I have been playing around with the various modes (PLII, etc.) on the 950 and so far for most radio and CD's, the 5 channel stereo sounds the best. I am using a 5.1 setup.

The PLII C or M modes sound very compressed - most of the sound from the front (center/left/right) and very little from the surrounds. The 5 channel on the other hand tends to "fill" the room better. This is even after (for PLII M) adjusting Panorama, Dimension and Center. They don't seem to have any appreciable impact. I tried this with NEO:6 only to get the same poor results.

As a result I default to 5 channel for most listening.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. It seems like PLII/NEO:6 would also have a better "room filling" sound to them. Am I missing something? Any suggestions on what to tweak?

Thanks,

Mukund

I think that most of the people around here use 2 channel stereo for cd listening.

I only use PLII for old Dolby surround encoded movies and concerts.

And maybe just to play around, but for serius CD listening i only use Stereo, and of course my subwoofer it's turned on all the time.

Thanks. I should add that I see this for TV as well. In other words, 5 stereo seems to be better than PLII. I would expect PLII to be as good as (or better?) than 5 stereo.

-Mukund

I listen to 2 channel stereo music in 2 channel (with the sub...2.1?) and movies mostly in PLII so far...
Bill

i find compression(lot's of it) in PL mode with my 1050 but i have "natural surround" which i understand is not on the 950.

sometimes i do PL on a movie on tv but not that often. 9 out of 10 times i listen to "straight stereo" (2.1) on the music.sub is always on,also!

i can really fill the room with "natural surround" but i feel you lose the "impact" of the music,whereas it will surely be louder, but the dynamics will not be there.

btw , i like the dynamics(it doesn't always have to be loud,it has to punch and be "tight")
which i feel is:don't always turn it up and go for processing....sound quality at a lower volume i think is key!

Dynamics won't rise or fall with volume, but surely is percieved that way due to the ear's non linear sesetivity. I due use PLII music quiet often,and it does sound full and enveloping,provided that the system is properly calibrated.

i find that the louder i listen, the less power(headroom) is available, the dynamics in the recording do not go away because i am listening loud,the system still tries to reproduce them.if the power is not there:distortion,blown drivers,etc.

i have several cds(metal of course) that have extreme bass lines on a couple tracks(DOPE:LIFE&GODSMACK:FACELESS come to mind) and if i have the sub cranked up to fill the room and one of them notes hit,ohhh,let's just say it's a very ugly,unnatural sound.(let's call it noise not sound)

if you want a bass demo try those cds:track 1&6 on dope & track 7&8 on godsmack make sure all sensitive ears are out of the house because they are VERY vulgar songs.but the bass is almost unbelieveable.

Mukund, Filling a room with sound is not the intent of matrix decoders like PLII and Neo:6. If that's what you're after, then you should stick to 5/7-channel stereo.

The 5/7-channel stereo mode basically copies the stereo signal to each pair of speakers (fronts, sides, rears) and sends a summed L+R signal to the centre speaker. Since vocals are heard from all 5 or 7 speakers and the same stereo information is coming from every direction, there's no attempt to create a soundstage or any specific imaging. This is the mode to use if you want to fill the room with sound.

PLII has a different goal, primarily to stabilize the soundstage for 2-channel material. Stereo material contains correlated (in-phase mono) sounds and uncorrelated (out of phase) sounds. Correlated mono info images in the centre of the front soundstage. This is the information that PLII extracts and moves to the centre speaker. This is where those sounds would image anyway, except now they're locked to the middle of the front soundstage and can't drift to the nearest speaker like a phantom image does when you move.

Uncorrelated sounds tend not to image in the front soundstage. If you've ever heard an out of phase signal (most test CDs have good examples) you'll notice that it sounds like it's coming from all around you. On good recordings, these are the sounds that image outside your front speakers. These are also the sounds that PLII moves to the surround speakers. If the recording didn't have much uncorrelated ambient information, then you won't get much in the surrounds. The point is to honor the intent of the recording, not arbitrarily fill the room with sound. Again, completely different goal from the 5/7-channel stereo mode.

If the music and TV programs you listen to sound better to you in 5-channel stereo, then that's the mode you should use. It will consistently give you the "room filling" sound you are looking for and not be dependent on program material. That's weird; adjusting those parameters has always had an immediate and noticeable effect. If you want more sound in the surrounds, tilt the Dimension control towards the rear setting and turn Panorama ON.

Best,
Sanjay

Sanjay, this clarifies a lot of questions I had regarding the various sound modes.

I agree with 5/7 channel - it "fills" the room and sounds great for casual background music. And now I understand how it works, which explains the "all around you" sound.

The PLII makes sense as well. I think it was a combination of program material and expectation (esp. after listening to the "loud" 5 channel), that I expected something different. With the right material, it sounds pretty amazing. And I did play around with the parameters...and that works as well.

So I am happy :-)

I know PLII has adjustments (C,W,P), but does NEO:6? Don't think so - but thought I'd ask as I was watching TV the other day and thought I heard some of the dialog from the front as well as the surrounds. I assume it was encoded in that format. In any case, not a big deal.

Thanks for the insights.

-Mukund