Dolby Pro Logic or not, for CD's?

I have an older Kenwood reveiver with only Dolby Pro-Logic. Would I be likely to get better sound out of my CDs by listening to them in pro logic mode or direct with only the left and right channels?


Thank you

Personally, I hate all 'fake' DSP modes including Pro Logic. I prefer my stereo in stereo, the way it was meant to be. But that's just me, you'll have to try it and see if you like it.

thanks for the reply, do the music CDs have the ability to work right on pro-logic, were the voice only will come out of the center speaker, or os that only for movies, and cd's are strictly stereo only. Sorry for the dumb questions, I am new to this and am trying to get a handle on it.

Thanks

Well the problem with Pro Logic 'working right' is that there is really no 'right' to it becasue Pro Logic is just a matrixed surround system. It tries to 'make up' what's not there, in this case there is no discrete center or surrounds so it just takes the 2 channel and tries to guess at what should be in the center and surrounds. So no, you won't just just the vocals out of the center channel.

The same applies for movies, as Pro Logic uses the 2.0 track to derive at it's matrixed surround. Pro Logic II does much much better, but still nothing near Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS.

I would also try DOLBY 3 LOGIC if your receiver has this function and test it against two channel stereo mode of your receiver. In my case on my JVC 718 DPL receiver, it works better than stereo only because the receiver just does not handle stereo with proper sound and imaging quality and appears to work better than the full PRO-LOGIC mode.

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Originally Posted by tncn

thanks for the reply, do the music CDs have the ability to work right on pro-logic, were the voice only will come out of the center speaker, or os that only for movies, and cd's are strictly stereo only. Sorry for the dumb questions, I am new to this and am trying to get a handle on it.

Thanks

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So far I have not heard a pro logic presentaqtion that would scew the soundstage to the point that what should be in cenetr is in the rear or in one side or other

What prologid does is sums up in phase same front signals to the center as it should be. And, it sends som abiance to the rears that are a certain degrees out of phase. If the rears are properly level matched, the effect is very pleasing to me.\

Why not try it out and see what you prefer.

I use Pro-Logic for CD's and I think it makes the music more spacious, but on mostly-mono music such as old Snoop Dogg and rave music it sounds horrible. Since it's mono, all the sound is produced from the center channel, I burned out my center channel speaker before because of it.

Most CDs are mixed with two-channel playback in mind, and to create a strong phantom center image. Very different mission than a Dolby Surround track that has the ambient cues encoded into the two-channel mix using phase relationships.

The playback in DPL can really vary from CD to CD. In general, I prefer to leave the decoder off with music soundtracks because plenty of them clearly do not sound like they were intended to go through that whole decoding and channel redirecting process. Part of this is because the center and surround channels in DPL are bandwidth limited. Dolby Surround soundtracks on the other hand, typically sound like the channel balances and frequency response account for the bandwidth limitations, and sound noticeably more coherent.

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Originally Posted by Woochifer

Most CDs are mixed with two-channel playback in mind, and to create a strong phantom center image. Very different mission than a Dolby Surround track that has the ambient cues encoded into the two-channel mix using phase relationships.

The playback in DPL can really vary from CD to CD. In general, I prefer to leave the decoder off with music soundtracks because plenty of them clearly do not sound like they were intended to go through that whole decoding and channel redirecting process. Part of this is because the center and surround channels in DPL are bandwidth limited. Dolby Surround soundtracks on the other hand, typically sound like the channel balances and frequency response account for the bandwidth limitations, and sound noticeably more coherent.

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You should try Carmina Burana in dpl:) one of that section where the lone singer is on from the center channel then the music comes in all around. What a presentation.