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| I have a typical 5.1 setup: Left, Right, Center, Surround Left, Surround Right, and Subwoofer. My receiver has an option to add a Surround (rear) Center speaker for 6.1 operation. All I have to do is connect the speaker and tell the receiver it's there (via an onscreen menu: "Center Surround YES" vs. "Center Surround NO"). Here's my question: Is 6.1 completely dependent on the source material for operation? Or is the center channel matrixed somehow by the receiver, using 5.1 (Dolby Digital or DTS) source material to create a center channel? If the source material isn't 6.1, does the center surround speaker just sit there quietly? |
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Derek | If you listen to Dolby Digital EX or DTS EX all 7 channels are discrete. DD and DTS 5.1 SHOULD silence the rear center surround. Since Dolby Pro-Logic has mono surrounds, SOME receivers incorrectly colapse the two rear surrounds to the center surround. This will actually sound worse than simply telling the receiver that it's not there. Your will have to do a little trial and error but you will also have to pay close attention to what type of source you are listening to. It may not be worth the trouble. That rear center is highly overrated. |
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| I think my receiver is working correctly--in Dolby Digital, DTS and ProLogic (as well as ProLogic II) mode, the rear center is indeed silent. In running sound balancing tests, it's definitely there and correctly connected/balanced. In fact, that's the only time I've ever heard it! I guess that makes sense--if DD and DTS sources are all discrete channels, it would be a waste for any receiver to mess with that. So with a rear center that's silent 99.9% of the time, I definitely agree with your assessment of "overrated." I'll look for more 6.1 source material, but I get the impression that there's not much of it out there yet. Oh well--since the speaker is the same as the Surround Left and Surround Right speakers, I'll think of it as a spare tire in the unlikely event either of those fail. |
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Anonymous | Derek- It is my understanding that DTS ES 6.1 has 2 flavors--discrete or matrix--and DD EX is a matrixed format. Billmann- Yes, I believe you are right that there is not a lot of DTS Discrete 6.1 out there. I'm not a movie afficionado (sp?), but I do have Gladiator and IIRC that is a 6.1 track. My guess is that since PLII simulates a 5.1 with a normal 2 channel audio, so it may not do anything. Also, the normal DTS and DD are 5.1, so the 6th again is silent. I'd imagine that some receivers would use that rear speaker in their DSP modes, like All Channel Stereo or Hall, etc. I have an Onkyo SR600 and have been considering getting the 6th rear. Is it more of a gimmick? Does it really add anything to the experience? -C |
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Idealty | I don't know if it depends on the reciever, but I have an Onkyo 800 (which is 7.1) and my two rear surround channels are never silent. The deciding factor may be that there is an option on the reciever to tell it what to do with those two extra surrounds. You can leave them off, you can use them for the normal surround left and right (which would turn off the usual surround left and right speakers), or you can use them in conjunction with the normal surrounds. In other words, this configuration is like have 2 surround left speakers (one behind you and one to your left) and 2 surround right speakers. Generally, the signals will not be discrete for most modes (PLII, DD & DTS 5.1), but the speakers will output the exact same thing as the side surrounds. This opens up your soundstage a whole lot to say the least. It's great. With this configuration, the reciever also knows that those speakers are the designated rear surrounds so for 6.1 sources, they automatically function as rear surrounds only. There are also a bunch of DSP modes that use all 7 channels like Enhanced 7, and All ch stereo. I heard that using this set-up with normal 5.1 sources may not sound as good as telling the reciever to only use the side surrounds. I am still experimenting, but if anyone knows about that, let me know. By the way, the Onyko 800 is a great reciever! |
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| I've been experimenting a bit also. There's a mode on my receiver called "6.1 Stereo" which is kinda wild for music sources--indeed, all speakers are firing, and it creates a pretty cool experience. Nevertheless, it's more gimmicky than anything else, as imaging goes right out the window. Great for New Age stuff, though, I would imagine. For movies, I've found that unless the movie has a 6.1 soundtrack with discreet channels, nothing happens with the center surround. That's fine, though, considering my investment in the rear center speaker wasn't much and the wiring was easy. For now, if anyone was considering buying the rear center, I'd say to skip it--especially if the speaker is expensive or if the hookup would be difficult. |
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idealty | I'm still confused as to why your back surrounds are silent. At the very least, you should know that a 6.1 speaker set-up is backward compatible with 5.1 DVDs and other sources. Unless you have a DVD with "DTS-ES Discrete", any sound you hear from the rear surround is matrixed. How this works with 5.1 inputs is that typically, the side surrounds recieve all the surround information. Sometimes, sound engineers design "back surround" effects in a movie. In a 5.1 set-up, the side surrounds usually contain that information and try to give the listener the illusion that sound is coming from directly behind them. That rear sound information is ALWAYS there, for any DVD or 5.1 source. The only thing EX or ES surround does is matrix decode that information to "take it out" and send it to the back surround channels. What does this mean? This means that you can run your reciever in DD-EX or DTS-ES for ANY 5.1 movie. Since that back information is always there, the reciever will still decode it and send something to the center surrounds. You should hear sound from the center surround. Of course, the EX effect is best when the DVD is designed for it (meaning you see it on the box), but it will work for any 5.1. Therefore, if you never hear any sound from the center surround, it's either becuase you have a liable reciever (just lacking certain features to get the best out of 6.1) or something is faulty in either the electronics or your wiring. Try it out. But to say that getting the 6th channel is "useless" is simply far from true in my experience. |
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Sam Rao | Is everyone here using just a single Speaker for the surround back or using 2 for 7.1? I was told that there is no point using 1 speaker as when u listen to a ES/EX disc then the surround back sound will sound like its coming from infront of u, rather than behind u. I use 2 speakers for the surround back. I have a few ES/EX movies and the sound is amazing. The surround backs do a lot of work! It is really amazing. I have 1 question though, my old amp can only decode matrix DTS ES and EX not discrete. So If I play a discrete encoded dvd will it just play in matrix mode? I just bought a new amp, should be getting it today which has Discrete sound, Neo, Doly Pro II. I will see if I notice a big difference. |
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John Allen | http://www.mdg.de/222e.htm This link is to a record label in Germany. There they advocate using 6-channel in order to get a feeling of height. Our sound world is not flat. Good point. But where do you put your center back speaker. On the ceiling? |
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mikek | i have a sony 6.1 reciever, and actually put 2 speakers in a suround back turning it into a 7.1 suround system. on my reciever i can turn my surround back to off, auto detecting, or to matrix. off obviosly turns the speakers off. in the auto mode, ,the rears only turn on with a 6.1 dvd. matrix is great because it takes the two surround channels and plays the blending mono through the rear. it sounds pretty good on 90% of my 5.1 dvd's. there is a dvd site called dvd down under which keeps a list of dvd's that have dts-es, dd-ex and dd5.1. it is true that there are not a lot of dvd's with the 6.1 yet but my favorite 6.1 movies are gladiator(the opening battle) and the extended Lord of the Rings. at this time i would not recommend most people to upgrade their 5.1 recievers to 6.1. But, if you are looking to buy a reciever, it is well worth the extra 100 dollars to have the feature when more dvd's come out in 6.1. i would not recommend going to 7.1 because you can easily split the power from the rear center channel into two speakers like i did. by doing this you are still spreading out the suround back sound. all 7.1 is doing is splitting the rear center channel and adding more watts. to me its not worth the money. |
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HVQ | I just set up my 6.1 home theater system this weekend. It sounds phenomenal, but I have one nagging and frustrating question. Must the DVD player support DTS-ES and DD-EX in order to hear the rear center channel? Details: My JVC DVD player is 2 years old. It has the plain DTS and DD logos on it. Lord of the Rings worked great in 5.1 DD. I switched to DTS-ES hoping to hear sound from the back center but it was silent. I know the speaker works because I hear sound coming out of it when I run "Test". Do I have to get a DVD player that has DTS-ES and DD-EX logos on it in order for my 6.1 system to work to it's full potential? |
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idealty | HVQ, DVD players do not support DDEX or DTS-ES directly. Both surrund formats are fully compatible with exisiting DD and DTS 5.1 formats. When a DVD movie is encoded with DDEX or DTS-ES, there still exists a normal 5.1 channel soundtrack. The EX information is just mixed in with the bitstream, but it doesn't have to be decoded in order for the movie to play in DD or DTS. What this means is that all a DVD player would need is to have a typical DD or DTS digital output stream. The reciever or decoding device is what has to support the formats. Your reciever needs to be able to decode DDEX or DTS-ES to hear it. To date, I don't know of any DVD players that specifically decodes DDEX or DTS-ES, so you have everything you need. Hope this helps. |
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| Mikek! What did you do exactly to add a second surround back on your 6.1? Did you wire them in parralel? Because if your amp is a 6.1, I guess you havent't plugged the extra (7th channel) speaker straight up in the amp. What did you do exactly? Thanks. |
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Jhonny Ringo | Mikek please show us how you converted from 6.1 to 7.1. How did you wire the speakers? Thanks. |
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Jay | As i like to plan for the future i'm thinking about moving up from 5.1 to 6.1,maybe 7.1.The 6.1 is a Yamaha and the 7.1 is a Sony.I fancy the Yamaha as i know they have high sound quality but i'm thinking will 7.1 catch on and is it worth me going for that instead? I own several 6.1 movies so i know the Yamaha will do me well but i'm still unsure about the Sony. I can't think of anything that would use 7.1 in the near future. personally i think it could all be down to just sound quality and the 6.1 does it for me.If 7.1 is the way to go however then i will seriously consider that.The Sony reciever doesn't do 6.1 discrete for some reason just 5.1 and 7.1 discrete.Will i lose audio quality because of this and will i need to take this into account which receiver i go for.i'm a bit stuck on this.Which shall i go for 6.1 or 7.1? |
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| I am very uneducated about home audio and surround sound systems and have what is probably a basic question. I am building a new house and am almost to the pre-wire stage. We will have our first surround sound system when completed. However, my wife is a stay at home wife and listens to music during the day, moving from room to room as she works. We would like to install basic stereo ceiling speakers in several rooms to accomodate her listening as she does housework. Old receivers with A/B speaker selection and an additional speaker selection switcher would have made this pretty easy. But new home theater receivers do not have A/B...just the main theater outputs. How can I get the music (albeit, just in stereo) to other parts of the house? I've been told I could connect my new home theater receiver to my old stereo receiver (tape output to aux input), then run the stereo speakers out of the old receiver, through a switcher. Is there some way to accomplish what I want without having my old receiver cluttering up the system? Thanks. |
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JR | Henry, I'm not sure about other brands, but most if not all Yamaha receivers still have the A/B speaker hookups, so you should be able to use the B speakers for the rest of the house. You probably need to get a speaker swith box, and you can install volume controls in each room. Any good local electronics store should be able to help you get the right equipment for this. Good luck with the new house. |
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| hello everyone... this is all great info..but what movies are 6.1 or even 7.1 format? |
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| Hnery, Sony has a new system which allows video play in one room while playing CD's (and I would assume off the air stereo) in another. This may be just what you need. As your building a new house you may want to consider adding a switching center which would allow you to put speakers in every room and control them from a central location. The unit can be bought at Best Buy and other audio centers. If you have a store in your area that specializes in Home Theater and has displays, you could probably go talk to them and get an undersanding of how this works. For a price I'm sure they'll take the work. Good Luck |
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Ken Turgeon Unregistered guest | I just upgraded my reciever to an Integra. Does anyone have a list of movies that are in the 6.1 format DTS or DD. Thanks |
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New member Username: Project6Post Number: 91 Registered: 12-2003 | try this link it has a listing of movies they supported on DTS-ES discrete & matrix. cheers http://www.dtsonline.com/home&car/hometheatre/dvd-titles.php |
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Unregistered guest | Can I play a 6.1 DTS movie with a 5.1 Receiver? |
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New member Username: Project6Post Number: 169 Registered: 12-2003 | yes, it is backwards compatible |
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Bronze Member Username: OnmedicPost Number: 22 Registered: 01-2004 | Ken, How do you like your integra? I am looking to purchase a DTR-7.4 in February! Your feedback would be great! |
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New member Username: GregPost Number: 1 Registered: 02-2004 | I have a 6.1 reciever with the back surround hooked up.I have the option to select the ES or EX to either ON,OFF or AUTO.If i am playing a 5.1 DVD and select the EX or ES mode to ON am i splitting the sound from the other two surrounds to get the 6th channel.Is this what matrix is? |
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Silver Member Username: Project6Post Number: 249 Registered: 12-2003 | yes |
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New member Username: StevensquiersPost Number: 6 Registered: 02-2004 | i have the onkyo hts760 with 6.1 and although you can't really "hear" the sixth speaker in the back, it's overall a good quality sound with all the speakers, very uniform. Like someone else said, you can dictate if you want all the speakers on or not, so that's up to you. I like being surrounded by the sound. |
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New member Username: Mattzzz420Post Number: 4 Registered: 02-2004 | for what its worth ,you wont get 6.1 unless the dvd is 6.1 format. also you must have a discrete 6th channel or rr and rl are blended into rear center. please some one correct me if im wrong |
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Bronze Member Username: XtremehtPost Number: 19 Registered: 02-2004 | The most discrete channels you can get is 6 with either DTS-ES or Dolby Digital EX. The 6th channel on DD EX is mixed in the surround channel and the receiver or processor detects the flag in the signal and pulls it out and sends it to the SB channel. DTS-ES is recorded in 6.1 so the receiver or processor actually recognizes a separate SB channel. My processor turns the SB channel off if it's not a 6.1 signal unless I tell it to turn on, then it will matrix the SB channel with the SL and SR channels. There currently aren't to many movies recorded in this format but when you play a movie that is it's a whole new experience. |
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Unregistered guest | i just got a 6.1 reciever, everything else i have is in 5.1. is this gonna give me problems or no? |
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Silver Member Username: Project6Post Number: 429 Registered: Dec-03 | steve b. 6.1 is backwards compatible with 5.1, you won't have any problems cheers |
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Anonymous | If you buy a reciever that says it is compatible with DTS DD NEO 6 DPII and is THX select does this mean you have to buy something else to decode all of those formats? If so what is suggested? |
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Silver Member Username: Project6Post Number: 893 Registered: Dec-03 | no |