6.1 rear

[uncooked]

ok i dont have a rear center yet. but i just got the lord of the rings 6.1 discrete dvd. and i wanted to hear it so i plugged in a spare tower speaker to the rear and turned it on. it hardly played anything........ the occasional thing that you could actually hear.

i then watched a dolby d ex movie the matrix 6.1 program and it sounded good and loud. is that normal? i guess because it is discrete and there isnt much of a discrete signal to send to it right?

[recoveryone]

ok i dont have a rear center yet. but i just got the lord of the rings 6.1 discrete dvd. and i wanted to hear it so i plugged in a spare tower speaker to the rear and turned it on. it hardly played anything........ the occasional thing that you could actually hear.

i then watched a dolby d ex movie the matrix 6.1 program and it sounded good and loud. is that normal? i guess because it is discrete and there isnt much of a discrete signal to send to it right?

I guess you have the Enhance DVD, cuz mine is 5.1. Any hoo, In any type of 5.1/6.1/7.1 the rear surround is just support for the fronts and center and what sound you may get may only be brief and quick (directional front-->rear or rear-->front). Since you didn't say much about the speaker set you have, it could be that the tower is not (for lack of the proper wording) blended well with the other rears. I would get a calibration disk (DVE) that has test sound for 5.1/6.1/7.1 so you can set you speakers correctly. Quick note 6.1 discrete and dolby Digital is the same. ES is use with DTS and EX is used with Dolby Digital. All Digital formats are discrete, some say the DTS version is compressed differently than DD and may sound more enhanced.

[Woochifer]

That could just be that not a lot of signal got mixed into the back surround channel, or the level for the back surround is not set high enough, or if that tower speaker does not match your L/R surround speakers its efficiency is much lower and thus does not sound as loud. Before you do anything, you need to use the test tones and correctly set the output levels.

Otherwise, I would not get too wound up about 6.1. If you got a 5.1 setup and don't have a lot of room behind the listening position for the back surround speaker, you're much better off optimizing your 5.1 setup and going without the back surround speaker altogether.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I guess you have the Enhance DVD, cuz mine is 5.1. Any hoo, In any type of 5.1/6.1/7.1 the rear surround is just support for the fronts and center and what sound you may get may only be brief and quick (directional front-->rear or rear-->front). Since you didn't say much about the speaker set you have, it could be that the tower is not (for lack of the proper wording) blended well with the other rears. I would get a calibration disk (DVE) that has test sound for 5.1/6.1/7.1 so you can set you speakers correctly. Quick note 6.1 discrete and dolby Digital is the same. ES is use with DTS and EX is used with Dolby Digital. All Digital formats are discrete, some say the DTS version is compressed differently than DD and may sound more enhanced.

6.1 Dts discrete and Dolby EX are NOT the same. Dts ES matrix and DD EX work by the same principle, but different methods for the same result. Dolby has not decoder with a discrete sixth channel.

The reason that DD EX was louder than Dts discrete is because you are also hearing leakage from the L/R surround bleeding into the center rear channel. This does not happen in Dts 6.1 discrete.

[uncooked]

yea dolby d ex was awsome. and i was playing gran turismo and man it was awsome. it was like a sub woofer back there. when i got rammed by a car it felt like i was being punched lol. i have it up on the wall even right now. but it is only temp. im going to get a athena asc1 on boxing day.

so you guys recomend the setup disks? i thought they were scams. anyone mind explaining how they work. is the one at radio shack good. i think its 29 bucks canadian?

[Woochifer]

I think you got a few things mixed up. First of all, a back surround speaker is NOT supposed to sound like you got a subwoofer in the back! A subwoofer is only supposed to handle the very low bass (80 Hz and below, and those frequencies sound nondirectional, so you should not be able to tell where the bass is comin from). All that the back surround speaker does is fill in the sound gap between the L/R surrounds in the back. If you got your sofa right up against the back wall, then you shouldn't use the back surround speaker because rather than help create a 360 degree encirclement effect, it will call attention to itself and disrupt the surround effect rather than enhance it.

On the setup discs. They are essential IMO, not just got the audio signals, but for the video tests as well. Aside from matching the surround and center levels, the video tests will show that you've probably got the sharpness and brightness cranked up way too high on your TV. Adjusting it to the recommended settings is a huge improvement. The Sound & Vision Home Theatre setup is probably the best one for someone who's never used one before. Radio Shack does not sell setup discs, but they do carry SPL meters, which you should use in conjunction with a setup disc.