Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jacobacci]

I am running JRiver MC28 on a Windows PC and going through HDMI to an Onkyo PR-SC5507 AVR. The number of channels in DSP Studio are set to 5.1. The Onkyo has four speakers attached to it (2x front, 2x rear) and it downmixes the center and subwoofer channels into the 2 front channels. This works fine with SACDs.

MDG SACDs are a special breed. MDG use a recording technique they call 2+2+2 https://www.mdg.de/frame2e.htm. The front and rear channels are used as usual. The center and subwoofer channels contain two front height channels. So the two front height speakers are connected to the center and subwoofer outputs of the AVR.
For my setup (Onkyo with four speakers), this does not work, as the two front height channels of MDG SACDs are interpreted by the Onkyo as center and subwoofer and mixed into the two front channels.

So in order to be able to play MDG SACDs, I am looking for a setting in DSP Studio that will ONLY send the 2 front and the two rear channels to the Onkyo. The center and subwoofer channels should remain silent, so the Onkyo does not mix anything into the front speakers. Is there any way to do this?

Thanks a lot for any hints.

[AGAWA]

When I play MDG SACD's on my SACD player - I switch off Center and Sub and hence only 4 channels are replayed without channel management. Or alternatively I allow Center to be used and mixed into 4 channels.
I have 4 speaker setup.

With JRiver  I do not use SUB at all and for MDG SACD's I use the second scenario with Center used for a mix into 4 channels.
I had a discussion some time ago with owner of MDG, the preferred way of listening is to use 4 speakers without mixing height info into 4 speakers,  but if not possible then utilise Center in the mix, no SUB.

It would be nice if we could set number and setup of input channels (also be able to manipulate output), but as I understand it is not possible now. We can only set number of speakers and use SUB or not.

Hope this helps.

[jacobacci]

Thanks Agawa, that makes sense.
I have now tried the following and it seems to work well. As I don't have thousands of MDG SACDs, the effort to implement should be manageable:

I have converted the multichannel tracks of the ISO to 88.2kHz FLAC.
Next I converted the FLAC files from 5.1 to 4.0 using the following ffmeg command:

Code: [Select]

FOR /F "delims=|" %%k IN ('dir /b *.flac') DO ffmpeg -i "%%k" -af pan="quad|c0=c0|c1=c1|c2=c4|c3=c5" "converted/%%~nxk" (output files will be placed in a folder called "converted")
This command remaps channels 0,1,4,5 of the 5.1 file to channels 0,1,2,3 of the quad file. The quad file can be played "pure". It sounds excellent.

[kr4]

That can also be done with the "Order Channels" option under Parametric EQ.

[jacobacci]

Thanks Kal
I can't seem to be able to get rid of the 5.1 to 4.0 conversion step.
Also in channel ordering I can only change the sequence, but I can't "mute" the subwoofer and center channels I am trying to get rid of

[kr4]

You don't have to mute the unwanted channels.  Just send them to channels/speakers that you do not have.

[jacobacci]

Just to be sure. "Convert" in the audio path in this case means "send the first four channels in the order indicated via HDMI".
That would be an excellent solution

[AGAWA]

but I guess you downmix to 4 channels? If so, even if you move unwanted channels out of the way they still will be used in mixdown to 4.
Send all channels to the receiver and setup receiver to disregard Center and Sub for MDG.

EDIT

I've just spotted :"Channels not in the output are ignored". (DSP Studio, Parametric Eq).
Kal is right, this should work as expected.
I've learnt something and certainly will adopt this in my 4 speaker setup.