Effects are really lacking over Dish....

[brazosdog02]

I have DIsh network, and watched Thor earlier. I dont have my rear speakers up yet, but with the system using my CM340SE mains and center, and dual LVR12 Subs...its really blah. The bass is pretty good and the voices are clear, but all of the effects are really flat, muddled and lacking. When there are voices and 'stuff' going on, like fight scenes, the effects and higher pitched stuff that should really pop is just kind of lost in the noise of everything around. Is this just because its over dish? Why does it suck so bad? The receiver said Dolby Digital/PLII or some such verbiage.

Is there something Ive set up wrong? Im running a Denon X4000 AVR and the AVR handles all of the switching.

Im really hoping its something set up wrong or the channel I was watching but I felt like the sound was REALLY lacking. Glass breaking, gunfire, people walking....all of that was just kind of all flat and lost and muddy in the background noise along with the voices when it was all going on. I hope that is not what I can expect from my new speakers. :(

[natetg57]

If it shows PLII than you are only receiving a two channel signal and receiver is converting it to a simulated surround. That could account for what you are hearing. I would expect the sound effects to be very lifelike and convincing with your new speakers.

Double check that all of your speakers are wired correctly. If the polarity is switched on one or two speakers than you would get some weird cancellation.

Can you play a DVD or Blu-Ray with good sound and compare?

Did you run Audyssey? Try turning off Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. I much prefer those off.

When I had Dish, I noticed a trend towards more compression (lower quality) to provide more channels.

[brazosdog02]

If it shows PLII than you are only receiving a two channel signal and receiver is converting it to a simulated surround. That could account for what you are hearing. I would expect the sound effects to be very lifelike and convincing with your new speakers.

Double check that all of your speakers are wired correctly. If the polarity is switched on one or two speakers than you would get some weird cancellation.

Can you play a DVD or Blu-Ray with good sound and compare?

Did you run Audyssey? Try turning off Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. I much prefer those off.

When I had Dish, I noticed a trend towards more compression (lower quality) to provide more channels.

It says DOLBY DIGITAL during the movie. It just switches occasionally during commercials. When I disable dynamic volume and Dynamic EQ the sound gets REALLY soft, I have to turn it up a lot from there and the bass is weak. Ill play with it later and see. I don't think there is anything 'wrong' with the speakers. I just think I don't have something balanced out right or something.

[markie]

Silly question, but is your receiver set up for 3.2 sound? If it's set up for 5.1/5.2, it won't send the proper surround sounds to your mains. If this isn't the problem, try resetting both your dish and receiver for a good 30 seconds. Please keep us posted!

Mark

[brazosdog02]

I know my receiver is set up such that is shows "NONE" for rear speakers, so I assume that means it knows there are no speakers there.

[markie]

OK, thanks. Your receiver can do 9.2, so I assume it shows none for those 6 channels outside your left,right and center. Really, your system should rock. You have 3 excellent speakers, 2 subs, and a very good receiver. So something somewhere is wrong. I assume you ran the Audyssey at startup after telling the receiver you had only left, right and center speakers. Your receiver also has SubEQ on top of the MulEQ XT32. Did you employ that? Anyway, I would strongly recommend you rerun Audyssey. Your receiver is excellent but it does have reported bugs. Is your receiver new, with the speakers, or did you use it with previous speakers? Have you listened to music using Airplay? (Want to rule out HDMI issues). Thanks

Mark

[brazosdog02]

It is all new equipment. Ive used Audyssey several times. AirPlay is a whole other issue. Airplay is OK at best in stereo mode, but it doesnt use the subs. Airplay in movie mode uses the subs but its REALLY lacking in bottom end. That could just be the compression on my iphone though. Im not at all impressed with the music over AirPlay but I havent tested with known high quality files though.

To be clear, the movie I was watching was an HD channel, but it was NOT the movie channels or ppv. Its possible I guess that the audio was poor, even if it was 5.1.

Im open to suggestions on Airplay, but I need to sit down more and play around with these suggestions this weekend and see what I can figure out. There may be nothing at all wrong....just a bad HD channel.

[markie]

Thanks. That was one of the bugs: in stereo mode it doesn't utilize the subs! I would presume Denon has fixed this and some other bugs with a firmware update by now. Have you updated the firmware yet?

I'm also curious as to what Audyssey set the crossovers to.

Good luck over the weekend, again keep us posted!

Mark

[brazosdog02]

I manually set the crossovers to 80hz. Didn't notice a difference, but I need to sit down and set that later.

I DID do a firmware update, noticed it the day after posting this. It has updated, but I have not even turned the AVR on since! :)

[davef]

Hi Brazosdog02,

The best place to start the troubleshooting process is basic 2-channel audio from a CD. Have you tried playing a CD yet? Be sure to set the receiver the 2-channel mode and connect the CD player/DVD player to the analog inputs on the receiver.

Thanks in advance!