Sony DA2400ES replacement unit = same problem!

[Anonymous]

Hello Roger, its that man from Amazon!

I have found this whole problem perplexing especially with the news that unit number 2 is just the same.

I doubt it will make that much difference but after calibration have you changed the speaker sizes to small and entered relevant crossover settings. If they are set on large the Receiver presumably assumes they are all full range.

I also feel compelled to ask although possibly insulting! Where are you placing the microphone (apologies).

Just to introduce myself:

Sony KDL46W5500, Sony STRDA2400ES, Sony RDRHXD870, Sony BDPS550, Sony TDMIP50, Samsung Sky+HD, XBox360+HD DVD, Sony VCR, 4 X Tannoy F4 Customs + Tannoy FC Centre + Tannoy TS10 Sub, Logitech Harmony ONE

MY STUFF
KDL40P3020+BD35+HTPC, KDL46D3500+DAV-SC8 (Bedroom)

 

[Clare Newsome]

WilliamYZFR1:
Hello Roger, its that man from Amazon!

Hi William, and welcome to the Forums!

Very happy to have retailers sharing advice etc, but please see No9 of our House Rules re amending your signature and bio accordingly.

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi & thanks for the welcome

I don't work for Amazon, I commented on an Amazon user review for the 2400ES.

I am just a happy purchaser of a 2400ES from Amazon.

I also haven't worked out where to actually add my signature!

 

[Clare Newsome]

Fair enough!

You can add your signature, bio, picture etc via the 'My Account' link that appears under your username on the top right-hand of the screen when you're logged in.

 

[roger06]

WilliamYZFR1:
Hello Roger, its that man from Amazon!

I have found this whole problem perplexing especially with the news that unit number 2 is just the same.

I doubt it will make that much difference but after calibration have you changed the speaker sizes to small and entered relevant crossover settings. If they are set on large the Receiver presumably assumes they are all full range.

I also feel compelled to ask although possibly insulting! Where are you placing the microphone (apologies).

Just to introduce myself:

Sony KDL46W5500, Sony STRDA2400ES, Sony RDRHXD870, Sony BDPS550, Sony TDMIP50, Samsung Sky+HD, XBox360+HD DVD, Sony VCR, 4 X Tannoy F4 Customs + Tannoy FC Centre + Tannoy TS10 Sub, Logitech Harmony ONE

MY STUFF
KDL40P3020+BD35+HTPC, KDL46D3500+DAV-SC8 (Bedroom)

Hi William

We meet again! (Makes more sense to discuss this here...)

Don't worry about insulting me - in fact if someone can point out I've been an idiot and can remedy the problem with something simple, that would be great.

I've placed the mic on the top of the sofa - more or less where my head would be.

I've set the speakers to large - they're quite expensive Dynaudios, not small satellites so would definitely be large. I guess it sounds like the amp thinks the front is small, thus not sending the full range to it?

And isn't cross-over mainly between front L&R and the sub?

The old amp is in the pic - this worked OK...

 

[Anonymous]

If you click on ,MY STUFF, you will see my speakers which all are also not exactly small (apart from centre). In fact regardless of cost they are IMHO not small at all.

Despite this they are certainly not full range and only go down to about circa 50Hz. The only way you can manually enter a crossover setting on this Sony Receiver is to choose the "small" option first. I chose 80Hz after setting them to SMALL.

However, inputting a crossover setting particularly for the centre may help but I doubt a lack of one would cause the disparity you describe.

I am still puzzled how it sounds the same (by ear) but the microphone hears something different.

It may sound silly but does part of a calibration test tone for a particular speaker(s) get emitted by any other speaker (or sub)simaltaneously? I ask because I biamp my front speakers and strangely when my front right is calibrating part of the test tone is emitted (for that speaker only) by the subwoofer making the FR sound noticeably louder. Because of this & the subwoofer is very close to the front right the calibration results are skewed. Sony are currently looking into it, but I should add this does not happen when my front speakers are not biamped - It calibrates normally. It also doesn't happen with ordinary test tones (biamped or non biamped).

In the end I just used an SPL meter but am still awaiting a resolution from Sony.

I too am on my second unit! and also went through the 1001 "Have you wired it up correctly" etc etc etc from both Sony and another Forum that I usually frequent.

 

[Sorreltiger]

They may be 'quite expensive' and not particularly small, but I'd still choose that as my setting. If you choose somewhere between 80-100 hz as your crossover point, the sub will take responsibility for low frequencies and you will probably improve the sound overall. Who knows, you may find the solution to your problem too? It sounds like something amiss in the set-up procedure - number of speakers, size, balance etc etc

 

[Anonymous]

Wow Roger you certainly seem to be having a problem. Isnt it infuriating when you just cant understand the problem? I have skim read all the posts above and I'm scratching my head myself but I do remember I had a similar problem when I first installed my home cinema system. Initially my rear surrounds were far too quiet but I discovered that was because I had them plugged into the surround back speaker terminals and not the surround terminals as they should be. I also had a problem with a quiet centre speaker when watching sky. This was because I only had an HDMI cable connected and therefore I was only getting stereo sound. I connected a digital cable but this didnt solve it, as my amp has a "signal select" setting which defaults to HDMI, so in instances where you have both an hdmi cable and a digital cable plugged in it will default to HDMI. I had to manually change this to DIGITAL, in order to make the amp use the digital cable and therefore get dolby digital sound (resulting in making the system use the centre speaker). In addition because I have a sub, I have all my speaker settings set to small. The small & large speaker settings are misleading. Small doesnt refer to the physical size of the speaker. I have physically large speakers but once I set mine to small, overall the system sounded much better.

I can't help but think there must be a setting somewhere on your amp which just needs changing.

One thing just occured to me. I'm not familiar with your amp, but I assume it has some kind of audio calibration set up routine? When its finished does it tell you what the channel level volumes are? When I ran the MCACC set-up (the pioneer audio calibration utility) it set my channel levels quite low by default (-7.5). Can you check on that amp what the settings are? Or alternatively if you cant but have run this utility, can you turn it off?<br>

[<b>edited by:</b> barnsleydave at 2:17 PM (GMT 0) on 07/10/2009]
One thing just occured to me. I'm not familiar with your amp, but I assume it has some kind of audio calibration set up routine? When its finished does it tell you what the channel level volumes are? When I ran the MCACC set-up (the pioneer audio calibration utility) it set my channel levels quite low by default (-7.5). Can you check on that amp what the settings are? Or alternatively if you cant but have run this utility, can you turn it off?<br>

 

[roger06]

I'm fairly sure that in all my fiddling I've tried setting the speakers to 'small' - I think I've tried changing just about everything there is that can be changed. However, I'll be sure to give that another go this evening.

I just spoke to Sony who were very nice, but no help at all and concluded that I must have been sent two dud units...

 

[Anonymous]

Roger looking at your kitlist you have an S550 BR player. Any chance of you hooking it up by Multi-Ins temporarily?

This will nullify any Receiver settings and it will just amplify what it receives. If its all good it will at least confirm it can drive 5.1 OK.

The same BR would be good and afterwards you will have to do a forced redo of the 550 outputs settings for HDMI output.

 

[roger06]

No - the BDP output is via HDMI. I thought levels in the player might need adjusting but on trying to adjust it told me it wasn't possible when using HDMI (which is what one would expect...)

 

[Anonymous]

roger06:No - the BDP output is via HDMI. I thought levels in the player might need adjusting but on trying to adjust it told me it wasn't possible when using HDMI (which is what one would expect...)

Roger, perhaps you were replying to another post?

I was just hoping you might be persuaded to try multi analogue connections instead of HDMI temporarily - just to rule out any Receiver settings and make sure it amplifies the centre channel properly relative to the other channels.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

WilliamYZFR1:
roger06:No - the BDP output is via HDMI. I thought levels in the player might need adjusting but on trying to adjust it told me it wasn't possible when using HDMI (which is what one would expect...)

Roger, perhaps you were replying to another post?

I was just hoping you might be persuaded to try multi analogue connections instead of HDMI temporarily - just to rule out any Receiver settings and make sure it amplifies the centre channel properly relative to the other channels.

I was going to suggest this, or either try a coaxial cable for the audio - it could be the audio on the hdmi input is faulty.

For what it's worth, I set my RS6s and RSLCR to small and they are not small. This way the receiver can govern when the sub kicks in. I have the front three's crossover at 80hz and the Sat rears at 100hz.

 

[roger06]

Sorry - mis-read your post!

I thought about digging out the multi channel cables - but really it's the fact that you hear so much difference when using the test tone that I can't really see what difference it would make.

 

[Anonymous]

I could understand it 100%, if you have had enough.

I was thinking if you put all the level settings on O in the S550 settings and used the 550 test tones you could see if you could hear a perceiveable difference with the centre that way.

 

[matengawhat]

have you got another source you could try - any other dvd player/games console ect with a hdmi connection that you can hook up and try

because am i right in reading somewhere that when you run the test sounds all the volumes seem the same?

also what happens to the centre if you set the amp to output stereo out for all channels is it as loud?

also you need to check you have the hdmi audio set to auto and not 2 ch PCM

 

[cwalduck]

OK i may have missed something, what speakers do you have and how are they connected, do you use the pre-outs to the naim amp? If you do why not try and conect them directly to the Sony re-calibrate an try it connected that way. You may have the naim volume too low or high for the calibration to complete correcty.

 

[roger06]

Hi all - thanks for persevering with me - I've shot some video that I hope demonstates the problem...

(I hope this isn't against the rules!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURpFhhRpAc

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, after watching the video, there's a couple of things that come to mind.

Firstly, can you check that the amp is definitely set to bitsream the audio from the blu-ray player? Also, check the blu-ray player itself. Your amp is capable of bitstreaming, so this is the one to choose.

Second, in your blu-ray player, check that PCM downconversion is set to stereo, NOT any other option.

Thirdly it would be great if you could post up the choices you've made in the first instance for the blu-ray's settings.

Fourth, make sure that the amp is passing the audio signal, once you've selected bitsream, 'as is' ie that no conversion mode is selected on the Sony amp, inadvertently or otherwise. On the Yamaha's, as an example, there's a mode called 'straight', which as it's name suggests is just that ie signal goes straight through, no processing applied.

You see, for all the world I get the impression that the amp is being asked to treat an incoming signal of the blu's hdmi as stereo initially, so it's ignoring anything else ie centre channel dialogue, and is then processing that signal as a form of pro-logic for the rears. What I can't tell is whether trhat's happening at the blu's end or the amps. I suspect the amp, but as I say just don't know. If the amp has some kind of option per hdmi channels to choose stereo/5.1, just select 5.1, and de-select stereo - after all, stereo will play anyway from a 5.1 setup. If you can, post up the amp's hdmi settings too for us to see.

EDIT: Also, I'm wondering if your Naim is being prioritised in some way for audio such that any signal sent to the Sony is having two channels processed by the Naim which has in some way taken over those duties,leaving the others out as it's a stereo, and therafter Pro-Logic is being applied to the signal for the rears.

EDIT 2: Further, I would head back into the speaker setup menu of the amp, and calibrate if you can the ohms setting for the centre speaker. If it's being misread by the amp (not unheard of by any means), it will be underpowered by it. There may be a setting on the back of the amp too.

EDIT 3: Sorry abou this, there's no shutting me up. Finally, it would be great if you removed every other thing going into the amp ie the Naim etc, reset it to defaults, and started from there with just the blu ray player and the speakers, running out to the tv via hdmi, adding other bits to the system later.

 

[Anonymous]

With reference to the above post, nowhere in the S550 BR menus does it mention Bitstream. To get the 2400ES to do the decoding you need to set BD Audio to Direct (Mix is the default). The asy way to tell is if the blue light is on on the 2400ES its doing it.

For clarity here are the links to the relevant Sony manuals:

2400SE http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/3289204422.pdf

S550 http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/3452779121.pdf

Right, I too have watched the video.

In essence the calibration test tones do sound "equal". I would assume the end result of +8dB for the centre is OK & is to correct any impedance/sensitivity differences (perhaps also due to Naim inclusion for Front & Left).

When the manual changes are made to +10dB for the centre, which is essentially the dialogue channel, you are only actually increasing it by +2dB (previously calibrated at +8dB) but by changing the Front R & L to -10dB you are effectively enhancing the dialogue by merely reducing the sound effects (from Front R&L).

As mentioned earlier I would check that:

BD audio is set to Direct on the S550 (Blue light illuminated on 2400ES).

On the S550 that Audio DRC is set to Wide Range

Check the speaker impedance setting is correct on the 2400 (4 Ohm).

Set all speakers to Small with meaningful crossover settings (80-hz?) on the 2400ES.

As a ballpark figure (with my speakers) I usually watch Blu-Rays at circa -18dB on the Volume scale and have my centre speaker on +2dB just by personal choice. My own front calibration figures for fronts and centre are all 0dB. However, your centre is 4 Ohm with 85dB sensitivity, mine is 8 Ohm with 91dB sensitivity.

If none of the above helps and I am afraid I am stumped.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

roger06:
Hi all - thanks for persevering with me - I've shot some video that I hope demonstates the problem...

(I hope this isn't against the rules!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURpFhhRpAc

I would go to your local Sevenoaks and see if you can get a home demo with one of their 2400es machines or a similar priced one. If you still get the problem, you will know that it's your set up and not the amps. I can't believe that you were sent two receivers that had the exact same fault but it's so difficult to see what it could be. What volume on the amp did you have it on during the video clip. If I watch a film, I would normally have my 3400es between -25db and -30db. If I'm showing my system off, I can go to -10db and it is extremely loud and powerful.

 

[Petherick]

Justt watched the video. Have you checked settings in the Bluray player to see if the centre channel is on? Or maybe turned right down? I remember having a similar problem with an old DVD player I had; can't exactly remember what the set-up option was, but the effect was very similar.

Sorry if this has already been suggested, didn't read ever entry on this thread!

 

[Anonymous]

Petherick:

Justt watched the video. Have you checked settings in the Bluray player to see if the centre channel is on? Or maybe turned right down? I remember having a similar problem with an old DVD player I had; can't exactly remember what the set-up option was, but the effect was very similar.

Sorry if this has already been suggested, didn't read ever entry on this thread!

In the setup menu of the 550 the numerous speaker options are only accessible with Multi Analogue Connection and none are available with HDMI.

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/3452779121.pdf

 

[Anonymous]

As a newbie I can't help noticing the slogan at the top of the page:

Have your say & ask the experts

Are the contributors to the Forum the "experts", or do genuine What Hi-Fi resident experts provide possible solutions to problems of this nature?

 

[Clare Newsome]

When it comes to a conundrum like this, everyone with an idea is an expert!

Honestly, probably everything we could suggest on this issue has already been covered by others on this thread, which Is why we haven't stepped in.

It's certainly nothing we've encountered on the Sonys we've tested; if any other thoughts spring to mind, we'll be up here....