Sony DSP Modes?

Just curious to hear which DSP modes some of you guys use when watching films/listening to music. Also - do any of you actually use more than 4/5 of them???!!! I fancy experimenting but can't really be bothered to sit down for 10 hours and listen to an album on each mode!!!

I tend to have my 1070 on "Cinema Studio EX B" for films and either "2ch Stereo" or "Cinema Studio EX C" for music. This does change occasionally though depending on circumstances - found myself listening to the Ja Rule album on "Disco/Club" the other day by accident and was v. impressed at how "live" it sounded! - could breathe new life into a few CD's I'm sure

Kelvin.

 

I've got a 930 and I also use the Cinema Studio Ex B. To me ears, I think its the best all rounder for films and TV. I tried Cinema Studio Ex. A for Gosford Park which is mainly dialogue and it worked pretty well. I crank up the 'Effect' setting also which helps bring the dialogue alive in Ex. B mode.

For music I also use '2 Channel Stereo' as all the surround modes seem to guff up the sound pretty badly. I tried using 'AFD' but that puts too much bass over to the sub, and I prefer to use the front pair of speakers for bass in music. I'm not sure if switching the 'SUB = NO' has any effect when using 2 Ch. Stereo - Sometimes I think that the amp its cutting the bass off the signal but not outputting it to the sub in 2 Ch Stereo - although that's probably not the case, I just can't tell sometimes.

 

In 2ch Stereo the amp only sends a signal to front L & R so switching the sub to "no" wouldn't make any difference (it doesn't on the 1070 anyway so presumably the 930 is the same!). The only time you would get any bass reproduction from a sub in 2ch mode is if you have it connected via the high level inputs so that your sub "helps out" your mains with LF stuff. As for the bass being "cut off", this would only happen if you have speakers set to "small" and have set a cut off frequency for your mains - again this can be done on the 1070 but I'm not sure about yours...

I have my sub connected via low level inputs for dedicated LFE tracks in movies/SACD etc but also via high level inputs for music as my sub tends to do a better job of some of the low end stuff than my fronts do.

Kelvin.

 

Hope I'm not going off thread now....

Yeah, it was also my understanding that 2 Channel Stereo should output all the bass to the front 2. Its just that since I've bought a new front pair of speaker (B&W 602 S3) I've found that the bass for music in 2 Ch. Stereo doesn't sound too impressive. Most of the time I use the 'Bass Boost' button.

Can you give me some advise on the 'LFE Mix' setting also please ?

I've only just bought a sub (MJ Acoustic Pro 50) and I'm not 100% sure I've got it set up right. If you have 'Sub=Yes' setting on, you still get the 'LFE' Mix option on the setup menu. It seems to go from 0 to -20. I thought that LFE Mix is a setting for how much of the LFE channel should be re-directed to speakers set to LARGE if the sub option was set to No. If the sub is set to Yes then does the LFE Mix setting do anything to the bass and if so what effect does it have ?

Thanks

 

I think they all sound cack to be honest. I havent persevered with them,just a flick through.None of them do it for me.

 

Yeah, rubbish.

S

 

Going off topic a bit here guys... Sorry

It was my understanding that "LFE Mix" altered the volume of the LFE channel itself (i.e the .1) without effecting the volume of any other bass freqencies that had been redirected to the sub as a result of setting speakers to "small". In other words, you could cancel out the dedicated LFE channel by setting "LFE Mix" to "OFF" but still get bass that had been redirected from fronts/centre/rears via the sub.

Overall volume of the sub (both LFE and redirected bass) can be adjusted via the "Sub Level" setting in the Level menu.

This is done by using the "LFE High Cut" Setting (may be called something different on your amp) which allows you to set a maximum frequency for LFE sent to the sub eg. 70hz, 80hz, 90hz etc. Anything above this would be sent to the mains. In addition to this, as I mentioned in my first post you can select a "frequency cut off" for your main speakers which redirects any sounds below a certain level to the sub. By matching the two of thses you can control "what goes where" so to speak

Hope this helps.

Kelvin

 

kelvinp -> Thanks for the explanation - I think I understand it a bit more now. I haven't got the 'LFE High Cut' or' Frequency Cut off' on my 930 so I suppose this means I haven't got much control over the bass redirection settings. Never mind.

Back to the original subject - I don't understand how people can say that ALL the DSP are rubbish. I agree that the majority of them are useless - all of the re-verb type ones (stadium, church etc) just add too much echo to a film soundtrack, but if you compare the standard mode with no processing against the Cinema Studio Ex B I think there is a huge improvement in the sound.