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Nifty dts Neural:X & Dolby Audio Surround feature - mono recordings

BJL

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Mar 11, 2022
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My purist days now in the past, I've been listening to most music recordings (other than Atmos), with dts Neural:X processing active. I discovered quite by accident that with dts Neural:X processing active, 99% of mono recordings play back through the center channel speaker only, with no other processing effects, automatically. This is a great feature for anyone whose collection includes recordings made before stereo was ubiquitous, particularly for reissue sets that frequently mix both stereo and mono tracks on the same album (e.g. numerous jazz reissues and some rock and soul collections) because the switching is seamless and automatic; and mono has more impact played through a single speaker, the center channel being optimal. I have not tried any classical recordings as yet to try this. One mono track played back with some surround effects, but then again, I didn't confirm that it was true mono.

I checked briefly, and Dolby Audio Surround seems to have the same feature, but I don't find the audio quality to be as good as dts, though perhaps that is my imagination; I didn't spend much time comparing.

This is on a Pioneer LX505. Interested to know if this is universally true for all processors/AVRs that implement dts X.
 

Tim Link

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My purist days now in the past, I've been listening to most music recordings (other than Atmos), with dts Neural:X processing active. I discovered quite by accident that with dts Neural:X processing active, 99% of mono recordings play back through the center channel speaker only, with no other processing effects, automatically. This is a great feature for anyone whose collection includes recordings made before stereo was ubiquitous, particularly for reissue sets that frequently mix both stereo and mono tracks on the same album (e.g. numerous jazz reissues and some rock and soul collections) because the switching is seamless and automatic; and mono has more impact played through a single speaker, the center channel being optimal. I have not tried any classical recordings as yet to try this. One mono track played back with some surround effects, but then again, I didn't confirm that it was true mono.

I checked briefly, and Dolby Audio Surround seems to have the same feature, but I don't find the audio quality to be as good as dts, though perhaps that is my imagination; I didn't spend much time comparing.

This is on a Pioneer LX505. Interested to know if this is universally true for all processors/AVRs that implement dts X.
I like listening to mono over just 1 speaker too. I think Dolby Pro Logic in Cinema mode will also play mono just through the center speaker.
 
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