AV Receiver - Preouts - Genius idea needed - or for WHF Team

[WishTree]

Situation:

I am happy with my 2 Channel Setup - (PS DL3 DAC - Pathos Inpol2 and Prac speakers) which is my current system. I want to integrate a Home Theatre setup to handle the DTS / DD / AC3 format.

Challenge:

I must use my 2 Channel Integrated Amp (Pathos) for HT usage. I need only three channels Front Left, Front Right & Center. I want to control the Volume of FL/FR with Pathos. I am fine with having a different volume control for center speaker.

There are some possible solutions that I can think of but do not know the feasibility. Need your help for assesing or suggesting possible other alternatives

Solution1:

This is pretty straight forward. The Tag Malaren AV-32R has tape out which are FL/FR (Unmuted, no volume control) for DD/DTS. This can be fed to Pathos. Along with Tag, I buy another Integrated Amp and use it to amplify / volume control the center.

This Tag is very old equipment (I prefer new AVR or pre-amp) and another integrated amp just for center seems a bit of overkill. I do not know any other AV Amps which does this. If any modern one does it then I can think in that direction

Solution 2:

Possibly a Marantz SR6005 which has VCR Analogue Audio Out might be outputting the FL/FR for DD/DTS with out Volume control (FIxed level). If this is the case then it solves the problem straight away as I can use the center speaker on the center channel directly.

I do not know this for sure that VCR Audio Out gives FL/FR or not. The manual does not say much but I checked for Denon 3310, I guess and they say that such output does analog out only for Stereo Digital signals, which defeats the purpose.

Solution 3:

Little crooked but might work. I set the Volume on the main zone of SR6005 to max all the time. Use the Preout FL/FR to Pathos. Feed the Center of the preout to one of the Analog in (Let us say CD Left) of SR6005. Then use that source CD for Zone2 and connect the center speaker on the Zone2.

I could only think of these possibilites but please let me know if these are even feasible or any better way to handle this.

 

[cwalduck]

Why not do this the normal way, set the Pathos amp to 12 O'clock, connect the pre out (main L-R) from the av-amp, connect all the other speaker directly to the av amp and calibrate it using the inbuilt calibration.

Volume control will be through the av-amp for movies and the Pathos amp for music.

Connecting any other way using fixed outputs from the av-amp may only out put a stereo mix not the L and R of a 5.1 dvd/bluray mix (depending on av-amp), also every time you want to change the volume you will unbalance the channels.

 

[WishTree]

Thanks cwalduck. I considered that but I felt that I might end up shocking myself by loud volumes. Also, Pathos Volume control always goes to zero when you turn off.

So, I was thinking possibility of giving the full signal to Pathos like a DAC would do. Also I prefer to control the Center volume on a wider range. And I am fine with just three channels!

 

[The_Lhc]

Seems a hell of a lot of hassle (and money) just to add a centre channel. Can't you just to take the stereo output from a blu-ray player straight into the stereo amp and forget about the centre channel, I think that would be my choice.

 

[WishTree]

Hi LHC, I know it sounds too much but such is the missing that I have for the center. I used to have a full blow 5.1 HT an year back but it was too much for music and it muddled stereo all the time. I am happy with the Music now but really miss the center when watching movies. We have to either increase the volume to hear the dialogues and subject to sudden loudness or switch on subtitles and read at lower volumes

 

[cwalduck]

Connect as I suggested and engage Dynamic Range Compression or Night mode this will flatten out the big dynamic swings.

Some amps let you change dialogue normalisation settings which could help with dialogue clarity.

 

[WishTree]

Thanks everyone for your inputs.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Hi LHC, I know it sounds too much but such is the missing that I have for the center. I used to have a full blow 5.1 HT an year back but it was too much for music and it muddled stereo all the time. I am happy with the Music now but really miss the center when watching movies. We have to either increase the volume to hear the dialogues and subject to sudden loudness or switch on subtitles and read at lower volumes

hi Wishtree

that's how I'd do it (and how I'll do it in the future). get yourself a decent universal player (Oppo NuForce edition or Ayre DX-5 if you care for BD playback, there are a lot more if you can give up BD). connect it to your amp using stereo outs and let the player do the digital decoding and downsampling to 2 channels and (obviously) digital to analog conversion (hence good player needed). forget about HT receivers or processors. forget about centre channels.

anather option is to get a good universal player with multichannel analog outs (again Oppo if BD important or maybe Luxman if BD not so important) and change your amp from Inpol2 to multichannel CinemaX from Pathos. you'll get the best of two worlds: multichannel and stereo. I don't know how different is presentation of CinemaX (basically 5-channel version of Logos) compared to Inpo2 though.

 

[WishTree]

Thanks alot!

But I use my Macmini with XBMC for all movies purpose. How can I do that? Does any of these Bluray players / universal players have an HDMI in or Optical in. If yes, then I could explore the solution. Please suggest me the model numbers

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Thanks alot!

But I use my Macmini with XBMC for all movies purpose. How can I do that? Does any of these Bluray players / universal players have an HDMI in or Optical in. If yes, then I could explore the solution. Please suggest me the model numbers

they don't have HDMI or optical in nor do they really need it.

yoou've got HDMI out for vision (connect to your TV) and you've got analog audio outs and usual set of digital outs should you wish to connect it to receiver or processor or DAC ( but this option is irrelevant).

how to connect? HDMI into TV and analog stereo outs into integreatd amp (in case of Inpol2) or analog stereo and multichannel outs into integreated (in case of cinemaX). you can then switch between multichannel operation and stereo operation of CinemaX by choosing different inputs (only 1 input sends sygnals to 5 amps the other inputs use only 4 amps - 2 per channel in stereo to get higher output power).

how to play? insert disc and press play

how to play from computer? here I would suggest a universal player with either RJ45 input (ethernet) or USB host input (the wide one) or both. by using RJ45 you can stream data from computer in which case the computer is not a player but only transport (hence XBMC software is irrelevant). by using USB host input you can connect an external hard disc drive (HDD) to feed the data. these 2 options are only relevant if you play videos also from your computer's HDD, something like DivX or movies downloaded from for instance Apple's store.

Models:

Ayre DX5 - this one is particularly worth mentioning. not because it's most expensive from the lot but due to features. it plays BD, DVD (audio and video), SACD, CD, CD-R/RW. it has HDMI out (obviously) and balanced stereo analog outs. but also RJ45 and USB host inputs (can paly computer content). it has another USB input, this time it's slave input (square one) so it can accept musical data from computer and in this case works essencially as USB external high quality DAC. not to mention state of the art, jitterless D/A convertion and high quality feedbackless analog output stage. the only drawback is that if you need multichannel analog outs this player is no good as it hasn't any. only stereo analog on XLR or RCA.

OPPO 95 - very much like Ayre DX5 but doesn't have USB slave input (so can't work as computer USB DAC) but has multichannel analog outs on RCA.

Denon DVD-A1UD (plays BD too despite its name) or BDP-4010UD - very much similar to each other and very much like the OPPO. however, they don't have USB host inputs, only RJ45.

Luxman - not worth it due to restricted funcionality and connectivity.

I think it should be enough for the beginning for you to think about. in any case give me a shout if you're lost.

one more think. I'm not quite sure if Ayre decodes latest HD audio codecs. it may be played back in PCM. but Denon and OPPO are up-to-date.

 

[WishTree]

wow! That is quite exhaustive list.. Thanks alot.

My current requirement in this thread is to play Movies only as I am sorted out on the music front. It looks like I can use the RJ45 for playing movies from my MAC. I am hoping that UI is as beautiful and as functional as XBMC. I am not sure whether you are familiar with XBMC. If yes, do you think one of these players offer similar functionality?

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

My current requirement in this thread is to play Movies only as I am sorted out on the music front. It looks like I can use the RJ45 for playing movies from my MAC. I am hoping that UI is as beautiful and as functional as XBMC. I am not sure whether you are familiar with XBMC. If yes, do you think one of these players offer similar functionality?

if it's for films only I'd stick to OPPO (either 95 or 93 Nu Force edition if you're willing to give up XLR outs).

as for functionality and GUI, I can't comment I neither saw one or the other. but I'll check out this XBMC.

if I were you I'd go to OPPO website and downloaded the manual and took a look. you might find some useful info there.