Question on CD vs HT (Denon/Energy)

[gdeola101]

Due to advice from this board I purchased a Denon AVR 1803 and a set of Energy Take 5.2 + 8.2 sub. They have been wonderful for my HT setup, sounds great on everything from Gladiator to Evil Dead....

....but now, I am trying to get some good simple stereo sound and the surrounds are not working. The sub gets no info until I crank up the level on the sub itself and the sound out of the surrounds/center even if I go 5ch stereo is just not as good as I'd like.

So a few questions. I currently have a dvd player (JVC XV-S500) running the rca audio L and R to the CD input on the Denon.

Should I get a standard CD player, and run it to a totally seperate receiver that isn't a 5.1 etc HT unit?

...or should I run 2 normal speakers off the Denon for the front L and R and just play CDs in normal stereo? If so what would be a decent pair of not horribly expensive speakers?

Thanks for any advice,
greg

[markw]

"Stereo", or two channel music was recorded in two channels. These are fed to your receiver through those red/white interconnects as two, and only two, analog signals. ...not a multi channel digital signal such as your DVD sends through tthe ONE interconnect it used.

In this pure analog stereo mode, there really shouldn't be anything out of the center or surrounds at all. ...just the right and left speakers.

Now, if your receiver has DPL (or DPL2) or 5 channel stereo, you can get somewhat of a multi-channel effect using these modes but it isn't going to be in the same league as far as direcrtionality, separation, etc.. and you get from a digital signal such as a DVD.

But, what you get here is purely serendipity and was not planned for by the recording engineers. What you hear is what you get. mebbe good ... mebbe not.

FWIW, I've got a 2802 and some recordings sound more interesting in DPL2, some when I use Stereo 5 but most sound best in good ol' two channel stereo. Funny.. my sub gets a strong signal on stereo. You just might have to adjust it when going to different modes.

[jeskibuff]

I currently have a dvd player (JVC XV-S500) running the rca audio L and R to the CD input on the Denon.

I assume that you're running a digital connection in addition to the analog(L/R) connection. If you're not, you're not getting the best out of your DVD player.

now, I am trying to get some good simple stereo sound and the surrounds are not working.

I'm not very familiar with the Denon, but I would suppose that you may need to tweak some setup parameters.

Should I get a standard CD player, and run it to a totally seperate receiver that isn't a 5.1 etc HT unit?

You should be able to get good sound out of what you've got. I think you've probably got a setup problem that if resolved, should get you satisfactory sound out of your system.

It looks like the Denon has several digital inputs and the JVC has one digital coax output and one digital optical output. Hopefully, you've already got one digital connection from the JVC to the Denon. According to what I've read, the Denon can assign inputs. Setup the Denon so that the CD setting uses the same digital input as "DVD". If you can't assign one input to two devices (CD and DVD), you may need to run a second digital connection, perhaps optical. Find out if you can get the most out of the digital connection before you buy an expensive optical cable.

So...

• disconnect the analog (RCA L/R) connection
• set the Denon up to recognize the digital input as the source for the "CD" connection
• tweak the Denon's CD parameter settings to get the best sound possible from a good 2-channel CD recording
• hopefully, if all goes well, whenever you select the CD source, your receiver will switch to your optimized parameters for 2-channel listening. When you press "DVD", it should revert to optimized settings for DD/DTS playback. Whether you're listening to DVD or CD, you're using the one digital connection.

should I run 2 normal speakers off the Denon for the front L and R and just play CDs in normal stereo?

Not until you've exhausted the possibilities of setting up the Denon to process 2 channel sources, in my opinion.

[gdeola101]

In this pure analog stereo mode, there really shouldn't be anything out of the center or surrounds at all. ...just the right and left speakers.

Gotcha, and that is more or less what happens. If I set the Denon to 'stereo' vs 5ch Stereo or any other modes, the FL FR surrounds (Energy Take 2.2) just don't sound as good and there's hardly anything coming out of the sub, thus thinking that 2 normal speakers may sound better?

FWIW, I've got a 2802 and some recordings sound more interesting in DPL2, some when I use Stereo 5 but most sound best in good ol' two channel stereo. Funny.. my sub gets a strong signal on stereo. You just might have to adjust it when going to different modes.

Yeah, could be a pain but if need be I'll have to. May be the reason the Energy 8.2 has that 'audio/video" switch on the front.

Thanks!

[gdeola101]

I assume that you're running a digital connection in addition to the analog(L/R) connection. If you're not, you're not getting the best out of your DVD player.

Yes, that is what's setup now. Since initial setup I've had the digital optical running to the Denon and it sounds great, DTS so far sounds the best on dvds that have them. If I tried playing a normal CD it just doesn't sound as good so I ran the analog to the cd input of the Denon and just run that in normal stereo. The 2 Energy Take 2.2 satellites just don't sound as good, not enough bass as expected but the sub gets minimal input.

I'm not very familiar with the Denon, but I would suppose that you may need to tweak some setup parameters.

Mostly its setting the speakers to small med or large, the Energys falling to the small range. You can set the setting (DVD/CD/etc) to read from whatever input you'd like, probably as you suggest later to have the optical input act for both.

I hopped through and tried your list of suggestions, and I didn't see a way to tweak the Denon to play suitable audio for the CD, the fault may lie in the surround speakers.

The speaker inputs on the back of the Denon (image sitting on my desk here) read like this: Surr Back/Zone2 (B) (A) --- Front (R) (L) --- Center --- Surround (R) (L)

http://www.son-video.com/Rayons/Home...1803Dos_TG.jpg

I have the Energy Take 2.2 surrounds (and center) connected to Front, Center, Surround with Surr Back/Zone2 empty. Could this be a problem? Trying to dig up info on the web, don't have my owners manual in front of me, but now seeing all this it seems that the satellite speakers should be on Surr Back/Zone2 (B) (A) & Surround (R) (L) speaker inputs and Front (R) (L) inputs should be normal speakers.... or am I smoking crack?

[markw]

...when selecting speakers, go and listen with music in mind. Speakers that sound good on music will (99/100) sound good on HT. Rarely does it work the other way.

Small satellites are fine for HT because they depend on the sub to do the dirty work. That's fine when you're goinga full digital route, but when you put analog in the mix, anything can happen.

You might try to find some floor standers that sonicaly match your center and set 'em to "large".

FWIW, I use small towers (Athena AS-F1) and have them set to "large" so they get the full range, even in analog stereo. They go low enough unless I really, really wanna blast out some Bach on organ. Even good speakers only go so low. Expecting much below 40 -45 is asking a lot outta almost any speaker. I actually have to turn my sub down when listening to stereo most times. And, yes, I do occassionaly play with the DPL2 and 5 channel stereo mode at times. A little spice never hurt anyone.

[topspeed]

I assume that you're running a digital connection in addition to the analog(L/R) connection. If you're not, you're not getting the best out of your DVD player..

Why would you use both digital and analog inputs? By using the digital outputs aren't you in fact using the Denon's DAC's while analog uses the JVC's? What advantage is there to hooking both up? Wouldn't one override the other especially if the Denon is setup to "optical" in the dvd and/or cd setup menu? Is the JVC sending both an analog and digital signal at the same time?

[gdeola101]

Why would you use both digital and analog inputs? By using the digital outputs aren't you in fact using the Denon's DAC's while analog uses the JVC's? What advantage is there to hooking both up? Wouldn't one override the other especially if the Denon is setup to "optical" in the dvd and/or cd setup menu? Is the JVC sending both an analog and digital signal at the same time?

Have the digital connection going to the Denon, so when I select DVD it's fed from the optical/digital feed from the DVD. There is also the analog feed going from the DVD player to the CD input on the Denon so when I select CD its being fed from an analog signal to see if the sound is any different. Make sense, or am I just way off base here?

[gdeola101]

Ok so yeah total newbie sitting here. Sheesh. After owning this system for months and months, I take a fresh look at all the manuals (speakers, sub, receiver, dvd, etc) to find out why the audio isn't sounding as good. So here we go:

Speaker settings on Denon, Large/Small/None, I had all surrounds + center set to small. I read the Energy manual and oh lookie there, they suggest setting receivers to define the speakers as Large since they can accurately reproduce sounds below 80Hz, so I try that and HEY improvement.

Subwoofer, with all speakers set to Large, it has the option of +Main/Norm so I change this from Norm to +Main and ok that sounds a bit better (allows the sub to get the same signal input as the rest of the speakers). Then oh jeez lookit that, the damnned xover setting on the sub was at 120Hz!! Changed that to 80Hz and things sound a bit more fluid. Had to Zero out the BL and LPF on the sub itself, BTW it has nice rotary dials instead of just having the LPF 'click' to 50Hz/80/100/ etc, so you can fine tune it nicely.

As well, when I switch over to CD, I have the Denon set to Analog, which seems to pull the info from the DVD player nicely, more like a transport I guess?

So after twiddling with all of this and playing some tunes where I know what it should sound like (don't laugh, but VNV Nation _Standing_ is a great tune with aLOT of remixes to test a range of sound) and well...it seriously sounds like a wall of music in front of me. Switching to 5CH Stereo is just sweet, but not even needed.

So now, while looking for a resolution I was pricing out the Energy Connoissuer C-5 floorstanders, and have questions about those on a post in the Speaker Forum, the kicker.... my wife saw the speakers and wants them too =)

Thanks for the suggestions folks, helped get me started in the right direction....

[jeskibuff]

when I switch over to CD, I have the Denon set to Analog, which seems to pull the info from the DVD player nicely, more like a transport I guess?

It's good you're getting your setup problems resolved, but I still think you're cheating yourself if you're using the analog connection to your DVD player for CD playback. Tell the Denon to use the optical digital connection for CD playback (the same input that the DVD setting is using). What's happening with the way you've got it set up (or so I'm guessing), is that the digital signal is being converted to analog within the JVC, sent to your Denon, which converts the analog to digital, processes it, then converts the digital back to analog to send to your speakers. You've got 3 opportunities to lose clarity because you're converting the signal 3 times. If you use the digital connection, it goes through just ONE conversion and should sound better. Also, the quality of DACs probably differs. I would think the Denon's would be higher quality than the JVC's, but you're probably using BOTH of them anyway if you're running with the analog output from the JVC.

The reason you would want to use different selectors (CD and DVD) from your one DVD player is (hopefully) the Denon remembers the setup that you prefer for listening in each mode. For instance, if you're watching a movie, selecting DVD will optimize the settings for 5.1 sound (DD/DTS, etc.). If you want to listen to a 2-channel CD, pressing "CD" will set the Denon up for the processing you prefer for 2-channel sources (Stereo or 5.1 Stereo, etc.)

[topspeed]

when I switch over to CD, I have the Denon set to Analog, which seems to pull the info from the DVD player nicely, more like a transport I guess?

You're close, it's the other way around. Now you're using the DVD's dac's to process the sound. I have no idea what kind of dac's are in the unit but as J noted, there's a very good chance the dac's in the Denon are Burr-Browns and probably better. If you switch the Denon in CD playback to "optical" NOW you'd be using the JVC as a transport. This is actually a good chance to decide which dac's you like better. Simply switch the cd setting back and forth between "analog" (JVC) and "optical" (Denon) while listening to some familiar tracks and pick which one you like best. If you can't tell the difference, I'd lose the rca's for the analog hook-up and just go digital for both dvd's and cd. It's just cleaner that way.

Good luck