Print

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

[CraigNZ]

I have a 7.1 sound card (AudioFire 12) but a 5.1 speaker system.  Normally a 5.1 system would have a surround Left and right, but because of room constraints it is actually a surround back Left and Right.  Also, the front left and right speakers are bi-amped and I use the JRiver PEQ as a crossover .. to do this I copied the Front L and R channels to the Surround L and R.

My question is, when I play a 5.1 surround DVD where does the Surround Left and Right signals go?  Would it be correct to copy the Surround Left and Right to both the Front Left and Right AND the Surround Back Left and Right with a -3dB gain setting.  The idea being to simulate a side speaker by putting some of it in the front speaker and some in the rear speaker .. thus appearing to be coming from the side.  And if I do this, do I put these settings in the same PEQ but before the crossover settings?  I currently have 4 entries in the PEQ:

Copy Front Left to Surround Left
Copy Front Right to Surround Right
HPF Front Left and Right
LPF Surround Left and Right


As an alternative, the AudioFire 12 does appear as two sound cards.  The first one has 8 channels, the second one 4 channels.  I could do this but not sure how to do it:

Copy Front Left (sound card 1) to Channel 1 (sound card 2)
Copy Font Right (sound card 1) to Channel 2 (sound card 2)
HPF Front Left and Right (sound card 1)
LPF Channel 1 and Channel (sound card 2)

I didn't see how to assign channel numbers to multiple sound cards and then reference those channel numbers when doing the above.

If I do this then I have 7.1 now available in sound card 1.  Do I then just use copy to pass the surround Right and Left signals to the Back speakers?

[CraigNZ]

Figured it out .. instead of setting the audio to 7.1 I set it to 12 channels.  The 7.1 references (Left, Center, etc) all refer to the first 8 channels and after that it is Channel 9,10,11,12.  I was then able to copy Front Left --> Channel 9 etc.  Works great.

So what I will try next is:

Add SL to FL (-3dB)
Add SL to SBL (-3dB)
Add SR to FR (-3dB)
Add SR to SBR (-3dB)

This should simulate the surround left and right speakers with the sound coming from the left and right of the listener.  I may have to change the gain from front to back to center it .. but seems like it should work.

[thedon_1989]

I am looking for help setting up MC20  to play 2.1 or 5.1 depending on file being played.

Setup is as follows:
CAP4 Server with JRiver 20> Exasound E28 (8 channel dac)> Parasound P7 Preamp > Amps > 5.1 speaker setup. Once setup is working fine the goal is to add dirac live.

E28 to P7 connections are as follows, FL, FR, C, SL, SR, Sub
Parasound P7 connections are to the Mutichannel Inputs. Manual says "If you use Multichannel Inputs 9 or 10 for stereo the P 7’s analog bass management and subwoofer output features are not available". Manual also states "The P 7’s center, surround and back channel outputs reproduce signals only from sources that are connected to the center, surround and back channel input jacks of the multichannel inputs 9 and 10. Because it is pure analog the P 7 cannot create surround sound from 2 channel sources." So I guess the sub has to manage the crossover settings and base management have to be handled by subwoofer.

Subwoofer is XTZ 1x12. Manual states "If your preamp does not offer an internal crossover or bass management functions, the subwoofer’s built in controls will need to be properly set to utilize the built in crossover and phase adjustments to blend the subwoofer output with the satellite speakers." So I can play around with variable low-pass filter, variable phase and base level, etc to blend in with main speakers.

So to the question, what settings do i need to put in DSP to get 2.0 and 5.1 setup working? ATM, with Channels set "Source number of channels" or "5.1 channels" or "5.1 channels (inside 7.1 channel container)", I am not getting any joy.