Bass Management Issues

jaybird, you are right in this point, that they have fixed stickers of 5.1., although the sound mix is 4.0 (or any 4.1?). To the point .1 my further comment: When you have (and now many have through the video-surround) satelites with a subwoofer, you can listen also the bass sound without the .1
By a 4.0 mixdown you can make a bass management in the player or the surround-receiver. When switched to "loudspeaker small", you have a bass in the connection to the subwoofer.

Quadro-Action said:

jaybird, you are right in this point, that they have fixed stickers of 5.1., although the sound mix is 4.0 (or any 4.1?). To the point .1 my further comment: When you have (and now many have through the video-surround) satelites with a subwoofer, you can listen also the bass sound without the .1
By a 4.0 mixdown you can make a bass management in the player or the surround-receiver. When switched to "loudspeaker small", you have a bass in the connection to the subwoofer.

Click to expand...

In most cases, the bass management in the player merely serves as a high pass filter for the satellites, but if no actual .1 channel exists on the SACD, the subwoofer will not produce any sound. You would be right if the signal were either Dolby Digital or DTS, but since the processing for SACD and DVD-Audio is typically not done in the receiver, the receiver's bass management won't come into play. The SACD player's bass management won't create a channel that isn't there. So if there's no .1 channel on the disc, the bass management still will not create one.

The problem of .1 will show us unfortunately, how compilcated "modern" surround can be. In the manual of my player NS-V 900 is noticed, that for the 2 main speakers in front cann not switched to the mode "small", which must be by satellites for a bass management. But on the other hand there are some mor SA-CD' and DVD-Audios with 4.0 - especiallity in the section classic (EMI and Pentatone with a lot of quadraphonic recordings from the 70's. Is there always a listening without bass? I may ask a specialist, how is to work with 5 satellites an a subwoofer for 4.0 program. I self don't have such problem, because I am listen with 4 big speakers without center and subwoofer.

Since I work in the audio retail business, I can tell you that the only way to get subwoofer action with a sub/sat speaker system with 4.0 material is to bypass the bass management in the receiver or player (use large speaker setting for front speakers, if you can, and select "no" for the subwoofer, and run the front speaker wires from the amplifier to the subwoofer before connecting to the front speakers. Or, if the amplifier has A-B speaker selection, put the sub on the B terminals.) This is the way around the bass management to get more bass from 4.0. I've also played both EMI DVD-A's and Pentatone SACD's, and have had excellent bass from my sub with the conventional hookup, using the bass management in my player. I agree that most modern systems seem more complex than the original quad systems, but when you have to deal with anywhere from 5 to 7 speakers, one must also deal with the "wife acceptance factor". This also applied to four large speakers back in the quad days. As for the Moody Blues discs, I've accepted that they're only 4.0, and can enjoy them as such. My JBL front speakers deliver ample bass. So sit back and enjoy!

The denon 2910 has a feature called bass enhancer where you can set up the speakers to large and still have it send bass to the sub woofer. It comes in really handy when I want to listen to Cd's. The dacs in the denon are much better then the dacs in my receiver so I set the receiver to multi channel and let the denon do all the work and I still get 2.1 . As far as the moody blues sacds I dint even realize that it was a 4.0 mix because of this "bass enhancer " setting I always get sub bass no matter what the mix

anyway just my two cents.

Although I have got an informative private message from one of the writers before, I would like only again to tell, that some of the modern surround is curious, but there is also help. One of our surround-fans told me now, that he can not downmix his frontal satellites to "small" with the DVD-Player, but he can do this with the surround-Receiver. So it is something real complicated, but with "playing" with his different sorts of players and receivers, one will have finally the result, which he likes. And I self like further 4.0 So I make now my own mixdown from 5.1 and will do the same, when there are the 7.1 with HD or Blue Ray Disc.