AVR Settings

[pipefan413]

Pretty sure there are still brand new ones on market that have a DPL mode, it's just that mine unfortunately doesn't. I bought it before I was an anorak about this sort of thing, hahah.

[allldu]

So are there older AVR's with lossless sound capabilities that also have an original Pro Logic, I wonder?

If you mean DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD plus Pro Logic I, yep, there are - until around the first years of 2000.
There were at least some (few?) Marantz with both Pro Logic I & II, DTS Neo 6 and Circle Surround II - IMHO the best to get, at quite low price; the x400 series - 4400, 5400, 6400, 7400.

Yup. That's what I meant, thanks!

[allldu]

By the way, @spoRv, you did a nice write up of the older Dolby Surround decoders (like Shure HTS, etc.), but maybe you also did a research of which ones of those are available in Europe for a reasonable price? I saw an HTS Shure 5000 on eBay once, but the shipping overseas cost even more than the thing itself amounting to around 250 EUR total. But maybe that's a normal price for one of the best surround decoders ever made?..

[pipefan413]

By the way, @spoRv, you did a nice write up of the older Dolby Surround decoders (like Shure HTS, etc.), but maybe you also did a research of which ones of those are available in Europe for a reasonable price? I saw an HTS Shure 5000 on eBay once, but the shipping overseas cost even more than the thing itself amounting to around 250 EUR total. But maybe that's a normal price for one of the best surround decoders ever made?..

I mean for a cracking modern one you could easily spend £1k so I feel like 250 EUR probably isn't bad going

[allldu]

By the way, @spoRv, you did a nice write up of the older Dolby Surround decoders (like Shure HTS, etc.), but maybe you also did a research of which ones of those are available in Europe for a reasonable price? I saw an HTS Shure 5000 on eBay once, but the shipping overseas cost even more than the thing itself amounting to around 250 EUR total. But maybe that's a normal price for one of the best surround decoders ever made?..

I mean for a cracking modern one you could easily spend £1k so I feel like 250 EUR probably isn't bad going

Well, I wish I pulled the trigger when I had a chance 

[spoRv]

AFAIK, no brand new AVR has a Dolby Pro Logic 1; all the ones with Dolby Atmos have Dolby Surround (DSU, U stands for upmixer); the others have Dolby Pro Logic IIz or IIx.

Albeit Shure HTS decoders were great, according to Disclord, he stated also that DTS Neo:6 was even better; problem is, there are different NEO:6 decoders but, at the contrary of Dolby - where they clearly divided the Pro Logic in I, II, IIx, IIz, the former has always the same name, so I don't know which could be the best.

Fact is, DPL II (IIx & IIz too) and Neo:6 use different bands (up to 19 for the latter, latest version), hence they are able to steer different sounds at the same time; it means that is it possible to have different sounds on center, surround left, surround right, surround center (apart left and right) while DPL I allow only center OR surround left OR surround right (no surround center, of course) plus of course left and right.

Dolby obliged remixers to use a Dolby Surround encoder/decoder chain during the mix, hence *in theory* no more than one sound should be steered at any given sound... BUT any new active decoder, as they are able to steer more than once sound at the time, could steer also sounds that were not intended to be steered!

Long story short: if someone wants to hear the mix as intented, they are supposed to use a Dolby Surround - or, better, a Dolby Pro Logic I - decoder; for non Dolby Surround encoded tracks , they better to use the newer decoders - SRS Circle Surround II *could potentially* sound better than DPL I.

P.S. many think that DTS Neural:X does not a great job upmixing Dolby Surround; DSU seems to do a better job.

[zoidberg]

Pro-Logic II is great, I used to use it with my Gamecube, could never get the steering to mess up.

Never really understood DTS Neo, it's different enough from Dolby to avoid a lawsuit I guess but different in the ways that matter, ie it doesn't work

[pipefan413]

AFAIK, no brand new AVR has a Dolby Pro Logic 1; all the ones with Dolby Atmos have Dolby Surround (DSU, U stands for upmixer); the others have Dolby Pro Logic IIz or IIx.

I could've sworn I'd found a couple a while back but I might just be misremembering. Wouldn't surprise me!

any new active decoder, as they are able to steer more than once sound at the time, could steer also sounds that were not intended to be steered!

That's exactly the trouble, isn't it. It might end up sounding better. It might end up sounding worse. But it is almost certainly not going to be "right". EDIT: Y'know what, I'm making this sound way worse than it probably is. In actual fact the Dolby Surround upmixer appears to do a pretty good job with matrix encoded stereo as far as I can tell. It's with other stuff that it starts to sound stupid.

Long story short: if someone wants to hear the mix as intented, they are supposed to use a Dolby Surround - or, better, a Dolby Pro Logic I - decoder; for non Dolby Surround encoded tracks , they better to use the newer decoders - SRS Circle Surround II *could potentially* sound better than DPL I.

P.S. many think that DTS Neural:X does not a great job upmixing Dolby Surround; DSU seems to do a better job.

I myself have said (and will repeat) that the DTS upmixers arguably do a more accurate job of pure mono material that's encoded with a surround flag (as in, 2-channel mono, but intended to be routed through the centre channel) because DTS Neural:X etc. sends the whole lot to C. Dolby Surround however seems to place a bunch of ambient stuff (mostly low end) in the sides presumably because it expects the centre speaker in a modern home theater to be crap at low end extension compared to sides. That might actually end up sounding better, but it sometimes sounds worse, and I kinda just don't want to deal with faffing about to see if it's OK or not and would rather route it all to C and concentrate on the damn film. However, for actual Dolby MP Matrix 4:2 content ("Dolby Surround", "Dolby Stereo"... whatever you feel like calling it) the Dolby Surround upmixer appears to handle it better imo and there are some things that just sound off with DTS Neural:X.

On my Denon I've usually got Dolby Surround engaged on almost any 2-ch track apart from plain L/R stereo, and if it's 2-ch mono I switch to the DTS upmixer instead (either leaving it in native "DTS-HD MA" mode or DTS Neural:X depending on the source format).

Pro-Logic II is great, I used to use it with my Gamecube, could never get the steering to mess up.

Never really understood DTS Neo, it's different enough from Dolby to avoid a lawsuit I guess but different in the ways that matter, ie it doesn't work

Hahaha daaaaaamn.

[allldu]

So theoretically speaking, you can take the much cheaper older AVR with the original DPL, connect it to your new AVR losslessly and use the older AVR as a decoder? Or am I wrong?

[pipefan413]

So theoretically speaking, you can take the much cheaper older AVR with the original DPL, connect it to your new AVR losslessly and use the older AVR as a decoder? Or am I wrong?

I'm talking about separate surround processors, not AVRs. The Yamaha isn't an AVR, all it does is split the 2 channels into 4 using Dolby Pro Logic circuitry.