Sherwood car dts system

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Hello (5 months later),

Couldn't help but notice the Sherwood DTS chatter. I bought and sold several of these components, installing one system in my car and shipping another setup to my best friend to put in his car out west. Neither are still working or even in our possession! I may have had an ebay transaction or two with folks here...[g]

In brief, his installer didn't hook up the decoder (?!?) and the head unit stopped accepting CDs altogether soon after.

My installation drove me insane as the decoder would work after hooking it all up UNTIL I turned off the head unit. It would not light up after that no matter what you did. If you dragged a 12V power supply to the car it *might* work.

That, coupled with the generally feeble stereo sound caused me to give up on these "high dollar components". I tore up a nice stereo rig with subs that I was perfectly happy for all this misadventure. [since restored w/12 disc instead of 6]

My next attempt at car 5.1 was the Panasonic PA-65 DVD-A player that played my DTS CDRs (even when manual says no). I even made a color diagram of the setup, which would switch between AM/FM/Cass head unit, DVD-A/DTS player and even portable DAT!

Biggest problem? Master Volume control. I didn't feel like making one, so I used three RS thumbwheel volumes on the 3 1/8" stereo cables. What a pain! Hard to balance when you're changing center AND sub at the same time. [I gave up before buying a 4th volume wheel!]

2nd biggest problem: switching inputs - so I got a Pioneer switchbox to manage the four main channels and a 3 input stereo switchbox to manage sub and center inputs. [NOTE: Many/most DTS 4.0 recordings lack LFE channel boom, so I wanted to "copy" Front channels into Sub so the subs weren't sleeping while those played]

3rd biggest problem: wiring mess, getting it all to work at the same time and the resulting noise. Then I cooked the rare Pioneer switchbox by shorting hot lead to it... I'll stop there....

Regards, Tim (timbre4)


 
When I wanted to get surround in my car I ultimately decided to install a Rockford Fosgate RFQ5000 Pro Logic 2 processor. It gives me super discrete 5 channel sound, and synthesizes it from stereo too. I haven't hooked up the subwoofer, but you could. Another cool feature is that the unit has 4 inputs so if your deck has four outputs (like Rockford Fosgate units) you can use the fader as a "panorama" control which adjusts the width and depth. Just an idea for those who wish for surround in their cars with minimal cost/hassle factor.
 
But no DTS as stated, which is the point.

I'm familiar with Rockford/Fosgate but not this processor in particular. What's the cost and what level decoding does it provide from which sources? Coax or Toslink inputs?

The name implies Pro-Logic or Pro-Logic II neither of which are discrete. DPL is 4.0 and DPL II is quasi-5.1 from 2 channel or matrixed sources. DPL II is also a very recent development.

timbre4
 
The RFQ500 that I puchased earlier this year I bought on eBay's HalfBuy for $260.00. It lists for closer to $400.00. It was released in early 2002 and was designed by Jim Fosgate. It is a Pro Logic 2 processor, and in my opinion delivers the same level of discrete performance as the Tate II, just a slightly different decoding scheme. One cool feature is a switch that turns off the center channel and diverts the information to the front L & R channels, so it can be run as a quad. It also has line level controls so you can adjust the individual channels to your taste, as well as a control to adjust how much matrix blend you want on the center channel. The difference in sound with this unit compared to a regular front and back stereo car setup is awesome, super depth and clarity. I run a cassette deck, and the quad encoded material sounds great. It's ability to synthesize surround from stereo is excellent too.
 
That does sound interesting. (FYI - entire Sherwood systems of 6 ch amp/head unit/decoder was $170 to $300 on ebay)

Does it handle master volume duties and have more than a 2 ch input? Need 5.1 input for DTS capable player to get the full tilt action going.
 
The unit does not have a master volume control, just separate adjusters for individual channels. It only has a 2 channel input, although two sets. If you were going to run a DTS player through it, it would decode the alternate Dolby Surround encoding that most DVDs include as well as digital. The RFQ5000 is a strictly analogue matrix decoder. FYI it also must be run through a power amp such as a Sony XM.
 
Thanks for answering the questions I had.

No master volume is really more important than it sounds. Until you've had to adjust 3 separate volume thumbwheels you haven't experienced supreme frustration!

Lack of multi-channel input renders it useless for introducing discrete sources such as DTS and DVD-A discs. That one day I was blaring DVD-A in my car was amazing.

timbre4 (Lear Jet Q8 in 1975)


 
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