I got my new 1050 yesterday, and as soon as I pulled it out of the box, I was VERY impressed with this beautiful example of quality and workmanship.

I connected the 1050 to our new Boston Acoustics System 9000II w/ 14 gauge speaker wire per Boston's instructions, based on newman's recommendations in his excellent 3/11/2002 post. Also enabled the center surround per gonk's recommendation (thanks, gonk).

Trying to get the extra 14ga. wires into the front left and right speaker binding posts for the sub was pretty tough, dang I wondered if I should have used bananna plugs for the sub wires??? Also plugged a 6' Radio Shack Gold RCA cable (shielded) into LFE (unfiltered) input on the sub.

Connected the optical output from the DVD (Sony DVP-S550D) using the Outlaw PDO cable (excellent quality).

No sound...till I remembered to set the DVD to output the digital signal (I previously had been using the 2ch. outputs from the DVD to a stereo receiver for a pair of Boston A70's).

I put in Toy Story 2 for my wife and my 4 yr. old daughter and cranked it:

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! The sound was AWESOME!!!!!!

The sound made that opening scene seem like we literally were flying through space -- my daughter screamed with delight. Welcome to home theater.

I then used a Radio Shack sound meter to set the channel outputs so the volume was as equal as possible.

Listening to the Steely Dan's Aja on CD was pure bliss (using the "Natural" DSP setting really brought out the singers and soloists).

We played Amadeus, and the music sounded fantastic. BUT, the dialog sounded rather small and quiet from the front, left and right speakers (even though the channel outputs were calibrated). It sounded better when dialog was mixed with background music. (Obviously turning up the volume meant getting blasted when Sir Neville Mariner's gang chimed in).

Maybe I need to play with the center speaker setting, maybe it's just how the 5.1
data is encoded on the DVD, but I'd like a more balanced sound for dialog (between left front, center, and right front).

Another possibility is viewer position relative to speaker placement: any guidelines on how close one can be to the center? The viewer and speaker positions are pretty much fixed, but maybe I can adjust the settings so I'm not straining during dialog and getting blasted during the music.

Funny thing is, I couldn't sense from sitting on our couch if we were getting any sounds from the surrounds (it works, I checked with the test button and the THX "flying repairman" on Toy Story 1).

So, in some cases do I need more surround, and others more center, or do I misunderstand how the 5.1 speakers "should" be used???

Oh yeah, what's the best setting for College Hoops games?

Thanks for any input. Cheers, UW.

Well, setting center surround on without a center surround could cause (it seems to me) the common matrixed signal to be removed from the L&R surrounds. I'm not sure how many speakers you have, but IMO it is worth having at least a 6.1 setup.

He's talking about the speaker configuration -- turning the center surround to "on" to prevent problems with the "flag bug" on some Dolby EX discs (Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park III, ...). As long as you don't turn Surround 6.1 on, it makes no difference.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

The three front speakers ideally should all be the same distance from the listening position. If that is not practical, the delay settings in the 950 can compensate. The problem with the dialog being too low in level is something I run into all the time. This should not be the case, and I have my system calibrated to an insane degree, but it is a problem. I just leave my center at +3 in the trim menu above the reference level arrived at with the RadioShack meter.

agreed there... i too calibrated everything to the same volume (75dB), but after popping in a dvd, i found the center channel still needed to be adjusted +3dB or so past what the ol RadioShack SPL meter indicated was proper.

-e

I have found some dvds need some tweaking with respect to speaker db's. I think it's just a matter of taste and the mix of the soundtrack.