Yesterday I dug out a DTS sampler CD from Telarc that I could never play with my old DPL receiver. I hooked up my CD player to the 950 with a TOSLINK cable and set the 950 to use the optical input to which I had connected the player. I also set the CD input to use DTS as the default mode. However, when I played the CD, the 950 showed STEREO in the display window. Sound only seemed to come from the left and right speakers. When I would skip forward to the next track, DTS and 3/2.1 would briefly show up in the display window, but would go back to STEREO in a few seconds. Have any of you experienced this? Is it normal behavior? I think I also have The Big Picture around here somewhere. I'll give that a try today.

After playing around again this morning, I find that if I set the CD input to DTS in the INPUT CONFIG menu, and then play a DTS CD, everything works fine. Even if I switch to a surround sound CD, the 950 switches from DTS to PLII-C. It also switches back to DTS when I switch back to a DTS CD in my changer.

However, if I then switch to a stereo CD, the 950 does not switch to stereo unless I hit the STEREO button on the remote. I presume this is because there is no flag on the CD to tell the 950 what mode to switch to.

When I go back to playing a DTS CD, I have to then hit the DTS button on the remote to get the 950 back to DTS mode.

In both cases - switching from playing a stereo CD to DTS and switching from DTS to stereo - I have to hit the corresponding mode button on the remote a couple of times in quick succession to get the desired mode to "stick" on the 950 display. It also seems to change the mode in the CONFIG menu. If I'm understanding the manual properly, I think this is normal behavior.

Ellen, I think it is, - it's how mine reacts.

The 2 new Sony product remotes I have aquired recently also take a 'double click' on some requests (not all) to react.
Ex: Power off the TV one click. Power off the satelite 2 clicks.

Ellen, DTS is different on CDs than it is on DVDs. DTS CDs are designed to fool A/V gear into thinking they contain PCM data, like standard CDs do. This is why you can spin a DTS CD on any CD player and the data will pass cleanly through the digital outs. But this is also why some A/V gear can have trouble recognizing what's coming off those CDs, and may need a little help. I understand what a DTS CD and a stereo CD are, but what do you mean by a "surround sound CD"?

Best,
Sanjay

Sanjay,



By that I mean CDs encoded with what I (perhaps foolishly) assume is some matrix surround format like Dolby Surround. The one in particular that I was referring to was Telarc's Symphonic Star Trek (which is a great CD if you are a fan of the series or movies). I have another that I got a long time ago as a freebie with some magazine called Bolt Your Speakers to the Floor!

Ellen, Ah, got it now.

BTW, nothing foolish about your assumption. Those Dolby Surround encoded CDs wil decode perfectly (and in keeping with the sound mixer intentions) using the 950 in PL II mode. With centre and surround information specifically encoded into the mix, they can sound really spectacular.

Best,
Sanjay