 2ch PCM, and 5.1 DD and DTS audio tracks, are a good example of this.

However, DVD's with 2ch PCM soundtracks are rare, so in most cases the 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS track will sound better.

I often wonder why more DVD's, especially of older films, or concert videos, aren't released with 2 ch PCM soundtracks. DPLII is not just for analog signals, it can work quite well decoding 2 ch PCM as well.

 

[Ed Moxley]

Pass the word on to them that I said they are IDIOTS!

 

[Tom Rosback]

Idiots no doubt.

Here's something even worse. If it's an older DVD player, and you select 'bitstream' (as was suggested earlier) instead of AC/3 you will get MONO REARS. You need to run a test disc on your system to determine if this is the case, because the internal receiver test tones will work just fine. I'd guess a lot of systems are set up this way.

I'm also with Cary P on DPLII vs. DD and DTS. I've got a Pre/Pro with a really good implementation of DPLII, and in many cases it simply sounds better than DD or DTS. All depends on the quality of the 2 ch stereo tracks.

For those of you that think DPLII is "in no way better" than DD and DTS haven't heard a good DPLII implementation.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

PLII isn't as good as DTS or DD because it still will apply matrix steering willy-nilly depending on the frequency of the sound. I've noticed that more than once.

With truly discrete channels you get precisely what the sound engineer wanted in the correct channel (sans the highest fidelity due to lossy compression), irrespective of whether or not you agree with his/her choice of surround mixing.

Dan

 

[LanceJ]

With music you can get away with sounds coming from (almost) anywhere, but a movie's soundtrack needs to match up with the action on the screen all of the time.

LJ

 

[Marty Neudel]

>PLII isn't as good as DTS or DD because it still will apply matrix steering willy-nilly depending on the frequency of the sound.<

Oh Good Grief. NO! NO! NO!

PL2, like the original pro-logic, places the sound according to LEVEL and PHASING. Frequency has nothing to do with it. Because of information that is dropped in DD and DTS, PL2 does SOMETIMES sound better, simply because it has more of the original sound information.

If the track has been generated through DPL2 encoder, playback will give a remarkably well-placed soundfield. nonetheless, a DD or DTS soundtrack will normally provide more accurate placement of the sound (but not always - again the information lost in the encoding/decoding may have an effect).

For movies, I generally find the DD and DTS encoding better for recreating the placement of the sound. For reproduction of music created by accoustic instruments, I have yet to hear a DD/DTS (including DTS 96/24) encoding that matches its PCM counterpart. I'm still open on this, since I haven't heard them all.

Marty

 

[Robert_Gaither]

Can you please put the name of the business in your post as they "deserve" to be mentioned so that future perspective buyers will know whom to avoid? This type of professionalism is a true insult to the trade and deserves to see print as they shouldn't get another "victim", especially of the paying kind.

PS: I'd check the speaker size settings, phase of the wiring, phase of the sub, and the routing of the interconnects as what you uncovered in this post maybe the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Johnny Ayala]

PLII better than DD or DTS.......Thats funny

 

[ChrisWiggles]

WHAT!?

On DVD this is not right at all. First, most DVDs DO NOT HAVE a 2-channel track at all. The stereo outputs are created by downmixing the 5.1DD track to stereo on the fly in the player. Any losses due to compression are still there, and the mix is primarily engineered for 5.1 playback, NOT downmixing to stereo for people without proper surround sound systems.

Secondly: Where a DVD *DOES* have a dedicated 2-channel track, this is STILL compressed in DD in almost all cases (all that I know of anyway). So we're comparing DD stereo expanded with matrix processing, or DD in full 5.1. IMO, full 5.1 should be way better.

Maybe L7 on stereo track would be comparable/better, but not PLII.