Yamaha RX-577 - Pro-Logic II and Center Speaker

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huggy

Active Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2015
Messages
64
hi guys I have a yamaha rx 577 5.2 surround sound. I was told by a audio tech at best buy, I am just listening to DVD-Audio like those SACDs. and regular 2 channel vinyl records and not watching movies in 5.1 so what he told me was to

disconnect the center speaker, I tried that but on some vinyl records the vocals are like echos and some are not. see I thought it would be like those old quadraphonic recievers back in the 70's,the guy at best buy told me if I set it on dolby

pro logic II x the decoder in the 5.2s are the same as those in the quad recievers back in the 70's. but digital. so can I just put the center speaker on top of the right speaker? as they are sheilded both speakers.

thanks
huggy
 
pro logic II x the decoder in the 5.2s are the same as those in the quad recievers back in the 70's. but digital. so can I just put the center speaker on top of the right speaker? as they are sheilded both speakers.

I'm confused - why would you want to disconnect the centre speaker? You certainly don't want to place it on top of the left or right if it is not disconnected, it would totally put the balance off. Dolby PL II is not the same as the quad receivers (there are several different formats for a start, and DPL II is just one which is apparently similar to the SQ system, but some people report good results with QS.)

You can stop signal being sent to the centre speaker in DPL II without having to physically disconnect anything, or for it to affect true surround formats.

Here's what you can do:

When PLII Music is on the display on the Yam amp, press the up arrow on the remote. When you get to C.Image use the sideways arrows to set it to 0.0. Arrow up top CT Width and set that using the sideways arrows to 7. That will eliminate the centre channel use on PLII only. It won't affect the settings when you go back to "Straight" mode.

There are additional settings: arrow up again, I currently have Dimension set to -1. Arrow up again, I currently have Panorama set to Off. Why not have a play around with these two and see what you prefer. My AV model number is different to yours, but hopefully the workings to change settings will be similar.
 
Talking about artifacts like fake L+R mixes being sent to the center channel...

Not sure if this applies, but for those using media player apps on the computer to play your surround music, some of these apps are shockingly buggy even here in 2015.

My last notes:

Songbird

pro
Set your OS audio utility to 5.1 (for speaker configuration) and all formats play out the correct speaker channels. (4.0 next to 5.1 next to 2.0 next to 5.0, etc, etc in the same playlist)

Plays FLAC files.

con
Last release (v2.2.0) has a bug that swaps channels 3,4 with 5,6 for uncompressed WAV files only. How embarrassing for them…

Apple lossless files play back screwed up with weird (and very obvious) distortion.


Play

pro
Plays all file formats including FLAC, WAV, OGG, SHN, Apple Lossless

con
You must set your OS audio utility to the specific channel format you intend to play (5.1 vs. 4.0 vs. 2.0, etc). That means no mixing 5.1 with 4.0, for example, in the same playlist. (Set to 5.1 and 4.0 program uses ch 1-4 instead of 1,2 & 5,6.)


iTunes

pro
None

con
Surround files do not play at all! You can't even drag them into a playlist. Just to add to their embarrassment, even their Apple Lossless format doesn't work! (It DOES support multichannel surround and works flawlessly in Play though.)

FLAC not supported (It's a format war thing.)

This app is hands down the most stunning failure!

Cog

Didn't really give this one much time. First impression wasn't good.

con
Crashes a lot.
Again, you must set your OS audio utility to the specific channel format you intend to play


VLC

pro
Supports most formats.

con
Again, you must set your OS audio utility to the specific channel format you intend to play.
4.0 quad played with a fake center channel L,R mix! Absolute show stopper there!!
Cannot play HD vidio + lossless discreet HD 5.1 audio (MKV format). Simply no audio output. It seems to only support lossy (encoded to 2 channels) surround typical in many movies.

Foobar

Didn't really give this one much time. First impression wasn't good.

con
No native OSX version last time I checked (but installs and seems to run without issue in OSX with Wine installed).
The "GUI" took me back to 1995!

XBMC Media Center

Note: This app is also a video player.

pro
Plays both the highest quality video formats and audio formats together including HD video with lossless discreet HD 5.1 audio. (MKV format)

con
The GUI is possibly the worst screen disaster I've ever seen. Looks like it was made by a 12 year old on copious amounts of Mountain Dew. Basic controls and functions are as clumsy as it gets!

Windows Media Player
Probably not even fair to review this. (I haven't actually even installed it in OSX.)

Hearsay
Doesn't support FLAC.
Might even only be an mp3 player.


None of them are perfect. Maybe some of the paid apps are - I don't know. I've been using Songbird because I like that I can mix and match formats and I keep everything in FLAC anyway.

And my point for this thread is: A fake center channel faux pas might not be the fault of your receiver. Your media player app could be doing it.
 
mike the fish, thanks for the info. see I turned off the center channel as I just listening to just the audio on the vinyl records, then I have some old SQ records, so if I set the settings like you mention will give me the true SQ martix quad sound?
 
From what I've seen on the math side it won't be true SQ, but some stuff will still be sent to the back. If you're set up for needle-dropping you can run that through decoding software and end up with what you need to burn a disc, but it can be fairly time consuming to get there. I've got an album on SQ and also on SACD from the quad tape, so I can have a quick compare later and let you know what I find, if you like.
 
From what I've seen on the math side it won't be true SQ, but some stuff will still be sent to the back. If you're set up for needle-dropping you can run that through decoding software and end up with what you need to burn a disc, but it can be fairly time consuming to get there. I've got an album on SQ and also on SACD from the quad tape, so I can have a quick compare later and let you know what I find, if you like.

Thanks for the info MTF! :)

As of this week I've just fixed up my old TT that's been in storage for 10+ years (which I'd squirreled away in disgust after the roofers half destroyed it! "Oh it's alright mate you can leave everything where it is an we'll work around it"... Ha! Anyway I've given it a little bit of TLC and bought some new components and hey presto it works again!) anyway....can you recommend any cheap (or even better free!) SQ decoding software for the Mac please?

(My next move if it's possible is to get some SQ vinyl and let rip! :D )

image.jpg
 
Mac? Hmm, I don't know, as I use Windows (don't hate me). Does Adobe Audition run on the Mac? Is so, we can start from there.
 
hi guys I posted a while back I have a yamaha 5.2 surround sound and I asked the question how can I turn off the center channel and just listen to music and not watch dvd and blu rays the person wrote the settings like for the panorama, dimension and

etc. I had to reset my reciever because when I turned it on it would quick turn that worked, then I re did the speakers but I lost that info that person had posted

thanks huggy
 
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