Receiver preset setting for playing music in 4.1?

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djapilus

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Joined
Apr 22, 2022
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4
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Hi! I enjoy listening to some music in 4.1 (four identical kef meta speakers and an svs 3000 sub). I use the speakers for home theatre 5.1 surround, but would like to disable the center speaker when I listen to musicas it's a different brand - a good speaker, but too tonally warm for good music listening when paired with the KEFs. Would love to split the music equally between the 4 speakers and sub, without having to spend a while messing with settings - I'm on the market for a new receiver - is this possible as a preset, and if so on which receiver and how? Ideally the receiver would recognize when I'm playing music vs watching a film and switch automatically, but I know I may be getting greedy here (am I or this is possible?). I've been searching the web for a definitive way to have a preset for 4.1 and cannot locate. Or maybe there's already a pre-defined preset that does this? I understand prologic ii may have covered some aspects thereof (but I'm not sure if it actually disabled the center) but this mode has essentially been discontinued and replaced by Dolby Surround, which again, may handle part of but not all of the needs.

Or to reframe the question on a macro level - how is anyone who uses speakers for both 5.1+ home theatre and 4.0/4.1 music switching back and forth?

(Shoutout to AVS forum for directing me to this awesome hyper-specialized forum, I'm glad you exist lol)

Thanks!
 
I don't know of anything that can switch to a different speaker layout from a preset. Id be interested to learn if it does indeed exist.

And welcome to the forum
 
You can put a preset config in JRiver for that or use the default conversion. I am skeptical about what any AVR does with it.
That's a good point Kal. You can specify a different speaker layout in pretty much any media player and let the player do the mixdown. The "but" is as you've stated though.
 
I have the Denon AVR-x3700h. It allows for 2 speaker presets. I believe this would allow you to have Preset 1 set to a 5.1 (or 7.1 or 7.1.4 or whatever) layout and then Preset 2 could be set to have the Center Speaker set to "None" and configured for a 4.0 or 4.1 layout. I use the 2 presets to toggle back and forth between Audyssey ON and Audyssey OFF but there are many other configurations possible. I haven't tried your specific scenario so cannot guarantee it will work but worth exploring if you want to.
 
If the Denon already correctly handles a 4.0 Quad signal then I think you'll be ok with a preset/config, if it doesn't you wouldn't get the Quad probably just stereo of the Fronts. My Pioneer is good as its happy with Quad inputs from analogue or HDMI so it automatically disables the Centre.
 
If the Denon already correctly handles a 4.0 Quad signal then I think you'll be ok with a preset/config, if it doesn't you wouldn't get the Quad probably just stereo of the Fronts. My Pioneer is good as its happy with Quad inputs from analogue or HDMI so it automatically disables the Centre.
That's a good point. The Denon AVRs can handle a 4.0 or 4.1 signal, and the center channel is just silent. I believe what the OP is looking for is the ability to downmix a 5.1 signal down to 4.1 by sending the center channel signal equally to the front left and front right, to get a phantom center image and not have to use the "mismatched" center speaker at all. I believe the Denon will accomplish this by setting the center speaker to "None".
 
That's a good point. The Denon AVRs can handle a 4.0 or 4.1 signal, and the center channel is just silent. I believe what the OP is looking for is the ability to downmix a 5.1 signal down to 4.1 by sending the center channel signal equally to the front left and front right, to get a phantom center image and not have to use the "mismatched" center speaker at all. I believe the Denon will accomplish this by setting the center speaker to "None".
That should work I did it with my old Yamaha as the very small centre speaker I was using at the time was too close to the floor and the sound was 'disjointed' from the front AR93s I was using!
 
and then Preset 2 could be set to have the Center Speaker set to "None" and configured for a 4.0 or 4.1 layout.
Yes but it really depends on what the Denon does with the center channel feed when you specify that there is no center speaker.
 
Yes but it really depends on what the Denon does with the center channel feed when you specify that there is no center speaker.
Right, the center channel merely going silent wouldn’t be any good. Fortunately, I just tested it, and can confirm that by setting the center speaker to “None” and playing a track with isolated center channel vocals, in this case Jeremy Bender by ELP, the vocals are redistributed to the front left and right speakers equally. You can see the output configuration here:
89A1D3A1-DC8F-4AA8-831E-44F7765B63A3.jpeg

So this should do the trick for the OP.
 
Right, the center channel merely going silent wouldn’t be any good. Fortunately, I just tested it, and can confirm that by setting the center speaker to “None” and playing a track with isolated center channel vocals, in this case Jeremy Bender by ELP, the vocals are redistributed to the front left and right speakers equally. You can see the output configuration here:
View attachment 78174
So this should do the trick for the OP.
Good. There are more details but this works.
 
Right, the center channel merely going silent wouldn’t be any good. Fortunately, I just tested it, and can confirm that by setting the center speaker to “None” and playing a track with isolated center channel vocals, in this case Jeremy Bender by ELP, the vocals are redistributed to the front left and right speakers equally. You can see the output configuration here:
View attachment 78174
So this should do the trick for the OP.
Wow, amazing! Thank a bunch for doing that, I'm buying me Denon right now :) Thanks guys, y'all rock.

I'm surprised BTW give the size of this forum, and the existence of quad listening in general, that this is either not a built in option, or that easy and obvious configuration is not standard on all the receivers. Or, TBH, that there's no easy way as far as I can tell to fully customize a preset any darn way someone wants - including things like sending, say, 20% of highs to one speaker and the rest to another, or whatever. Or maybe there is - I'm just starting my audio rabbit hole.
 
Good. There are more details but this works.
Yeah, it’s possible this could introduce phase cancellation to the L/R speakers if, for instance, the vocals were originally distributed across the L/C/R monitors. The result could be a muddy soundstage and weird frequency dropouts. Maybe not though if the Denon inverts the phase on the center channel feed? I’m not totally clear on how this works. I would compare results to a stereo mix of the same recording.
 
To wrap up, seems like this is possible on most brands - the response from Yamaha is pasted below. Next level: let's lobby for the manufacturers to develop the software so the receiver changes automatically when playing say, spotify vs netflix? Anyone?

This would be an excellent application case of the receiver's "Setting Pattern" feature. This essentially lets you have two discrete sets of speaker settings, which you can toggle between using a setting in the menu, or though proper programming, a couple of Scene buttons. In your case we could make "Patten 1" the 5.1 layout, and "Pattern 2" the 4.1 layout.

Since Pattern 1 and 2 will be almost the same, we can save some time by duplicating Pattern 1's settings onto Pattern 2:

1) On the remote, press 'SETUP' (gear wheel) to open the menu
2) Select "Speaker" > "Setting Data Copy"
3) Set "Source" to PATTERN 1, set "Destination" to PATTERN 2, then select "Copy"

After this, you'll need to disable the center channel speaker for Pattern 2:

1) On the remote, press 'SETUP' (gear wheel) to open the menu
2) Select "Speaker" > "Setting Pattern" > "Pattern 2"
3) Select "Configuration" and set "Center" to NONE

At this point the speaker patterns are setup. You can toggle between Pattern 1 (5.1) and Pattern 2 (4.1) under "Speaker" > "Setting Pattern". You can streamline this toggling by programming dedicated Scene buttons for each pattern. As an example, we'll program Scene 4 for 4.1 (Pattern 2) and Scene 5 for 5.1 (Patten 1). You'll need to start by programming those two scenes to recall speaker settings:

1) On the remote, press 'SETUP' (gear wheel) to open the menu
2) Select "Scene" then "Scene Setting"
3) Select "Scene 4". Put a check-mark next to "Speaker Setup" and un-check everything else.
4) Select "Scene 5". Put a check-mark next to "Speaker Setup" and un-check everything else.
5) While you're in here, you might consider selecting "Scene Rename" and giving better names to Scene 4 and 5, but it's not totally necessary.

After completing these steps we're ready to program the Scene buttons:

1) On the remote, press 'SETUP' (gear wheel) to open the menu
2) Select "Speaker" > "Setting Pattern" > "Pattern 2"
3) Press and hold 'SCENE 4' for 5s until you see "SET COMPLETE" on the display window
4) Select "Speaker" > "Setting Pattern" > "Pattern 1"
5) Press and hold 'SCENE 5' for 5s until you see "SET COMPLETE" on the display window

Once all that is done you can just click Scene 4 for 4.1, and Scene 5 for 5.1. Let me know if you have any questions.
 
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