Dolby Pro Logic II listening recommendations

[krabapple]

check out 'Futter Mein Ego' from Einsturzende Neuebauten's HALBER MENSCH CD through DPL II processing. (What, you don't own this CD? You don;t have a surround setup? It doesn't do DPLII? You should, you should, and it should.)

Some crazy-ass redirecting going on there...I love it.

post your recommendations here

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

Actually, the correct song title is "Yü Gung", but that's OK. Have the CD but no surround setup. But I did hear someone playing Silence is Sexy through DPL II processing. There were some interesting things there as well.

[krabapple]

Actually, the correct title, as printed on the CD, is 'Yü-Gung (Fütter Mein Ego)' and yes, my dick IS bigger than yours.

[Rspaight]

Pardon my ignorance for a sec. I've often noticed that DPLII can create some neat-o surround effects from nominally stereo sources. Are these intentional DPL cues put in the mix, happy accidents, or somewhere in between (intentional phasing effects that DPLII processes into surround effects)? (I remember reading poorly-sourced articles years ago that claimed many albums contained actual "secret" DPL encoding, but I never really took it that seriously.)

Ryan

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

I think I'll stay out of this thread for the duration of, etc.

[krabapple]

Pardon my ignorance for a sec. I've often noticed that DPLII can create some neat-o surround effects from nominally stereo sources. Are these intentional DPL cues put in the mix, happy accidents, or somewhere in between (intentional phasing effects that DPLII processes into surround effects)? (I remember reading poorly-sourced articles years ago that claimed many albums contained actual "secret" DPL encoding, but I never really took it that seriously.)

Ryan

They are 'happy accidents' (exccept for the few CDs that were specifically mixed with the original Dolby pro Logic in mind). But accident only in the sense that the folks who recorded, mixed and mastered the CD certainly didn't have DPL Ii effects in mind. The folks who designed DPLII on the other hand, understand what will happen when a sound with phase, frequency and level characteristics X is fed into a DPL II processor.

Or as Dolby Labs puts it on their website: "A matrix surround decoding technology, Dolby Pro Logic II detects the directional cues that occur naturally in stereo content and uses these elements to create a five-channel surround sound playback experience."

Btw, all the groovy panning fx on Hendrix' 'Electric Ladyland' become rather scarily 3-dimensional when played back through DPL II (e.g.,on '1983 A Merman I Should Turn to Be/Moon, Turn the Tides')

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

How many speakers are you using in your setup, krabapple?

[krabapple]

How many speakers are you using in your setup, krabapple?

5 + a subwoofer

[Rspaight]

Cool, thanks, Krab.

Ryan

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

Now, when you're listening to straight stereo material -- no surround, no DTS -- are you utilizing all 5 speakers? Or do you mainly use only the front speakers (and sub, I guess)? Which mode?

(As you can see, I'm trying to negotiate my way through my new multi-speaker set-up. It's all new to me, you know.)

[Ess Ay Cee Dee]

nt

[dcooper]

I always listen to 2 channel music in stereo on my system (with the subwoofer engaged, since I have small speakers in front). I don't really have a choice, though, because I use the 5.1 analog output from my SACD player, and the Denon bypasses the digital processor circuitry when receiving analog inputs. One of these days I'd like to try digital out from the DVD player and experiment with the surround processors from a stereo music source.

I do use PL II when listening to TV (usually in the Music mode, and not Movie mode) and think it really enhances the TV expeience, especially if the show is encoded with 5.1.

[krabapple]

Now, when you're listening to straight stereo material -- no surround, no DTS -- are you utilizing all 5 speakers? Or do you mainly use only the front speakers (and sub, I guess)? Which mode?

For stereo material, all 5 speakers come into play only when DPLII is active. Otherwise, it's the front L/R + the sub. All my speakers are 'small' (that is, their useful frequency response extends only down to about 55 Hz) so my receiver send low bass (80 Hz or less) to the subwoofer in every listening mode.

But really, I listen to *all* stereo stuff with DPLII processing these days. I enjoy it that much.

[krabapple]

You guys may or may not know that in DPL II Music mode, there are often three user-adjustable parameters (some receivers don't allow user access to them, though...my expensive HK AVR520 didn't, while my much cheaper Yamaha HTR-5540 did, go figure. My new Pioneer does.)

One is Center Width, which adjusts the amount of 'mixing' of front l/R and center channels (e.g. setting it to the extreme at one end -- 7, I think -- creates a 'phantom center' , with no actual output from the center speaker.) Dimension adjusts front/back balance, while Panorama increases the surround effect....more on that below. By defult the Center Width and Dimension
adjustments are at their middle settings, IIRC, while Panorama is OFF.

One little secret I discovered by pestering the folks at Dolby Labs, is that in the default Music mode settings (but not Movie mode) , DPLII and DPL IIx actually roll off the high frequencies of the surround channels. With DPLIIx (and on recent versions of the DPL II code) you can turn this filter off by setting the Panorama mode to *On*. In other words, to get DPLII do behave conceptually more like actual DVD-A/SACD surround (where all channels are full-range, not filtered), Panorama has to be set 'on'. It's 'off' by default; Dolby labs' rationale for this is that people tend to want a mild, ambient-like surround experience with music.

And sure enough, things get even *crazier* when I set Panorama On. Tangerine Dream's 'Zeit'
must've sounded something like this in quad.

[Rspaight]

What are the other differences between Music and Movie modes? I tend to use Movie because I had the impression that it applied less processing, which the info above seems to support.

Ryan