sfogg

Good year, I don't think I upgraded anything in my audio/video system except for firmware..... Shawn

"The reason I'm noticing this is, it dawned on me the other day that if I switch to the 26db input, it might allow (force) me to use a higher volume on my preamp which then, might drive my Dx further into its signal range to help any s/n issues I've read about. " Yes, but if you want to take it further then that turn down the input level controls and you would have to turn up you levels higher. Shawn

" Can you not use the Coaxial Audio Digital Output from the 550 to your Sunfire & utilize the Dolby EX internal to the Sunfire for matrixed 7.1 sound??" Yes but they you are listening to the lossy compressed DD/DTS soundtrack and not the lossless soundtracks available on BluRay. Sort of like the difference between MP3 and CD except over 6 (or 8) channels instead of 2. Shawn

"use a " Y " splitter so send the signal to both surrounds (side n back) in Blue Ray mode?" Plenty of those that use my bypass with the Lexicons do that. On the MC-4/8/12 when they are in the factory analog bypass mode (6 channel input) they send the signal to both sides and rears by default at reduced level to keep things balanced. If you do this recalibrate your levels using the players output level menu. You will likely need to drop the surrounds by about 3dB to account for the two pairs of speakers playing. The other thing you can do if desired is get something like the SMART CS3X Surround EX Decoder. There are a number of ways that could be used. 1) Feed it the two surround channels from your player. Feed its L/R output into your sides and its center out to your rear speakers. That will basically steer out any common material in the surround channels (from the source) into your rears. 2) If you had two of those boxes you can feed it left front and left rear and take its center output to your left side. Then use the other one to do the same thing on the right side. 3) Feed it the front L/R and takes it surround output and feed that to your rear speakers. In essense what would have imaged to the rear in your L/R in the first place would be steered there with this box. Or keep it simple and use the Y cables. Shawn

"that I use as a pre amp in my main HT and going back to either an MC-1, MC-4 or MC-8 with Shawn Fogg 8 channel analog bypass upgrade." The MC-4 and 8 have a 6 channel bypass in them stock from Lexicon. I could expand that to an 8 channel bypass if desired. The bypass upgrade for the MC-1 (and DC-2/DC-1) is very useful since those don't have any sort of bypass at all stock. If you can swing it a used MC-12 gives you the option of a 6 channel analog bypass or you can redigitize the 6 channel input (at 96/24) to allow full processing of the signal including Logic 7, bass management, room EQ (if equipped) and so on. The used price on some MC-12s at this point is crazy low depending upon software/hardware level. Shawn

"that's why I am interested in the HK AVR-354. It has proprietary 7.1 logic (movie and music settings) which expands 5.1 to 7.1. I assume that you will use the 550 mostly for BD with HD audio which is 7.1." Can the H/K apply that to its 6 channel analog input? My MC-12HD can do that but not everything has the ability to process on its 5.1 channel input. It may or may not be able to. Most BD audio is still just 5.1 at this point. Shawn

"The only problem so far is I am not to sure what I need to do to get the back 2 surrounds working, when movies shot in 5.1 " You can't. Your processors processing is being bypassed in the analog bypass mode. It basically becomes an 8 channel analog pre-amp. So you can't apply DPLIIx to expand out to 7.1 or use the Sunfires bass management and so on. All that has to be done in the player. Shawn

"So do I set it at 1080p or 720p?" 720p will likely look better as the scaling engine in the Sony *should* be better then what is in your projector. Shawn

They both can work very well. On a down firing woofer the floor sort of acts as an acoustic low pass filter. That can help reduce harmonic distortion and localization. Also as the woofer is closer to the floor it will couple with it better. You can also get a little more of a shaker effect on a springy floor since the driver mass is moving up/down on the floor instead of horizontally. That can be a good or bad thing depending upon the situation. Sag can be an issue if the driver isn't built for downfiring operation. Shawn

"Should I experiment more with the front three speakers settings?" Yes, it sounds like you maybe have the center channel a little louder then L/R which will keep it from blending in as well and will pull things more into the center. Try lowering the level of the center a little. Also if your receiver/pre-pro allows you to adjust the time alignment (distance) settings while listening to material play music with strong vocals and listen in DPLII Music and adjust the centers distance forward/backwards till it really locks in with the rest of the stage. Shawn

"-- Where are you going to find a player that has 3 or 4 S/PDIF outputs?" Meridian players have 3 S/PDIF outputs on them. Other then that it is modified players. "What would possibly be the reason for that?"" The reason already given which you quoted. "This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of." Somehow I doubt that. Shawn

" So as I read it... I CAN do it..... right???For those people with older pre amps with 8 channel inputs then, this would work! " Yes, that is what the 6/8 channel analog outputs on various BluRay players are for. Be sure whatever player you are looking at his internal decoding for all of the formats and for its analog outputs has bass management, time alignment and level controls. In the 8 channel input mode you Sunfires bass management and time alignment are not active since the signal isn't going through the DSP. Check out the Panasonic BD55, it is a very good player. It has internal decoding for everything (the Samsung appears to be lacking DTS MA from the list you posted) and has the speaker processing you need. Shawn

"... can this BR player send the audo in the newer blue ray discs formats like true HD etc through optical..." No, there is no provision for sending bitstream TrueHD over S/PDIF. Even if there were your pre-amp wouldn't have a clue how to handle it. With TrueHD decoded back PCM it is possible to carry 2 channels of the audio over S/PDIF but you of course then end up loosing 4 or 6 of the channels. The exception to that is Meridian pre-pros that can accept 6 channels of LPCM in over 3 S/PDIF connections, the Lexicon MC-1 which can do the same and I think there is an older Denon that had the ability to take in 8 channels over 4 S/PDIF connections. You are limited to multi-channel analog from the player into your Sunfire if you want to hear TrueHD/etc.. in full resolution Shawn

"Even complete recovery of information can degrade audio quality from the bursts of RF noise generated during the computations involved." All the more reason to use toslink, it can't pick up the RF noise (or bad grounding) in the transport and carry it downstream the way coax can. Shawn

"The transport doesn't correct errors or anything except read the data. " That is not correct. All the error correction occurs directly when reading the data from the disc. Without the built in reed-solomon error correction that occurs during reading redbook CD wouldn't work at all. The key point is that the error correction is able to correct the vast majority of read errors such that the data is accurate. The number of un-corrected concealed errors on a non-scratched disc is very low... typically only one or two errors per disc. http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-43-3 Shawn

Probably just needs to balance the speaker levels and/or make sure she is in a surround mode. Shawn

Best single driver listening... Koss ESP-950 and/or Etymotic ER-4S. No problems with deep bass and very dynamic. The Etymotics are even completely immune to room effects. Shawn

Quick search... per this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Retail_configurations Some versions of the PS3 don't support PS2 games at all anymore. Shawn

"When you say "be sure to buy the PS3 modes that support SACD", what do you mean? I wasn't aware the ps3 had many limitations on this, can you elaborate for us?" Sony has changed the hardware on the PS3 in its various iterations. The first versions had SACD playback built in as well as full PS2 hardware support... basically a PS2 built in. To lower costs the various flavors of the PS3 have futzed with this.Off the top of my head I don't recall which versions of the PS3 have SACD playback and the PS2 hardware or not. I have an original 60gB model which has SACD and the PS2 hardware built in. I think the current 40gb model can't do SACD at all and its PS2 playback is done in software emulation and doesn't have the compatibility of the hardware versions of the PS3. I'm sure a quick search would turn up the details. Shawn

"I believe I remember reading that my PS3 cannot do bitstream so I'm assuming that it is doing the decoding, and that's why on the receiver it says PCM instead of Dolby True HD." Yes, the PS3 is v1.3 but it can't bitstream the HD formats. As such it can only pass them as decoded LPCM and that is exactly why the receiver is saying it is receiving PCM. Nothing to worry about though as the PS3 has decoding for all the formats. Shawn

"The reason I said HDMI 1.2 is because if he is going to upgrade, he may as well go to 1.2 because 1.1 won't pass 1080P, only 1080i or 720p. " HDMI 1.0 will pass 1080p that hasn't changed in any version at all. I do 1080p every day on v1.1 in my theater. DVI can even do 1080p. Shawn

" I was thinking that only HDMI 1.3 could pass HD audio. Am I misinformed?" Basically. In the studio the audio is LPCM. It gets compressed by any of the lossy or lossless codecs such as DD, DTS, Dolby TrueHD..etc...etc..etc. To listen to these formats they must be decompressed back to their original LPCM form. The confusing part is the decompressing/decoding can occur either in the player (if equipped) or in the receiver/pre-pro (if equipped). If the player handles the decoding/decompressing then you can use HDMI 1.1 or later to carry up to 8 channels of LPCM at 96kHz to a receiver/pre-pro. TrueHD and so on are bit perfect compression schemes so the quality is the same as what the studio had. For the receiver/pre-pro to perform the decoding/decompressing of the HD audio formats you need HDMI v1.3 to be able to pass these formats in their bitstream (still compressed) format. Think of it as me having a word document that is zipped. I can unzip it then email it to you, or I can just email it to you still zipped and you unzip it on your end. Either way you end up with the same Word document. Shawn

"If there is one in existance, please post a link to it so we can check it out Sfogg. " Not one but two of them. There is the Cypress CLUX-11SA and Octava 4 x 2 HDMI Distribution Amp with 7.1 Audio Routing. Gefen is also supposed to be building such a box but it has been vapourware for almost a year now. The CLUX and Octava units are out and available. I hae a number of the CLUXs and an Octava arrived today for me to check out. "1. Buy a PS3 and a receiver that accepts HDMI 1.2 or 1.3." Or v1.1. No need for 1.2 or 1.3 since 1.1 can carry 8 channels of LPCM decoded in the PS3 and the PS3 can't bitstream the advanced codecs. Regarding SACD if one wants that with a PS3 be sure to buy the PS3 modes that support SACD, not all of them do. Shawn

For the PS3 there are third party products that will allow for IR control of the PS3 to be used with universal remotes. There are also a couple of boxes out there that will give them 8 channel analog outputs. For stand alone players the Panasonic BD55 is a very nice unit. Shawn

"My first thought was that his account was hijacked." That was mine as well. No activity on an ebay account for a long time then all of a sudden listing a big ticket item is a warning flag to me. Esp. if the seller hasn't sold anything on ebay before. Shawn