Just got my new SVS sub and samson amp..Not happy (1 Viewer)

[DeanQ]

Thanks everyone for your help. I jumped the gun to early when I thought the subs weren't working correctly. Hey cmon now. Im young (26) and dont know any better. But with your great knowledge on this board I was able to correct it. Man does DTS movies rock with this sub!! I stayed up all night playing different scenes on all of my DVD's! T2 Dts Intro rocks, Saving Private Ryan Beach scene, Predator DTS Version, jesses gun scene, and Fast And Furious 1/4 race scene in the beginning. Damn this sub hits hard. All of my living room windows shake and rattles. My little mirage couldnt come close to do that! I went outside and my siding on my house was moving too!!! If anyone here is debating on getting this sub DO NOT Hesitate! Order one before the group by ends! And Yes I will be inviting my brother over around lunch time to hear it again and put his KLF Powered 10in sub to shame!!

 

[greg_t]

The way I understand the +10 LFE pad for DTS is like this. Please correct me if I'm wrong here Vince. LFE is meant to be played 10db louder than the other channels. When dvd's are produced, they are mixed without the 10db extra in the LFE channel. Dolby digital decoders automatically add the 10db back in. This is why on most recievers the LFE range only goes up to 0. DTS decoders do not add in the extra 10db, therefore in order to get the proper LFE levels, the DTS LFE needs to be padded by +10db.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Quote:

Oddly, I'm 25.

Vince

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I'm asking the same question in a Basics thread; this is the first time I've heard that DTS LFE setup should be max, or +10.

If it is needed for the DD version, it will be needed for the DTS version. The only hitch might be how your receiver/decoder handles signifying "making the boost" vs "not making the boost".

Again in my experience- the DTS pad, like the DD, is correct on most processors "all the way up". However, newer products might offer the ability (dunno why but...) to BOOST the LFE beyond the intended 10db. In which case, 0db might be correct on your system-- however I have yet to encounter a system where that is the case.

Making a comparison against a dd soundtrack might help-- or finding a calibration disc that offers a LFE test signal in DTS might also help (assuming, of course, that the LFE signal has been properly prepared for the DTS version of the test pattern).

Remember again, regardless of how your receiver works, that both tracks will require the "boost". The reason being that soundtracks are not "mixed" for DD or DTS.

Soundtracks are simply mixed to 6 channel (sometimes more if SDDS or EX formats are involved) uncompressed PCM digtial masters.

The 10db boost for lfe in the monitor environment (which results in a needed 10db boost in playback) is not just a dolby spec, it is actually a SMPTE specification for this type of master (although, no doubt, dolby had a hand in smpte adopting said standard).

There is therefor a 10db LFE issue on all poperly prepared masters--- It would be that way on the raw 6 channel production masters, regardless of intended playback codec/format.

So DTS gets the same 6 channel stems (or more accurately, these days studios do their own DTS encoding for DVD) as dolby does- the stems are identical.

Therefor the 10db "underlevel" created by the 10db boost in playback monitoring is universal, and would be present on the DTS track and the DD. As a result, both require the 10db boost adjustment-- provided by the decoder stage in the HT environment.

One note, however- DTS AUDIO discs do not conform to this standard, so if you put in a DTS audio title, the pad need to be put back to the "non boosted" position.

-V

 

[Cary P]

I thought I understood bass management pretty well, but now I'm getting pretty confused here in regards to rerouted bass signals and LFE pad.

Does the LFE pad just affect DD and DTS signals, or rerouted PCM or analog signals as well? Vince, are you saying that the sub level for rerouted bass should be calibrated with the LFE pad set to -10dB, and then set back to 0dB for playback of Dolby Digital material?

I'll have to play around with these settings tonight. Now that I think of it, in my receiver, the LFE pad option in the OSD might be blacked out for non-DD/non-DTS signal sources, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Cary

 

[Stephen Houdek]

Ok Vince, I have to ask. You MUST work in a studio or something. Right? These responses of yours are tremendously detailed.

You just don't sound like a typical "gear geek".

 

[EricHaas]

Ah man, I just read this entire thread and I have to mention this. I posted a thread a couple weeks ago about how when I switched to my Denon 3801, my Sony SA-WM40 all the sudden had no "balls" anymore. Everyone said "calibrate, calibrate, calibrate" or we can't help you. And I kept saying, "but I don't have the money for an SPL meter and test disk right now." Well after tweeking around with it, it turned out that the speakers were set to "large" by default on the 3801. Setting them to small totally took care of the problem, and I had to adjust the sub level from +4 to -4 to even be able to stand the raucous base. When I read Dean's first post, I said to myself, "I bet this guy has his speakers set to large, and 10 people will tell him to calibrate before someone will figure out that this is the problem." Sometimes the simplest solutions are the correct ones.

BTW, I am not knocking calibration at all as a practice. Just pointing out that you need to think outside the "stock responses" sometimes.

 

[Doug BW]

Eric, you're right about people needing to look for the simple things first. But I also think there's a larger reason for suggesting that people calibrate than the premise that the lack of calibration is what's causing their problem.

I believe the suggestion to calibrate is simply a key part of the troubleshooting process. Getting a report on what happened when the person tried to calibrate can aid those trying to help him from a thousand miles away get a handle on what's going on. It just makes a good starting point for figuring out what questions to ask next.

Although it wouldn't always work out this way, in your case, if you had tried to calibrate with Avia, you would have nailed your problem right away. Avia does not (for most test tracks) put any bass information in the LFE channel. Rather, it puts the bass in one (or both?) of the front channels and relies on your receiver's (or pre/pro's) bass management to send the bass out the subwoofer output. If you would have tried to calibrate with Avia (with your fronts set to large), you would have found that no matter how much you changed your subwoofer level, your SPL reading would not have changed. You probably would have figured out what was wrong pretty quickly, but if not, you would have posted your strange results here and several people would have identified the problem right away.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

The calibrating is important cause you need to hear what's coming out of the sub. It sounds to me as if he had very little coming out of the sub in the first place, and that's because the receiver was set all wrong. When asking questions like this, it really helps to have details. Speaker settings, connections, stuff like that. If you and he had run LFE test tones, you'd have picked up on the problems real quick. That's just the way it is, there could be a few different problems, and people need info before they can go guessing at what it might be.

 

[Tim Ebling]

I'm jumping into this thread a little late, but I have a question since I am not terribly experienced with receiver bass management.
I have a Yamaha HTR-5420 (one year old), and calibrate with the RS SPL meter and VE.
Do the "large/small" receiver settings influence the sub test tone at all? From what I've gathered here, VE (as opposed to Avia) actually sends its sub test tone out the LFE channel alone, instead of through the mains. Since I use VE, my sub calibration is correct, right?
I currently have my mains set to small, but I'm getting new speakers soon and will set them to large. When a speaker is set to small, how does its signal get mixed with the LFE signal when it goes to the sub? Does it add the two and reduce the overall sub level by a factor of two? It seems like by changing large/small settings, you'll get radically different sub output while playing the same surround source. I'm sure there's a FAQ on this lying around somewhere...

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Quote:

Good question- however I believe both signals are produced fully. Both the LFE and rerouted bass would be sent to the sub- increasing the amount of bass by a significant amount.
-Vince