Question How to set up Oppo BDP without subwoofer?

dazed&confused

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Hi

I have just purchased a Lyngdorf amplifier with bass management and room correction, which I want to use to manage the front L&R and subwoofer in my 5.1 system.

I have the Audiocom Signature version of the Oppo 105D and I want to use its multichannel analogue outputs into my Audiolab Processor, with the Audiolab in 7.1 bypass mode, as this clearly sounds superior to the Audiolab doing the processing.

To achieve this, what I need to be able to do in the Oppo's "Audio Processing" menu is set the front L&R speakers to "large" and divert the LFE channel and the low frequencies from the centre and surrounds into the front L&R. I'm not sure whether or not this is possible because the "Down Mix" function offers no option for a 5.0 down mix (the choices are stereo, LT/RT, and 5.1) and the choice for the subwoofer is either "on" or "off" rather than "none". What I'm wondering is, when the subwoofer is switched "off", does this mean 1) that the LFE and all low frequencies from the "small" speaker channels are lost, or 2) that all this sound is diverted to the front L&R, as I want?

Can anyone tell me the solution please?

Thanks,

David.
 
Hi

I have just purchased a Lyngdorf amplifier with bass management and room correction, which I want to use to manage the front L&R and subwoofer in my 5.1 system.

I have the Audiocom Signature version of the Oppo 105D and I want to use its multichannel analogue outputs into my Audiolab Processor, with the Audiolab in 7.1 bypass mode, as this clearly sounds superior to the Audiolab doing the processing.

To achieve this, what I need to be able to do in the Oppo's "Audio Processing" menu is set the front L&R speakers to "large" and divert the LFE channel and the low frequencies from the centre and surrounds into the front L&R. I'm not sure whether or not this is possible because the "Down Mix" function offers no option for a 5.0 down mix (the choices are stereo, LT/RT, and 5.1) and the choice for the subwoofer is either "on" or "off" rather than "none". What I'm wondering is, when the subwoofer is switched "off", does this mean 1) that the LFE and all low frequencies from the "small" speaker channels are lost, or 2) that all this sound is diverted to the front L&R, as I want?

Can anyone tell me the solution please?

Thanks,

David.
Hi David,

All you need to do is to set the sub to ‘none’ and bass will automatically be redirected to the front L&R. Leave down-mix on 5.1. That’s it.
 
Hi mate

Thank you for the reply. Can I just check, are you talking from direct knowledge of the Oppo, or from knowledge of processors in general? I'm surprised the Oppo manual doesn't provide the answer of whether or not the LFE channel is redirected to the front L&R, as I've always found the answers to all my other questions in there.

One answer that I have been able to find in the manual (if I'm understanding it correctly) is that, if the surrounds and centre are set to "small" and the subwoofer is "off" (none), then all those channels' frequencies below the crossover point will get discarded, rather than redirected to front L&R (see further below, for extract from manual).

I'm thinking it's probably a bad idea to set my centre and surrounds to "large" - that the better compromise is to set them to "small" and discard the low frequency sounds. The Oppo only allows for a global crossover rather than bespoke per speaker. My centre speaker is rated down to 35Hz and my surrounds are rated down to 50Hz, so I'm thinking a crossover of somewhere between 60Hz and 80Hz would be sensible. Or maybe even a bit higher, given that I have no room correction whatsoever for those channels?

Thanks again,

David.


From page 73 of the manual -

"Small -
All audio content, except for bass frequencies, is passed to the appropriate speaker. If a subwoofer is available, bass frequencies are redirected to the subwoofer, otherwise, they are discarded".

"Off - Speaker for the corresponding position does not exist. Audio for the missing speaker is redirected to other speakers, or discarded if redirection is not possible".
 
Hi mate

Thank you for the reply. Can I just check, are you talking from direct knowledge of the Oppo, or from knowledge of processors in general? I'm surprised the Oppo manual doesn't provide the answer of whether or not the LFE channel is redirected to the front L&R, as I've always found the answers to all my other questions in there.

One answer that I have been able to find in the manual (if I'm understanding it correctly) is that, if the surrounds and centre are set to "small" and the subwoofer is "off" (none), then all those channels' frequencies below the crossover point will get discarded, rather than redirected to front L&R (see further below, for extract from manual).

I'm thinking it's probably a bad idea to set my centre and surrounds to "large" - that the better compromise is to set them to "small" and discard the low frequency sounds. The Oppo only allows for a global crossover rather than bespoke per speaker. My centre speaker is rated down to 35Hz and my surrounds are rated down to 50Hz, so I'm thinking a crossover of somewhere between 60Hz and 80Hz would be sensible. Or maybe even a bit higher, given that I have no room correction whatsoever for those channels?

Thanks again,

David.


From page 73 of the manual -

"Small -
All audio content, except for bass frequencies, is passed to the appropriate speaker. If a subwoofer is available, bass frequencies are redirected to the subwoofer, otherwise, they are discarded".

"Off - Speaker for the corresponding position does not exist. Audio for the missing speaker is redirected to other speakers, or discarded if redirection is not possible".
I’ve had a 103, 105 and (currently) 203 in my time passing audio in many configurations, but I have to admit I didn’t realise that it would discard bass frequencies if no subwoofer was present when you set speakers to small. That makes no sense at all if you have front L&R set to large - why not redirect the bass there?!

What does the audiolab do? Could you keep the 5.1 format set in the Oppo, and feed the analogue 5.1 to the audiolab, then as long as that redirects all bass to large front L&R if there’s no sub, then you‘re sorted.
 
Hi again mate

Thank you for your reply.

When using the 7.1 analogue inputs, the AudioLab operates in a true, straight-line, bypass mode. You hear the clunk of the relay and all of the processing gets switched off, including bass management, such that the only thing left in operation is a digital volume control IC. So no, unfortunately the AudioLab wouldn't redirect the bass in that configuration.

The other possible solution, of course, may be to use a digital 5.1 output from the Oppo and let the AudioLab do the processing. The problem here is that the AudioLab manual is even less informative than the Oppo manual - it doesn't say anything at all about whether or not any bass is redirected with no subwoofer, be it from the LFE channel or any other channel.

At the moment I'm not feeling especially concerned about losing the bottom 50 to 100Hz or so from the centre and surrounds. The front L&R are plenty to fill the room by themselves, the surrounds without bass should still provide a full, seamless envelope with all the necessary panning, and the centre will still maintain the necessary focus for people sat off-axis.

The critical thing to me is whether or not the LFE will get redirected, and it's looking like the only way to find out is try it, but I'm having another one of my mental blocks and I'm not feeling at all confident that I'll be able to tell for sure just from playing a mule channel disk.

All suggestions welcome!
 
Hi again mate

Thank you for your reply.

When using the 7.1 analogue inputs, the AudioLab operates in a true, straight-line, bypass mode. You hear the clunk of the relay and all of the processing gets switched off, including bass management, such that the only thing left in operation is a digital volume control IC. So no, unfortunately the AudioLab wouldn't redirect the bass in that configuration.

The other possible solution, of course, may be to use a digital 5.1 output from the Oppo and let the AudioLab do the processing. The problem here is that the AudioLab manual is even less informative than the Oppo manual - it doesn't say anything at all about whether or not any bass is redirected with no subwoofer, be it from the LFE channel or any other channel.

At the moment I'm not feeling especially concerned about losing the bottom 50 to 100Hz or so from the centre and surrounds. The front L&R are plenty to fill the room by themselves, the surrounds without bass should still provide a full, seamless envelope with all the necessary panning, and the centre will still maintain the necessary focus for people sat off-axis.

The critical thing to me is whether or not the LFE will get redirected, and it's looking like the only way to find out is try it, but I'm having another one of my mental blocks and I'm not feeling at all confident that I'll be able to tell for sure just from playing a mule channel disk.

All suggestions welcome!
It’s not normally what you’d do, but in your case you have full range centre and surround speakers, so just set them all as large & no sub in the Oppo. There’s very little, if any downside to doing that.
 
Having just been reminded of exactly what speakers you’ve got on your other thread definitely go ‘large’ for all 5. That’ll be wonderful.
 
It’s not normally what you’d do, but in your case you have full range centre and surround speakers, so just set them all as large & no sub in the Oppo. There’s very little, if any downside to doing that.

Hi again

The problem is, though, knowing whether or not the sound from the LFE channel would actually get diverted when the subwoofer is switched to "off" (none) - the Oppo manual doesn't say so (nor does the AudioLab manual).

From your response I'm beginning to wonder whether I've been misunderstanding 5.1 sound all along. I've always presumed that the .1 channel contains actual data (sound dedicated to that channel) on the disk itself; that this channel isn't solely a place to receive low frequency sound diverted from other channels when they are sent to "small". Isn't this the case?

Also, if the .1 channel does indeed contain its own data and the Oppo will indeed divert this data when the sub is switched to "off", then can we be sure that, if all speakers are set to "large", the Oppo will divert LFE solely to the front L&R? Be mindful that we want all the low frequency data going to the front L&R rather than any other speakers, as it's only the front L&R (and their subwoofer) that can use Room Perfect.

David.
 
You haven’t misunderstood, the .1 does contain specific information, that’s the whole point of it and it is normal that with no sub present and large L&R, the .1 is redirected there. It’s odd that the Oppo manual doesn’t explicitly state this to be the case. All you can do is try it.
 
Great, thanks.

Yes, it is odd - as I've said, I've always found the Oppo manual to be excellent regarding everything else.

Hopefully I will be able to tell easily enough just from listening to to a blu ray or DVD.

I will report back, Sir!

I'll try the other speakers on both "small" and "large" but, as I've said, I think my inclination will probably be to go with "small" so as not to have any nasty bass frequencies interacting with the room, which RP will not be able to correct.

Thanks again for all of your continued help.

David.
 
Great, thanks.

Yes, it is odd - as I've said, I've always found the Oppo manual to be excellent regarding everything else.

Hopefully I will be able to tell easily enough just from listening to to a blu ray or DVD.

I will report back, Sir!

I'll try the other speakers on both "small" and "large" but, as I've said, I think my inclination will probably be to go with "small" so as not to have any nasty bass frequencies interacting with the room, which RP will not be able to correct.

Thanks again for all of your continued help.

David.
No worries. I think the use case you’d envisaged was perfectly reasonable but you’re being caught out by 2 uncharacteristic weak spots in what are normally Oppo’s strengths - the flexibility of the configuration and the manual! BTW I checked my 203 manual and it says the same thing.

I’d be inclined to start off with the centre and surrounds set to large and see how you get on. They’re full range speakers, so there’s every chance it’ll sound magnificent. Certainly that seems preferable to throwing information away, if the manual is to be believed.

If that doesn’t sound good and the bass seems overblown and making a mess of things on those channels, you could set them to small and start off with a crossover around 50hz and progressively raise it if necessary. To be honest I still don’t quite believe that the bass won’t be redirected to the front L&R if they’re set to large and sub is set to none.
 
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All you can do is try it.

So, I found the time this evening to find my way through all the tangle of leads at the back of my kit, and hook up the Lyndorf to the front L&R outputs of the AudioLab pre-processor, with my front speakers set to large.

I'm certainly getting low frequency content and I'm virtually certain this includes the dedicated LFE from the .1 channel.

There is a scene from Saving Private Ryan that I've used in the past, to help set the SPL (gain setting) of my subwoofer. About 2 hours into the movie, Tom Hanks is sat casually chatting when you see his head suddenly turn at the sound of all the tanks arriving in the distance. You can tweak a sub so that the first murmurings of LFE from the tanks coincides with Hanks' ears perking. In my new Lyngdorf setup, with all content now being diverted through the front L&R, the tanks' first murmurings pretty much coincide with Hanks' awareness when the sub setting in the Lyngdorf is at its default of -12dB. So all seems Hunky Dory, consistent with expectations.

It's actually sounding very nice this way. With some of the LFE content remaining in the front L&R (I have my Lyngdorf crossover set at 70Hz), the overall LFE is more evenly dispersed around the room.

I still haven't run Room Perfect yet. It's going to be interesting to hear the results!

David.
 

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