Amplifiers and digital formats

D

Deleted member 473

Digital broadcasters that use audio formats that most/all av amplifiers don't understand.

Blurays that use DTS, so you have to select this on your amp or you just get stereo, or mock surround. (Edit: Or players that have dumb settings, see below.)

Any other digital bloopers you know of?
 
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My ancient amp automatically selects DTS mode?
I am sure mine used to but careful reading of the manual implies that yes, it does if fed an input via hdmi but no it doesn't if fed via my hdmi switch and its optical pass through!
 
More reading of the manual reveals that in another place it says DD/DTS are broadcast on optical as well as HDMI! So, it needed a thorough investigation.

Who would have thought that one dumb setting in the Sony BD player would remove the information the amp needs to decode the signals?

BD Audio MIX Setting:On

I turned it off, but why was it on? On is the factory default setting!

There are a few other settings I am not sure about:

Audio (HDMI):Auto

Alternative PCM, default Auto. No mention of optical out.

Dolby Digital/DTS:Bitstream

Alternative is Downmix PCM. Default is Bitstream.

DTS Neo 6 output from HDMI:Off

Alternatives are Cinema or Music. Default is off. I assume this is for 2 channel sources, as I already have Neo 6 on my amp if I need it. Also, again, we have that wretched phrase from HDMI! What about optical?

Audio DRC:Auto

Alternatives on/off. Default auto. Something about Set the sound effect when playing a BD or DVD. Are they talking about Dynamic Range Compression? I can do that in the amp.

Downmix:Surround

Whether to apply Dolby Surround to the output signal. Alternative is Stereo. But who would downmix to surround? It doesn't make sense! The factory default is Stereo. Are they talking about Dolby Pro Logic by any chance? But then, in what sense is that a downmix?
 
Or perhaps there is no word upmix? I will have an experiment tomorrow with 2 and 6 channel sources and see what comes out with either setting.
 
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