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Stereo downmixing through an AVR - effective or add a centre channel?

Chrispy

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It probably does. Digging into the menu fore some of those features isn't something I've really done enough of. Just the other day I discovered that it has a delay feature to fix lip-sync on analog inputs. I bought three little digital delay devices to fix that problem. :-(

It usually pays despite the pain of RTFM :)
 
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Artsfols

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My Onkyo AVR has a really nice multi-channel upmix of stereo. I think it's just a mono-blend on center and left and right on back. Truth be told, most of the time when I have music playing and I'm doing other things, that's what's on.

Back in the 1970s I ran with 4 speakers and liked to crank it up. 2 front, 2 rear. No I didn't have quadrophonic, but some of my buddies did, and some of those records have been re-issued in the 5.1 format.
Are you happy with your Onkyo brand product? Which model AVR do you have?
 

Chrispy

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Back in the 1970s I ran with 4 speakers and liked to crank it up. 2 front, 2 rear. No I didn't have quadrophonic, but some of my buddies did, and some of those records have been re-issued in the 5.1 format.
Are you happy with your Onkyo brand product? Which model AVR do you have?

If it wasn't an actual quad setup you just were duplicating 2.0 in the extra set of speakers.....not ideal but maybe louder.
 

Chrispy

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It probably does. Digging into the menu fore some of those features isn't something I've really done enough of. Just the other day I discovered that it has a delay feature to fix lip-sync on analog inputs. I bought three little digital delay devices to fix that problem. :-(
RTFM is normally the first step....
 

sritacco

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Back in the 1970s I ran with 4 speakers and liked to crank it up. 2 front, 2 rear. No I didn't have quadrophonic, but some of my buddies did, and some of those records have been re-issued in the 5.1 format.
Are you happy with your Onkyo brand product? Which model AVR do you have?

I have the tx-nr1010. Overall, yes, I've been happy with it. There were days I did regret the purchase. It replaced an NAD 762 that failed after about 10 years.
I had used the NAD for a livingroom and bedroom (audio only zone 2) in a condo.
My first surprise with the Onkyo was all the input -> output weirdness.
With the NAD, whatever was playing in the main zone was always available as a stereo down-mix for zone 2. Not so with the Onkyo, you pretty much have to connect all the matching analog inputs... lot's more wires. (More and more HDMI sources don't even have analog outputs.) I got everything I wanted working eventually and overall it sounded pretty good.

Before long, I had my first HDMI board failure. Off to the factory for repairs.

After a few years I moved to a house. In the house I had pre-wired speakers for every room and bought a Russound multi-room controller.
I also put CAT6 runs for HDMI so that I could put a video zone 2 in a room. Integration of the Onkyo became a good deal more complicated and the input -> output weirdness is even more of a thing to deal with. If you use Zone 2 HDMI, it turns out that it's like the HDMI board is a matrix switch that is built in, but isn't connected to anything else in the chassis. I would have expected that the audio from the selected zone 2 source HDMI would also be coming out the zone-2 pre-out, but no. I wanted to route the audio to the russound for that room but no analog output of it is available... even if the source has stereo analog connected. (This is when I missed the lip-sync setting and resorted to an outboard solution.) Anyway, I bought an audio extractor to get the audio off the zone 2 hdmi, and again I was able to have everything working as I would expect. Also, I ended up using the "zone 3" outputs set on "source" as the stereo output for what is playing in the the main room, but again for that to work there must be analog stereo inputs connected for every source.

In less than a year after the house move and dealing with this setup headache, the HDMI board failed again. Off to the factory for repairs, and I swore it would be the last time. Here we are 5 years later, it's still working. I've started to shop thinking it doesn't have much life left. ;-)
While I understand the Onkyo quirks, I'm probably not buying another one. There seemed to be a good deal more thought put into the design of the NAD while the Onkyo was an exercise in heaping features into a box with too little thought of how they would be used. I have been happy with its sound and overall performance. Playing some of the few concert blurays and DVDs that were well recorded can really deliver something very close to a real concert experience. Yes, Hell Freezes Over can still be jaw dropping. John Mayer and Dave Mathews / Tim Reynolds are a few others definitely worth listening to if you like their music. I'm definitely on the lookout for more well done multi-channel content. All suggestions appreciated.

I'm very likely to re-do a bunch of things in the next year or two. For one, I want to add another room and I will wire it for HDMI and stereo sound.
I'm just going to get a stand alone 4x4 HDMI Matrix switch (that has analog and digital audio outputs). I also now require that my main 7.1 controller has 7.1 analog inputs so that I can add an 8 channel external DAC if I want to. I'm leaning toward a Rotel RSP 1576 MKII but honestly I may just pick up a used 1572 to see how that goes. I already have one of their Class-D 7 channel amps on hand to pair with it. My main room is going from 5.1 to 7.1. With the outboard switch I can just connect the individual sources to the Russound directly (leaving only Russound Source 1 as what is playing in the main room).

It just seems better, and more flexible, to separate the HDMI switch out and keep the "main room's" 7.1 system untangled from the other rooms.
My house is small and the other rooms will never warrant anything other than stereo sound. Frankly, I don't even care to have a TV in my master bedroom(though I did install a wire for it), I put the additional video zones in the guest room(s) because I know a lot of people watch TV in bed.

You caught me during my morning coffee... sorry, I guess I've "gone on" a little. It seemed like a simple question, right? ;-)
 
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Artsfols

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If it wasn't an actual quad setup you just were duplicating 2.0 in the extra set of speakers.....not ideal but maybe louder.

Don't forget though. In the 1970s, there were no subs. Quadrophonic did sound impressive, but only select releases were issued in quad, and what really killed it were two competing, incompatible technologies. Two solid towers front and back definitely made Jimmy Page, or a Rickenbacker bass, sound a little fuller. Or my preference back then, Yes, and a lot of prog rock.
 
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Artsfols

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I have the tx-nr1010. Overall, yes, I've been happy with it. There were days I did regret the purchase. It replaced an NAD 762 that failed after about 10 years.
I had used the NAD for a livingroom and bedroom (audio only zone 2) in a condo.
My first surprise with the Onkyo was all the input -> output weirdness.
With the NAD, whatever was playing in the main zone was always available as a stereo down-mix for zone 2. Not so with the Onkyo, you pretty much have to connect all the matching analog inputs... lot's more wires. (More and more HDMI sources don't even have analog outputs.) I got everything I wanted working eventually and overall it sounded pretty good.

Before long, I had my first HDMI board failure. Off to the factory for repairs.

After a few years I moved to a house. In the house I had pre-wired speakers for every room and bought a Russound multi-room controller.
I also put CAT6 runs for HDMI so that I could put a video zone 2 in a room. Integration of the Onkyo became a good deal more complicated and the input -> output weirdness is even more of a thing to deal with. If you use Zone 2 HDMI, it turns out that it's like the HDMI board is a matrix switch that is built in, but isn't connected to anything else in the chassis. I would have expected that the audio from the selected zone 2 source HDMI would also be coming out the zone-2 pre-out, but no. I wanted to route the audio to the russound for that room but no analog output of it is available... even if the source has stereo analog connected. (This is when I missed the lip-sync setting and resorted to an outboard solution.) Anyway, I bought an audio extractor to get the audio off the zone 2 hdmi, and again I was able to have everything working as I would expect. Also, I ended up using the "zone 3" outputs set on "source" as the stereo output for what is playing in the the main room, but again for that to work there must be analog stereo inputs connected for every source.

In less than a year after the house move and dealing with this setup headache, the HDMI board failed again. Off to the factory for repairs, and I swore it would be the last time. Here we are 5 years later, it's still working. I've started to shop thinking it doesn't have much life left. ;-)
While I understand the Onkyo quirks, I'm probably not buying another one. There seemed to be a good deal more thought put into the design of the NAD while the Onkyo was an exercise in heaping features into a box with too little thought of how they would be used. I have been happy with its sound and overall performance. Playing some of the few concert blurays and DVDs that were well recorded can really deliver something very close to a real concert experience. Yes, Hell Freezes Over can still be jaw dropping. John Mayer and Dave Mathews / Tim Reynolds are a few others definitely worth listening to if you like their music. I'm definitely on the lookout for more well done multi-channel content. All suggestions appreciated.

I'm very likely to re-do a bunch of things in the next year or two. For one, I want to add another room and I will wire it for HDMI and stereo sound.
I'm just going to get a stand alone 4x4 HDMI Matrix switch (that has analog and digital audio outputs). I also now require that my main 7.1 controller has 7.1 analog inputs so that I can add an 8 channel external DAC if I want to. I'm leaning toward a Rotel RSP 1576 MKII but honestly I may just pick up a used 1572 to see how that goes. I already have one of their Class-D 7 channel amps on hand to pair with it. My main room is going from 5.1 to 7.1. With the outboard switch I can just connect the individual sources to the Russound directly (leaving only Russound Source 1 as what is playing in the main room).

It just seems better, and more flexible, to separate the HDMI switch out and keep the "main room's" 7.1 system untangled from the other rooms.
My house is small and the other rooms will never warrant anything other than stereo sound. Frankly, I don't even care to have a TV in my master bedroom(though I did install a wire for it), I put the additional video zones in the guest room(s) because I know a lot of people watch TV in bed.

You caught me during my morning coffee... sorry, I guess I've "gone on" a little. It seemed like a simple question, right? ;-)

So, before I forget, given your listening tastes, tell me that you've got all the Crossroads blu-rays for the concerts organized by Eric Clapton. If not, they're a real treat.

I find it interesting that you plan to front end your amp with a DAC. That is something I could do instead of the AVR, keeping my current stereo amp. But there's only one DAC around that handles multiple HDMI sources, from Essence, and it does no down mixing. And I'd need to pull out the center channel to go to a mono amp, at some point.
An AVR is going give me all that even though it's an inelegant solution.
 
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sritacco

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So, before I forget, given your listening tastes, tell me that you've got all the Crossroads blu-rays for the concerts organized by Eric Clapton. If not, they're a real treat.

I find it interesting that you plan to front end your amp with a DAC. That is something I could do instead of the AVR, keeping my current stereo amp. But there's only one DAC around that handles multiple HDMI sources, from Essence, and it does no down mixing. And I'd need to pull out the center channel to go to a mono amp, at some point.
An AVR is going give me all that even though it's an inelegant solution.

I'm sure I will still use the avr for all normal video content. The secondary DAC is just a novelty. It kind of bugs me that 20 years ago my NAD had 5.1 inputs and most AVR vendors post 2010 dumped them yet still included all sorts of other antiquated connections.

Thanks, I will have to check out Crossroads, I'm not familiar...
 

Chrispy

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Don't forget though. In the 1970s, there were no subs. Quadrophonic did sound impressive, but only select releases were issued in quad, and what really killed it were two competing, incompatible technologies. Two solid towers front and back definitely made Jimmy Page, or a Rickenbacker bass, sound a little fuller. Or my preference back then, Yes, and a lot of prog rock.

LOL or the double stacking of speakers for that matter, was even advertised by Advent that way IIRC. I would have been dangerous with subs back then....
 
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Artsfols

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One decision left, in my view. I've traveled down every side alley I can think of, but it comes down to purchasing either an X4700H or X3700H.
The X4700H has a feature called DDSC. I can't find much information about it, but appears to offer more flexibility in handling stereo sources. Here is what a poster 'tparm' wrote about it.
"Not sure one should care much about AL32 or DDSC, but the X4700 has a custom 2 channel mode that allows you to switch things like cross over points, with or without subs, etc on the fly which is pretty cool if you use any stereo sources."
I'm leaning to the x4700H, but does anyone have any further information about these two amps relative ability to handle 2.1 or 3.1, especially with a 5.1 source? Maybe I'm wrong but I'd rather have the amp dowmix than set the source to downmix.
I also want flexibility in treating different sources differently. For example, from a bluray disc, I'll take the stereo track and upmix, from a DVD, I'd rather take the 5.1 DTS track and down mix.
All this points to this: the more flexibility and switchability and programmability in up and down mixing, the better.
 
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Artsfols

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I pulled the trigger finally. I couldn't see a reason to get the X4700H so purchased the Denon X3700H. And I sprang for a ELAC DCR52 center channel. If that turns out to be a huge mistake, Crutchfield has a 60 day return policy. But I don't think it will be in spite of it being a 2 way. I also bought some high end inter connects ... for $25 or so. :)
 

Presently42

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That's when connected to a pc configured as a 7.1 source and then only sending a stereo signal.
Plus turning off other channels in speaker config. Making it downmix 8 (6 empty) to 2 channels. A normal source playing stereo material will not present itself as a 8 channel source nor do you have to disable speakers in your speaker config to be able to play stereo content 'normally' over LR alone.

Apart from this Windows pc edge case not a real issue IMO.
Forgive me for reviving a dead thread, but this is exactly my use case, and I can't for the life of me figure out the correct configuration: I connect my windows lappy to the avr (Denon x2500h), feeding a 2.1 system. I've turned off the centre and surround speakers (and hence amps) in the avr. I'm left with several configuration possibilities, and several questions: when listening to YouTube (presumably it's in stereo), should windows be set to stereo or 7.1? Should the avr be set to stereo or multi ch in? Now, wh when watching a modern film, mixed with seven channels: should the media player downmix? Should windows be set to stereo or 7.1? Should the avr be stereo or multi ch in?

Lastly, I've read in the Denon to English online guide, that the bass menu's crossover is in fact just for the lfe, which per the specification, should be 120 Hz: is this so? Furthermore, do the crossover menu's crossovers control both the sub and speakers - or just the speakers.? Indeed, should the setting in the bass menu be lfe, or lfe+mains? I'd assumed heretofore, that lfe is correct - but now I think, that either the opposite is true; or that it makes no difference. All very confusing and poorly documented!

Sorry to highjack the thread: I'll start a new one, if there's consensus, that I should.

Edit: the distance setting seems to usually do nothing at all - but every now and again, I think it works (using measurements to check). Aside from offering cable sacrifices to the audio gods, is the a way to have the distance setting actually work correctly?
 
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Propheticus

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@Presently42
I think the easiest is setting Windows to stereo and also leaving the AVR in such a setting.
Most movies have a stereo track. If not, most good media player apps can downmix as well.

Crossovers are about both: filter away lows from your mains and feeding it to your sub. (this works when setting speakers to 'small'). What you describe is the LPF for LFE setting. This determines the low pass for the low frequency effects (x.1) channel and only affects the sub. This should be left at 120Hz. A starting point for the crossover is 80Hz.

LFE+main is a setting that can be used to boost bass, it does not filter away bass from your mains, but feeds a copy of bass under set crossover to your sub as well. Essentially doubling the bass. (Onkyo even called it "double bass"). This setting combined with control over the target curves in the MultEQ app can be used to blend bass from 3 sources instead of 1. If not compensating with changed target curves I'd advise against it; too much bass. Also you don't benefit from lowered (main) speaker distortion.

In summary: Stereo set on both pc and amp, speakers set to small with crossovers at 80Hz, leave LPF for LFE at 120Hz.

The distance setting corrects for delay differences between speakers relative to the listening position.
There's currently an issue where Audyssey measures delay and calculates distance correctly. This then saved in the AVR which uses the distance to calculate/compensate for delays again. This calculation is using a wrong speed of sound value (300m/s instead of 343m/s). Fix: set distances in meters and multiply the measured distances by 0.875 and enter these new values.
If it does nothing, perhaps you had Direct or Pure Direct mode enabled?
 
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Presently42

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I think the easiest is setting Windows to stereo and also leaving the AVR in such a setting.

I see! I did a bit of testing, and couldn't really measure any difference between the various settings. Do you happen to know the exact equation used on either windows or denon to downmix? I tried testing, but found trying to create a centre channel tone a huge faff, and gave up. Perhaps I'll try again.

Most movies have a stereo track. If not, most good media player apps can downmix as well.

I both stream and use mpc, which does indeed come with a mixer (in fact, two, given, that lav filters also have mixing). However, I'm having to increase the centre channel (which doesn't exist in my stereo setup, of course) by perhaps (measurements are required to confirm) 6 dB to get it to match the surround speakers (which also don't exist). As such, something isn't downmixing properly - hence why I've been wondering what equations are being used by windows and denon (and mpc and lav filters - so much unnecessary mixing!).

Crossovers are about both: filter away lows from your mains and feeding it to your sub. (this works when setting speakers to 'small').

AHA! So the crossover in the setting is both the hpf and the lpf, and cannot be differentiated: the same crossover is for both speakers and subwoofer. I'll have to take further measurements for better integration. At least I now know what the avr is doing!

What you describe is the LPF for LFE setting. This determines the low pass for the low frequency effects (x.1) channel and only affects the sub. This should be left at 120Hz.

Excellent good: the information I had on this was correct. Thanks for confirming!

LFE+main is a setting that can be used to boost bass, it does not filter away bass from your mains, but feeds a copy of bass under set crossover to your sub as well. Essentially doubling the bass. (Onkyo even called it "double bass").

AHA!! So that's what the lfe+main setting does! Onkyo does indeed name it more aptly.

This calculation is using a wrong speed of sound value (300m/s instead of 343m/s). Fix: set distances in meters and multiply the measured distances by 0.875 and enter these new values.

Hmmm, given, that the avr only cares about relative distance; and given, that this fix subtracts the same distance from all measurements, shouldn't the fix be unnecessary? Is the avr using the distance for another purpose, such as audio-visual synchronisation?

If it does nothing, perhaps you had Direct or Pure Direct mode enabled?
It's possible - but I think I've tested with it on and off; and only sometimes, does the time (and phase) change. I'm starting to suspect, that there's some hidden setting, which causes the distance setting to be ignored. Anyway, nothing for it, but to continue testing. Thanks much for your reply! Out of curiosity, do you work for denon?
 

Andysu

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I think I will purchase the center channel which means I have to decide on a center channel speaker.
wrong . you get same speaker or end up with a poor L c R or go better and have decent L C R .
 

Propheticus

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crossover in the setting is both the hpf and the lpf, and cannot be differentiated: the same crossover is for both speakers and subwoofer.
What you select is the middle, it uses a higher freq to start the hpf roll off and a lower one to start the lpf (so that they sum nicely instead of a bump at crossover). I don't know the exact values.
Is the avr using the distance for another purpose, such as audio-visual synchronisation
With delays so small -we're talking order of ~10 milliseconds-, yes it helps video-sound synchro a bit but it's mainly for phase-aligning. There's a separate global audio delay option to fix synch issues caused by e.g. video-processing. This is more in the order of tens to hundred(s) of milliseconds.
Sub-woofers with active amplification and sometimes (room) EQ processing have additional latency which is of course measured as well (and then converted to 'distance'). This means the distance value for the sub might look a bit high when taking out your tape-measure, but better not correct this. It's not about distances...it's about delays. Unless you have a good way of measuring actual phase-alignment yourself to confirm what the results are...

do you work for denon?
No, just a tech-savvy owner of a Denon receiver myself. I read forums, read the manual -the documentation is pretty okay really- and figured out my own setup by googling + try to help others.


P.S. instead of configuring your audio device in Windows as stereo, it occurred to me you could also setup as "5.1" and then disable the rears and centre:
1652802024265.png

This way at least you could retain the separate LFE/sub channel. Not sure if or how well Windows mixes the centre into L/R though.
 

Presently42

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P.S. instead of configuring your audio device in Windows as stereo, it occurred to me you could also setup as "5.1" and then disable the rears and centre:
View attachment 207197
This way at least you could retain the separate LFE/sub channel. Not sure if or how well Windows mixes the centre into L/R though.

It seems, that this was the missing key: setting up the system as 7.1 (arbitrarily: the avr can do 7.1, so why not windows too? Furthermore, much content is now thus mixed) and using multi ch in has enabled the seemingly previously disabled distance settings, resulting, when paired with denon's speed of sound being 300 m/s, rather than 343 m/s (is it possible, that denon is measuring in decametres, and then rounding or truncating? Is there a denon engineer here?), in now excellent time alignment. There are a few interesting effects: the volume had been reduced by -12.86 dBFS in both left and right channels; the sub is seemingly summing the bass, rather than mixing it; other channels are outputting differing volumes (-14 dBFS or so for some, -13 dBFS or so for others....); the Windows setting phantom channels must be enabled; the Windows setting enable audio enhancements must be disabled (it keeps being re-enabled, possibly by EAPO); the centre channel is still a bit wonky; and c audio limiter has no effect.

All in all, I'm terribly annoyed by this ultra faff to get things working, and I don't understand why the documentation - both denon's and windows' - is so poor. I shall continue testing a few things, and perhaps make a new thread with my final findings. Anyway, thanks for your extremely helpful hints!
 
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