
(archives)We've had our say, and now it's your turn.
Have something to say? Need to express an opinion? Want to
ask a question? Go ahead! E-mail all correspondence to the editor. There is a good chance that you will
see your letter in this spot. Don't be bashful -- we really do want to hear from
you.
Yours truly,
The Staff at Home Theater & Sound
Floorstanding surround speaker height
July 21, 2008
Editor,
I have just bought some new front speakers and want to move
my old speakers to the rear. They are floorstanding PSBs and I am wondering whether I
should raise them off the floor to get the height up to where a normal surround speaker
would be and to clear the furniture. They would be sitting on tables about 30 off
the floor.
Ron
This is a good question. I have seen folks do it both
ways. In part it depends on the speakers you have, and I think a little experimentation
would go a long way. Try it and see how it sounds. My reservations center around how the
floorstanding speaker was designed to be listened to. Most of them have a listening window
based on a certain tweeter height. If youre listening to them far below the tweeter
axis -- as you would be with them raised a couple of feet off the floor -- this would
impact sound quality. Come to think of it, perhaps the best compromise would be to raise
them up and angle them down so that you maintain the proper tweeter axis. My bet is that
this would accomplish both of your goals. Just make sure you anchor them so they
dont tip forward....Jeff Fritz
Speaker sizes and crossovers with PS3
July 3, 2008
To Randall Smith,
I can't seem to get a clear answer on this and so I thought
I would ask you and see if maybe you can clear it up for me. I've been doing HD DVD for a
year and, a few days ago, Blu-Ray by purchasing the PS3.
I've known about the new Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio
tracks, but I didn't really pay much attention to them. Mostly because I thought that I
needed a new receiver with HDMI 1.3 and one able to decode the new audio formats. But once
I bought the PS3 last week I did some more research and discovered to my pocketbook's
delight that I don't need a new receiver and that my Denon '2807 is fine. This is because
the PS3 is decoding and sending LPCM to the receiver over HDMI and the receiver simply
displays "Multichannel In" and it all works great.
Ignoring any thoughts about if the decoding is better in
the player or the receiver, my question is regarding crossovers and speaker sizes, etc.
These are all set in the receiver. When it receives the LPCM signal, the settings in the
receiver still apply to the input. Why I am asking and why I am confused is because with
my old Sony '999ES DVD/SACD player, when I have it hooked up to the 5.1 external inputs of
the receiver, I set the speaker sizes and distances, etc. in the player. And I believe in
this case they override any settings in the receiver. Off course there are no such
settings in the PS3 for this, and I am assuming doing the decoding in the player and
sending the LPCM to the receiver is, in essence, identical to the receiver doing the
decoding. So are the speaker sizes and the distances, etc. used as set by the receiver in
this case? Finally, would this only be true when using HDMI? Or would it still apply if I
had a player with 5.1 or 7.1 outputs and feeding those to my receiver?
Sanjay
You are correct: the new sound formats can be decoded
in the HD source player and sent out via HDMI 1.1. Thankfully this is the case or everyone
would be forced to buy a new receiver in order to take advantage of these new sound
formats. In the case of the PS3, this product will not output a digital bitstream of Dolby
TrueHD or DTS-MA. Sony prefers that the PS3 do the decoding and then output the PCM signal
that your receiver is receiving. As far as speaker settings in your source player go, my
advice is to use the bass management only in your Denon receiver. The Denon will be
responsible for crossing over your speakers to your sub as well as the speaker distances.
The Denon can do this because you are sending a digital signal to it as opposed to an
analog signal, which is what you used to do with your Sony receiver. Hopefully this little
bit of information will help ease your mind and also help your system perform to the best
of its capabilities. . . . Randall Smith
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