Denon AVR 6700H 7.1.4 Atmos Setup - Best sound modes to use

[sathishv]

Hi All,

This may be a novice question as i am new to this area and just started to use these AV receivers and set up since i finished my theater room couple of months back.

I am experiencing best audio when the input is Dolby Atmos or direct 7.1 formats. But when it is 2.1 or 5.1, the AVR is upscaling to DDSurround and that is sounding weaker. This is happening pretty much with all apps youtube, prime, netflix, hbomax, disney+. I have to keep the volume ~60+ in order to get some good feel.

So my question is:
Is there anything i am missing which will enable the AVR to just play 2.1 or 5.1 as is without upscaling ? (The only modes i see when these sources are playing is Stereo (obviously not good), DDSurround, Multi Channel Stereo (tried this, its definitely lot louder but it feels like full audio is playing on all speakers which i didn't like much either).
Input type is PCM.

Any suggestions to try out is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Hi All,

This may be a novice question as i am new to this area and just started to use these AV receivers and set up since i finished my theater room couple of months back.

I am experiencing best audio when the input is Dolby Atmos or direct 7.1 formats. But when it is 2.1 or 5.1, the AVR is upscaling to DDSurround and that is sounding weaker. This is happening pretty much with all apps youtube, prime, netflix, hbomax, disney+. I have to keep the volume ~60+ in order to get some good feel.

So my question is:
Is there anything i am missing which will enable the AVR to just play 2.1 or 5.1 as is without upscaling ? (The only modes i see when these sources are playing is Stereo (obviously not good), DDSurround, Multi Channel Stereo (tried this, its definitely lot louder but it feels like full audio is playing on all speakers which i didn't like much either).
Input type is PCM.

Any suggestions to try out is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Well I will try to help.
What are your actual sources? BD player, tv apps, AppleTV etc. FWIW if set to PCM you won’t get actual Atmos sound. The source has to be set to bitstream so the AVR can decode it. Pcm will send an already decoded signal, and the only true atmos/dtsx sound modes available will be up mixed by DSU or dtsX.
As for loudness, it’s kinda like the Wild West out there. For one thing, way too many(looking at you MCU) soundtracks are mastered at too low a level. A simple MV bump takes care of that issue. Ime playing BD’s has proven more consistent volume wise, but still, it depends on the mix. Dish network seems consistent and also consistent with my BD experiences. As for using apps, well that’s a different story. I only use Netflix and Vudu as apps from my bd player and both of them usually require higher volumes. For example a normalish MV level in my room would be between-18 and -15. But with streamers-10 and-12 are normal for the same perceived volume.
As far as playing back native 2.1, 5.1 etc I personally like using DSU and sometimes DTSNX. But if you really want 2.1 I would select “stereo”. I think 5.1 would be Dolby digital etc. haven’t looked at that menu for awhile I guess! Lol definitely not multichannel stereo.
Basically just turn it up. If for some reason you’re getting distortion, then obviously you’ve gone too far but I’m sure the source signal is just too low.

 

[sathishv]

@William Lemmerhirt thanks for the response.
I am using xbox series x and nvidia shield. Xbox series x is set to bitstream and it does show Dolby atmos on AVR for content with that audio. Atmos is sounding great both from Bluray as well as these apps.

Can you please tell what MV means in your comment ?

How can i tell weather AVR is decoding audio or Xbox/Shield is?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

@William Lemmerhirt thanks for the response.
I am using xbox series x and nvidia shield. Xbox series x is set to bitstream and it does show Dolby atmos on AVR for content with that audio. Atmos is sounding great both from Bluray as well as these apps.

Can you please tell what MV means in your comment ?

How can i tell weather AVR is decoding audio or Xbox/Shield is?

Well you can tell which is decoding by how they’re set. Bitstream allows the AVR to decode and pcm is decoded at the source.

For the Xbox, bitstream would be correct for Atmos content for sure. Iw for something I’m not super sure about but… I remember reading awhile back that when set to bitstream, the Xbox sends every as Atmos, even though it’s not. This was frustrating for a lot of users because they couldn’t use DSU or DTSnx on NON Atmos tracks since the AVR saw the signal as Atmos. Seems like they were going to address that, but I never found out anything. One of our xboxes is only on a 5.1 system and unfortunately the 7.3.4 system has a ps3. Long story there…

 

[sathishv]

Well you can tell which is decoding by how they’re set. Bitstream allows the AVR to decode and pcm is decoded at the source.

For the Xbox, bitstream would be correct for Atmos content for sure. Iw for something I’m not super sure about but… I remember reading awhile back that when set to bitstream, the Xbox sends every as Atmos, even though it’s not. This was frustrating for a lot of users because they couldn’t use DSU or DTSnx on NON Atmos tracks since the AVR saw the signal as Atmos. Seems like they were going to address that, but I never found out anything. One of our xboxes is only on a 5.1 system and unfortunately the 7.3.4 system has a ps3. Long story there…

@William Lemmerhirt no xbox i had is not doing that way. I could see AVR detecting diff formats from bluray atleast

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

@William Lemmerhirt no xbox i had is not doing that way. I could see AVR detecting diff formats from bluray atleast

Oh yeah. MV is Master Volume.

Well, it’s definitely possible that Microsoft fixed that problem. Seems like it was a couple years ago now. If you dig, there should be some conversations out there still.

 

[sathishv]

@William Lemmerhirt i spend more time with the xbox settings and found that they have 4 options within bitstream out. Like you said my current setting looks like always trying to give atmos signal to avr even in bitstream setting. I have changed it to Dolby Digital and DTS, tried both and with either of these i am able to see AVR giving other output options to choose. For 5.1 audio in any of these apps, Xbox Dolby digital bitstream out and AVR Dolby digital output has been much much better than the upmixed audio to DDSurround.
Thank you so much for helping me on this. I need to find these type of settings on NVIDIA shiled for other apps.
Note: Bluray player options are separate from these other apps. It has its own setting and i already had the setting enabled to have Bluray player on xbox directly send encoded audio to AVR and let it decode. Thought to share this in case anyone else have issues