Thanks for the Advice, I curently have Klipsch S2 surround speakers that are hanking on the side walls. They have two horns and a woffer. they are Klipsch's Wide Dispersion Surround Technology. they are supposed to make you feel as if you have both rear and side speakers.

They are not bad at what they do depending on you sitting position.

when watching Comcast cable does anyone know if their signal is in stereo?

The 990 can take that signal and decode it to DPLx(II) right?

As i understand it... isnt' DPLx suppose to have L,C,R and the phantom surrounds?

I'm only getting center and surrounds.. no fronts when i use DPLX music or DPLx movie.. is that off or what?

I'm not getting any sound from my fronts.. i found out today. but when the material changes to stereo or DD or DTS.. the fronts work just fine like they should.

IS there some setting i have wrong for DPLx? since i'm not hearing any left and right fronts?

thanks

A couple thoughts... First, for the way Pro Logic II and IIx are behaving, you'll probably want to check the "Center Width" setting in the "Surround Config" menu - if you are currently set at or near 0, the processor will pull almost all of the front soundstage to the center channel (leaving little or nothing for the left and right speakers), while if you set it up around 7 (the maximum setting) it will push almost everything in the front soundstage out to the left and right channels (leaving little or nothing in the center channel). Stereo would of course send everything to the fronts only, while DD will just do the Dolby Digital decoding (which for DD 2.0 tracks will give you the same result as stereo). The DTS button will only work at all when you have either a DTS source (allowing you to toggle between DTS and DTS NEO:6) or a PCM source (allowing you to engage DTS NEO:6) - it won't do anything for a Dolby Digital source, and NEO:6 lacks a "center width" adjustment so it always tries to use a "standard" width.

While we're talking about cable and audio formats, here's a handy trick to tell whether you are getting PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 2.0, or Dolby 5.1 (the three audio formats that I've seen from Time Warner): the "PCM" indicator (located next "Pro Logic II" on the front panel) will tell you if you're just getting PCM stereo, while if PCM isn't on you can look to see if the "LFE" indicator is on (bottom of the speaker indicators, just above the surround back indicator) to see if it's DD 5.1 or DD 2.0. Whether PCM is on or not and whether LFE is on or not can tell me what the audio source is for a cable program even from a distance.

thanks gonk, you got that right.. when i reset the 990 last week... i forgot to change the width from 0 to about 4 where I usually have it.

thanks

Now what does panarama do then?

If panorama is "ON" the 990 will steer more data into the surrounds than it would otherwise do.

That shouldn't be happening, unless you're listening to a mono source. The Centre Width parameter only affects correlated (in-phase) mono sounds, which would have phantom imaged in the centre of the front soundstage anyway. Stereo sounds should remain firmly in the front L/R speakers no matter where the Centre Width parameter is set. Or at least that's how PLII/PLIIx works for me.

i thought PLII was front left, center, right and phantom surrounds... or was i wrong? and if you use the width setting.. you are pulling center channel sound out to your right and left fronts.

For anyone who is interested in what is happening technically, I'll elaborate a bit on Gonk's reply.

When surround processing extracts a centre channel, it also inverts the phase of that signal and sends it back to the front L/R channels. What this does is cancel only the centre channel information from the L/R speakers, leaving all other sounds intact. You want to hear dialogue from the centre speaker, not all three front speakers. That would sound bad.

Similarly, when surround information is extracted, information from the front L/R channels is phase-inverted and sent as a cancellation signal to the surround channels. If the processing didn't do this, sounds from the front L/R channel would leak into the surrounds, cause the front soundstage stretch really wide and wrap around the front of the room. And that sound bad.

Or would it?

Turns out on some music material, a huge and lush front soundstage sounds absolutely spectacular. So Dolby gave listeners the option to turn the cancelation signal On or Off. Set the Panorama parameter to On, and your front soundstage becomes more panoramic because the cancelation signal isn't sent to the surrounds. Turn Panorama Off, and the front soundstage shrinks to become more realistic because front sounds are being cancelled from the surrounds.

If you plan on listening to 2-channel music in surround, I would take just a few seconds to see if the Panorama setting sounds best On or Off. Like I said, it's source dependent. And probably not something you want to use with 2-channel movie/TV sources, where front soundtage articulation is more important wrap-around envelopment.

"Phantom" is the term used to describe sound coming from a location where there is no speaker. For example, when listening with 2 speakers, you hear a phantom centre. No speaker there, but sound still images in the centre of the front soundstage. It's a phantom image.

PLII doesn't generate phantom surrounds. It extracts ambient information from 2-channel sources and sends that information to actual surround speakers.

By contrast, the Dolby Virtual Surround mode does generate phantom surrounds. By using only two front speakers, it creates the impression of surround information being around you, even when there are no surround speakers. Correct. Every recording has sounds that image in the centre of the front soundstage. But in order to hear these at the correct location, you need to be sitting in the sweet spot exactly between your L/R front speakers. Since phantom images don't exist (they're created in the brain), when you move off-axis, the phantom centre image moves with you.

PLII extracts those sounds and sends them to the centre speaker, cancelling them from the L/R speakers. Now you can be sitting anywhere in the room and sounds intended for the centre of the soundstage will always image in the centre of the soundstage.

The Centre Width parameter lets you control the surround processing. You get to choose exactly how much centre content is extracted and how much is left in the L/R speakers. Personally, I set it close to minimum width. If something was supposed to image dead centre of the front soundstage, I don't want it blurred between all three front speakers.

But that's me. You should experiment with the Centre Width parameter and find which setting works best for you. It may even change, depending on source.

Excellent explanations, Sanjay. The only thing I can think to add is a detail about how Pro Logic II/IIx differs from Pro Logic. The original Pro Logic produced a center channel and a mono surround channel in addition to the left and right channels. Pro Logic II went a step further by (among many other things) producing five separate signals: left, right, center, left surround, and right surround. Additionally, Pro Logic IIx also produces separate left surround back and right surround back signals.